Gaza Strip
Displaced Palestinians are fleeing areas of eastern Khan Yunis after the Israeli army issued new evacuation orders for Rafah and some areas of the city in the southern Gaza Strip on July 1, 2024.
Israel carried out new attacks in southern Gaza on Tuesday, forcing hundreds of Palestinians to flee after its forces again ordered a withdrawal from populated areas.
Witnesses reported multiple airstrikes in and around Khan Yunis, killing eight people and wounding more than 30, according to medical sources and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The shelling came after an unusual rocket attack claimed responsibility for the militant group Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas.
The rockets targeted Israeli communities near the Gaza border and were fired in retaliation for Israeli “crimes against the Palestinian people,” said the Al-Quds Brigades, the militant wing of Islamic Jihad.
The Israeli military said “around 20 shells were seen coming from the Khan Yunis area,” most of which were intercepted. It said there were no casualties and that artillery fire was “attacking the source of the fire.”
This was followed on Monday by orders to withdraw from Rafah and Al Qarara, Bani Suhayla and other towns in Khan Younis, nearly two months after the initial order to withdraw from Rafah ahead of the ground offensive.
Before Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah, well over a million people had taken refuge in Gaza’s southernmost city.
“Since the evacuation orders were issued, people have been feeling fear and extreme anxiety,” said Ahmad Najjar, a resident of Bani Suhaila. “Many residents have been forced to flee.”
‘An uphill battle’
Other parts of the Gaza Strip are still reeling from ongoing fighting, nearly nine months after the devastating conflict began.
Witnesses and civil defense agencies reported that Israeli forces carried out airstrikes in the southern Rafah area and in the central Nuseirat refugee camp.
Also, in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood, where heavy fighting continued for a fifth day on Monday, witnesses reported heavy Israeli tank fire.
An AFP correspondent reported that Israeli helicopters had shelled houses in Shujaiya, but said Hamas’s militant wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, were continuing fighting in Shujaiya and Rafah.
The Israeli army said its forces “eliminated a large number of terrorists” in a raid on Shujaiya, and that the airstrike also killed “around 20” militants.
The army also said one soldier was killed in southern Gaza, bringing the total number killed in the ground offensive to 317.
Netanyahu, who recently declared that the “intensity” of the war was coming to an end, said on Sunday that troops were “operating in Rafah, Shujaiya and everywhere in the Gaza Strip.”
“This is an uphill battle that is being fought above ground and underground in the tunnels.”
Israel launched its war on Gaza in retaliation for an Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,190 people, most of them civilians, according to official Israeli figures.
Hamas has taken 251 hostages, of which 116 remain in Gaza, while the military says 42 have been killed.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 37,900 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip’s health ministry.
Months of on-and-off talks towards a ceasefire and the release of hostages have made little progress, and Hamas said on Saturday there was “nothing new” in the revised plan put forward by U.S. mediators.
‘torture’
Israeli authorities released Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City’s Al Shifa Hospital, along with dozens of other detainees who were returned to Gaza for treatment on Monday, drawing the ire of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
A series of Israeli raids reduced much of Al Shifa, the region’s largest medical facility, to rubble.
Israel accuses Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals in the Gaza Strip as cover for military operations, a charge the militants deny.
Speaking at a news conference after his release, Abu Salmiya said he had been subjected to “severe torture” during his detention since November.
“Detainees were subjected to physical and psychological humiliation,” it said. “Several detainees died in interrogation centres and were deprived of food and medicines.”
Israel’s intelligence agency, Shin Bet, said it had made the decision to release them in cooperation with the Israeli army “to free up space in detention facilities.”
The department said it was “against the release of terrorists” who had taken part in attacks on Israeli civilians and had “decided to release several low-risk Gaza detainees.”
But Netanyahu said he had instructed the agency to investigate the release and report its findings by Tuesday.
“The release of the director of Shifa hospital would be a grave mistake and a moral failure. This man responsible for the murder and imprisonment of abductees has his place in prison,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Abu Salmiya said no charges have been filed against him.
The United Nations and relief agencies have warned of a dire humanitarian crisis and the threat of famine for Gaza’s 2.4 million residents because of the war and Israeli siege.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that during June, Israeli authorities supported fewer than half of the 115 planned humanitarian missions to northern Gaza.
Sami Hamid, a pharmacist at a displaced people camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, said skin infections were on the rise, especially among children, “because of the hot weather and lack of clean water.”
“We’ve seen an increase in the number of skin infections, such as scabies and chickenpox,” Hamid said, as well as a rise in cases of hepatitis possibly linked to untreated sewage flowing next to the tents.
