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Palestinians fled southern Gaza’s main city on Sunday as Israel warned of a new military operation, a day after it announced one of the deadliest raids in the more than 10-month war on the Strip in the southern city of Baghdad.
Fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants in the besieged Gaza Strip since Hamas launched an attack on Oct. 7 has heightened tensions across the region, including in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli man was shot and killed on Sunday, medics said.
Intensive diplomacy in recent days has sought to avert a wider war in the Middle East after the killing of the Iran-aligned militant leader, while international mediators invited Israel and Hamas to resume stalled talks to reach a long-sought Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Hundreds of Palestinians fled northern neighbourhoods of southern Gaza’s main city of Khan Younis, which has been ravaged by months of bombing and fighting, after Israel issued new evacuation orders in the early hours, an AFP correspondent said.
The military dropped leaflets and sent mobile phone text messages warning of “dangerous fighting” in the Jarrah district and asking Palestinian residents to leave the area, which until Sunday had been designated a safe humanitarian zone.
Similar evacuation orders are issued before major military incursions, often forcing Palestinians, who have been displaced multiple times by the war, to pack up and leave in search of safety.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said, “More than 75,000 people have been displaced in southwestern Gaza in the past few days alone.” The entire Gaza Strip has a population of about 2.4 million.
The military said in a statement that its forces were “about to take action against terrorist groups in the area” and called on “the remaining residents in the Jarrah area to temporarily evacuate.”
As the exodus from Jarrah spread, families gathered their meager belongings, with some loading pickup trucks with mattresses, clothing and cooking utensils, while others set out on foot.
Umm Sami Shahada, a 55-year-old displaced Palestinian, said she fled Gaza City “at the beginning of the Khan Yunis war” hoping to find shelter.
“My daughter died in the bombing, so we went to Rafah and then came back here, and now there are new evacuation orders and we don’t know where to go,” she said.
– ‘Torn to pieces’ –
In northern Gaza, Israeli air strikes killed at least 93 people on Friday at a religious school housing displaced people, according to civil defence rescuers, sparking international condemnation.
Israel said it used “precision munitions” to strike militants operating outside the Al-Tabieen school and mosque in Gaza City, and claimed that “at least 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were eliminated.”
AFP could not independently verify the death toll, which would be one of the largest death tolls from a single attack since the start of the war.
Mahmoud Bashar, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Civil Defence, said on Sunday that it could take at least two days to identify the victims because “there are many bodies blown to pieces” and “torn to pieces or burned by bombs”.
In a statement, Hamas called on Arab and Muslim countries to “take effective decisions” to stop the war and requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to force Israel to “stop its aggression and genocide.”
The Palestinian group has named Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as successor to slain political leader Ismail Haniyeh. But it has not responded to an invitation for ceasefire talks issued on August 15 by U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Israel has accepted the invitation.
Haniyeh was killed on July 31 while visiting Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, which has not claimed responsibility. But hours earlier, the military chief of Lebanon’s Hamas ally Hezbollah was killed in an attack on Beirut.
Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and other regional allies have vowed to retaliate, raising fears of a wider conflict.
When asked what U.S. President Joe Biden wanted to say to Iran, Biden responded: “Don’t.”
– ‘Decisive step’ –
The Gaza war, which began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, has killed 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also captured 251 people, 111 of whom remain in Gaza, and the military said 39 had died.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive on Gaza has killed at least 39,790 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which did not provide specific details on civilian and militant deaths.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that “ending the war in Gaza would be a decisive step towards regional detente.”
Hamas officials, some analysts and critics in Israel say Netanyahu is seeking to prolong the fighting for political gain.
Witnesses told AFP that Israel carried out an attack on Khan Yunis, injuring several people.
“Civilians … were shopping in the market when they were hit by missiles,” said resident Awad Balbah.
The military said its air force attacked militants in Rafah further south and had “struck around 30 Hamas terror targets in Gaza” in the past day.
In the northern West Bank, emergency services said an Israeli man was shot dead and another was wounded in what the military called a “terrorist attack.”
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it also occupied the Gaza Strip, from which it withdrew in 2005 but has since reimposed a tough blockade on the Strip and imposed a siege shortly after October 7.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will visit Moscow next week to discuss the Gaza war with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian state media reported, citing the Palestinian ambassador.
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