Residents of the beleaguered northern Gaza town allege that Israeli soldiers have ordered a fresh evacuation.

Israeli soldiers conducting a weeks-long onslaught in northern Gaza ordered any civilians remaining in Beit Hanoun to leave on Sunday, citing Palestinian terrorist rocket fire from the region, locals claimed. According to neighbors, the order to leave resulted in a new wave of relocation, but it was unclear how many individuals were affected. Israel says its almost three-month-old war in northern Gaza is aimed at stopping Hamas fighters from regrouping. According to the military, its evacuation directives are intended to keep people safe.

According to Palestinian and United Nations authorities, there is no safe area in Gaza, and evacuations exacerbate the population’s humanitarian situation.
Much of the territory around the northern villages of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya has been cleansed of residents and demolished, fueling concern that Israel wants to hold the area as a restricted buffer zone when the combat in Gaza is over. On Saturday, the Israeli military declared a new drive into the Beit Hanoun neighborhood.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service stated that it had lost contact with those still stranded in the town and was unable to send teams into the area due to the raid. On Friday, Israeli commandos attacked the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. The military said it was being used by militants, which Hamas denied. The strike on the hospital, one of three medical institutions on Gaza’s northern border, has rendered the area’s final major health facility inoperable, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) post on X.

Some patients were transferred from Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital, which is now closed, and physicians were barred from accompanying them, according to the Health Ministry. Other patients and workers were transferred to different medical institutions. An Israeli tank shell struck the upper floor of Gaza City’s Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital, near the X-ray section, according to health authorities on Sunday. Meanwhile, Palestinian health authorities said that Israeli military attacks in the enclave killed at least 16 individuals on Sunday. One of the attacks killed seven people and injured others at Gaza City’s Al-WAFA Hospital, according to a statement from the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service.

The Israeli military confirmed it was investigating the report.
According to Gaza’s health officials, Israel’s war against Hamas has killed over 45,300 Palestinians. The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, and much of the city has been destroyed. According to Israeli estimates, the conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an offensive on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 captives to Gaza.