Israeli military strikes have killed at least 22 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces attempt to enter the northern town of Beit Hanoun, forcing most of the remaining residents to leave.
Residents say Israeli forces have besieged shelters housing scattered families and the remaining population, some estimated at several thousand, and ordered them to head south to a checkpoint that separates the two towns and a refugee camp north of Gaza City.
The men were detained for questioning, while the women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, Palestinian residents and medics said.
Israel's campaign in northern Gaza, and the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the area, has fueled accusations from Palestinians that it is clearing the area for use as a safe haven and possible return for Jewish settlers.
“The scenes of the tragedy of 1948 are being repeated. Israel is repeating mass killings, displacement and destruction,” said Saed, 48, a resident of Beit Lahiya, who arrived in Gaza City on Wednesday.
“North Gaza is being turned into a huge area, Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing under the watchful eye of the powerless world,” he told Reuters via chat app.
Saed was referring to the 1948 Middle East Arab-Israeli war that gave birth to the state of Israel and saw the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their towns and villages in what is now Israel.
The Israeli military has denied these plans, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he does not want to reverse the 2005 withdrawal of Gaza settlers. Hardliners in his government have talked freely about going back.
International aid organizations say Israel has failed to meet a series of US demands aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza by a Tuesday deadline. The US has said Israel could face restrictions on military aid if it does not improve the aid situation in Gaza.
It said the army had killed hundreds of Hamas fighters in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun during its latest offensive, which began more than a month ago. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad armed wing claimed to have killed dozens of Israeli soldiers during ambushes and anti-tank rocket fire.
Efforts to end the war fail to end the war
The efforts of the Arab mediators, Qatar and Egypt, supported by the United States, have failed to end the war in Gaza, as Hamas and Israel traded on the lack of progress.
Speaking on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel had “achieved its objectives” by removing the leadership of Hamas and ensuring the group could not launch another major attack. “This must be the time to end the war,” he said.
“We also need to make sure we have a plan for what's next,” he said, “so that if Israel decides to end the war and we find a way to get the hostages out, we have a clear plan so Israel can get out of Gaza and make sure Hamas doesn't come back in.”
A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said Blinken's comments show that: “We are facing the same enemy and that the hostility of the US to the Palestinian people is no less than theirs.”
On Tuesday, the United States stressed to the UN that “there must be no forced evictions, or starvation policy in Gaza” by Israel, warning these policies will have a major impact under US and international law.
Attacks throughout the Gaza Strip continue
Doctors said five people were killed in an Israeli strike that attacked a group of people outside Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, while five others were killed in two separate strikes in Nuseirat in the middle of the Gaza Strip where the army launched a limited offensive two days ago.
In Rafah, near the Egyptian border, one man was killed and several others injured in an Israeli air strike, while three Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in the Shejaia suburb of Gaza City, medics said.
Later on Wednesday, an Israeli strike on a house west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip killed eight people, health officials said.
Gunmen led by Hamas attacked Israel last October, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past year, Palestinian health officials said, and much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble of collapsed buildings and piles of rubble, with more than two million Gazans seeking shelter in makeshift tents. facing a shortage of food and medicine.
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