On Wednesday, as tens of thousands of Palestinians frantically sought refuge after the army ordered the evacuation of a large area in the territory’s south, Israeli soldiers attacked and engaged in combat with Hamas in Gaza City.
According to AFP reporters, heavy gunfire reverberated through the streets of Gaza City as Israeli quadcopter drones and Apache helicopters soared overhead the Shujaiya sector.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized on Tuesday that “this will not happen” in response to a US media report claiming that his generals were pushing for a Gaza truce despite Hamas’s undefeated status.
Meanwhile, Israel is waging “a long campaign” to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack and free the captives held by Palestinian militants, according to Defense Minister Herzi Halevi.
UN warned that more Palestinians had been forced into “an abyss of suffering” by the most recent evacuation order, which had “unleashed a maelstrom of human misery” over the almost nine-month-old conflict.
Netanyahu declared that the “intense phase” of the conflict was coming to an end ten days earlier, but the Israeli military continued to bombard terrorists in the Shujaiya region with artillery and air attacks.
The air force struck “over 50 terror infrastructure sites” across Gaza in 24 hours while ground troops “eliminated terrorists”, located tunnels and found weapons including AK-47 assault rifles, the military said.
A week after ordering Shujaiya to evacuate, the Israeli army on Sunday ordered a broader area near Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south to do the same, sparking concerns about the possibility of further intense fighting in that area.
Once more, tens of thousands of Palestinians have flocked to the road there, many of them piling their few possessions atop vehicles or donkey carts in search of shelter elsewhere in the devastated landscape.
