By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern suburb of Gaza City, triggering a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and the director of a Gaza hospital was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian doctors said.
The new orders for the suburb of Shejaia released by the Israeli army spokesman on Saturday night were attributed to Palestinian militants who fired rockets from that densely built-up district in the northern Gaza Strip.
“For their safety, they must evacuate immediately to the south,” the military post said. Saturday’s rocket barrage was claimed by Hamas’s armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base across the border.
Images circulating on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia in donkey carts and rickshaws, while others, including children carrying backpacks, walked.
Families living in the attacked areas began fleeing their homes after dark on Saturday and into the early hours of Sunday, Palestinian residents and media said, the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.
In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.
HOSPITAL DIRECTOR INJURED BY SHOOTING
In northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on the Kamal Adwan hospital, wounding its director Hussam Abu Safiya.
“This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this work at any cost,” Abu Safiya said in a video statement distributed by the Health Ministry on Sunday.
“They attack us daily. They attacked me a while ago, but this will not deter us…” he said from his hospital bed.
Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings, including housing blocks, hospitals and schools, as operational cover. Hamas denies this and accuses Israeli forces of indiscriminately attacking populated areas.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in northern Gaza that are barely operational as the Health Ministry said Israeli forces detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical supplies, food and fuel from arriving.
In recent weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from hospitals in northern Gaza in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Residents of three besieged towns in northern Gaza – Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since resuming operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.
Palestinians say Israel appears determined to permanently depopulate the area to create a buffer zone along Gaza’s northern edge, a charge Israel denies.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents at least once, according to Gaza officials, and reduced large areas of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.
The war broke out in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on October 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli counts.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; editing by Mark Heinrich)