CAIRO: Israel expanded evacuation orders in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip overnight, forcing tens of thousands of Palestinian residents and displaced families to leave in the dark as explosions from tank shelling reverberated around them.
The Israeli military said it was attacking gunmen from the Hamas group who were using those areas to stage attacks and fire rockets. On Saturday, an Israeli air strike on a school where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in Gaza City killed at least 90 people, according to the civil defence service, prompting an international outcry.
In Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip, the evacuation instruction covered districts in the centre, east and west, making it one of the largest such orders in the 10-month-old conflict, two days after tanks returned to the east of the city.
The announcement was posted on X and in text and audio messages to residents' phones: "For your own safety, you must evacuate immediately to the newly created humanitarian zone. The area you are in is considered a dangerous combat zone."
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations' agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said people in Gaza were trapped and had nowhere to go.
"Some are only able to carry their children with them, some carry their whole lives in one small bag. They are going to overcrowded places where shelters are already overflowing with families," he said.
Later on Sunday, an Israeli air strike near the Khan Yunis market at the centre of the city killed four Palestinians and wounded several others, medics said.
Lines of smoke rose from areas where Israeli planes carried attacks in the eastern and western parts of the city. Residents said two multi-floor buildings were bombed.
Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza since the war broke out last October and the toll is rising by the day, the Gaza health ministry says.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations, while their narrow strip of land has largely been reduced to a wasteland of rubble.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave. Areas designated as humanitarian zones, like Al Mawasi in western Khan Yunis where residents were being sent, have been bombed several times by Israeli forces.
Tens of thousands left their homes and shelters in the middle of the night, heading west towards Al Mawasi and north towards Deir Al Balah, already overcrowded with hundreds of thousands of displaced people. — Reuters
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