Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has warned of ‘disastrous repercussions’ for truce talks if Israeli ‘massacres’ continue.
Israeli air raids in Gaza have killed dozens of people and advancing Israeli army tanks in Gaza City have also forced residents to flee under fire, Palestinian officials said.
On Tuesday, an air raid hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least 29 people, most of them women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.
The Israeli military has said it was looking into the report.
Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza Government Media Office, said dozens of others were killed in other Israeli attacks in central Gaza. At least 60 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Tuesday, he said.
Residents in the enclave said Israeli tanks that pushed into the Tal al-Hawa, Shujayea and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City shelled roads and buildings, forcing them to flee their homes.
This was followed by Israeli military orders to evacuate several districts in eastern and western Gaza City posted on social media, which included these neighbourhoods.
“We hold the occupation and the US administration responsible for the horrifying massacres against civilians,” al-Thawabta said in a statement.
In Gaza City, the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said their fighters battled Israeli forces with machineguns, mortar fire and antitank missiles, killing and wounding Israeli soldiers.
Israel’s military has not commented on casualties, but said its soldiers were engaged in closequarters combat with Hamas fighters.
The intense fighting comes as CIA director William Burns and Israel’s Mossad chief David Barnea prepare to travel to Qatar on Wednesday, after Burns held talks with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo, seeking to push for a ceasefire in Gaza.
But Israel’s renewed assault has threatened talks at a crucial time and could bring negotiations “back to square one”, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was quoted as saying on Monday.
On Tuesday, videos on social media showed families packed onto donkey carts and in the backs of trucks piled with mattresses and other belongings making their way through Gaza City’s streets to flee areas under Israeli evacuation orders.
“Gaza City is being wiped out. This is what is happening. Israel is forcing us to leave homes under fire,” Um Tamer, a mother of seven, told Reuters via a chat app. She said it was the seventh time her family had fled their house in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave and one of Israel’s first targets at the start of the war in October.
“We can’t take it any more, enough of death and humiliation. End the war now,” she said.
The UN Human Rights Office said it was “appalled” at the way civilians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times, have been ordered to head to areas where “military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed and injured”.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that all of its medical clinics were out of service in Gaza City due to the Israeli evacuation orders that have driven thousands of people westward towards the Mediterranean and to the south.
Jagan Chapagain, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said on the social media platform X that “the closure of these vital medical facilities exacerbates an already dire healthcare system”.
“These clinics and medical points are often the only lifeline for many civilians.”
At least 38,243 people have been killed and 88,243 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 is estimated at 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.
