Israeli strikes across the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 26 Palestinians overnight into yesterday, including a Hamas political leader and several women and children, as the death toll surpasses 50,000.
Residents said tanks had advanced into an area of the southern city of Rafah as the military ordered it evacuated.
Palestinian health authorities said the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war has passed 50,000 after Israel ended the ceasefire last week with a wave of strikes that have killed nearly 700 people.
Photo: AFP
The military ordered people to leave the already heavily destroyed Tel al-Sultan neighborhood on foot along a single route to Muwasi, a sprawling area of squalid tent camps.
Late on Saturday, Israel’s Cabinet approved a proposal to set up a new directorate tasked with advancing the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians in line with US President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate Gaza and rebuild it for others.
Palestinians say they do not want to leave their homeland, and rights groups have said the plan could amount to expulsion in violation of international law.
Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said the new body would be “subject to Israeli and international law” and coordinate “passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries.”
In Rafah yesterday, Palestinian men, women and children were walking along a dirt road, carrying their belongings in their arms, a recurring scene in a war that has forced most of Gaza’s population to flee within the territory, often multiple times.
“It’s displacement under fire,” said Mustafa Gaber, a local journalist who left Tel al-Sultan with his family.
In a video call, he said hundreds of people were fleeing as tank and drone fire echoed nearby.
“There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult,” he said.
Mohammed Abu Taha, another resident who fled, said many people were unable to evacuate because of the surprise incursion overnight.
He also said his sister and her family were sheltering in a school in an area of Rafah surrounded by Israeli forces.
Hamas said that Salah Bardawil, a member of its political bureau and the Palestinian parliament, was killed in a strike in Muwasi that also killed his wife.
Bardawil was a well-known member of the group’s political wing who gave media interviews over the years.
Hospitals in southern Gaza said they had received another 24 bodies from strikes overnight, including several women and children.
The European Hospital said five children and their parents were killed in a strike on the southern city of Khan Younis.
Another family — two girls and their parents — were killed in a separate strike.
Gaza’s health ministry said 50,021 Palestinians have been killed in the war and more than 113,000 have been wounded. The latest toll announced yesterday included 673 people killed since Israel’s surprise bombardment on Tuesday.
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