Israel orders residents to leave southern Gaza towns

GAZA: Israel ordered civilians to leave four towns in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, raising fears its war against Hamas could spread to areas it had told people were safe.

In the north of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave, Israel said its forces were still present at Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa, but gave no further details of their operations since the previous day when they entered the facility culminating a days-long siege.

Leaflets dropped overnight from aircraft told civilians to leave the towns of Bani Shuhaila, Khuzaa, Abassan and Qarara, on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, the main southern city. The towns, collectively home to more than 100,000 people in peacetime, are now sheltering tens of thousands more who fled other areas.

Residents said the area came under heavy bombardment overnight.

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Israel has already ordered the evacuation of the entire northern half of Gaza before sending in its ground forces at the end of October. Long processions of people clutching just a few possessions have made their way south each day under the eyes of Israeli soldiers during six-hour “tactical pauses” to allow residents to leave.

The United Nations says around two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been made homeless, most of them sheltering in towns in the south, since Israel began retaliation against Hamas for a deadly rampage in southern Israeli towns.

Israel has pounded Gaza with air strikes and cut off food and fuel since October 8. Gaza health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say more than 11,000 people have been confirmed killed, more than 40% of them children, with many more feared trapped under rubble of bombed out homes.

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The situation on the second day of Israel’s operation in Al Shifa hospital was impossible to confirm, with communications cut off since Wednesday afternoon.

The plight of the hospital had drawn international alarm, with hundreds of patients and thousands of other displaced civilians trapped inside without fuel, oxygen or basic supplies.

Medics said dozens of patients had died in recent says as a result of Israel’s siege, including three newborn babies in incubators that lost power.