Thousands flee Gaza as Israel orders more evacuations

Israel on Tuesday issued a new round of evacuation orders for much of the southern Gaza Strip, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing again for relative safety.

In recent weeks, Israeli officials have talked about launching smaller, more targeted attacks, but the exodus taking place in the town of Khan Younis on Tuesday made clear that Gazans are still a ways off from returning to normal life.

Gazans who had been forced to flee time and again were on the move again, dragging piles of their belongings onto cars, trucks and donkey carts. Hospital patients were pushed in wheelchairs, along with others fleeing on foot.

“How long can we continue to be ordered to leave and come back, leave and come back?” asked one Suzan Abu Daqqa, 59, after fleeing her home southeast of Khan Younis.

The evacuation orders appeared to be prompted by a barrage of about 20 rockets that the Israeli military said were fired by Palestinian militants from Khan Younis a day earlier. Israeli forces retaliated overnight after “enabling civilians to evacuate the area,” the military said.

The United Nations estimates that some 250,000 people will have to flee large parts of southern Gaza to comply with the new orders. Scott Anderson, a senior U.N. official, said the calculation was based on pre-war population data and anecdotal observations of how many people had returned to the area.

The pattern of repeated displacement of civilians is likely to continue even as the Israeli military calls the war a “lower intensity,” military analysts say. As militants regroup, Israeli forces return to areas they once withdrew from to carry out days of repression.

For many Gazans, these new operations are anything but low-intensity.

The fighting has taken place in northern towns such as Shajaiye, Jabaliya and Zeitoun, for example. In Jabaliya, more than 60,000 people have fled their homes, according to the United Nations, and when they returned they found widespread destruction.

On Tuesday, the United Nations’ top humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, said the vast majority of Gaza’s approximately 2.2 million people had been displaced during the war — many of them multiple times. She put the number among 1.9 million people.

Israeli forces largely withdrew from Khan Younis in April after months of fighting, as they prepared to invade Rafah further south. In the relative calm of that withdrawal, Ms Abu Daqqa returned.

When she arrived at her home on the southern edge of the city last month, she found it relatively unscathed by the heavy Israeli bombardment that had devastated large parts of Khan Younis. There was even running water.

But on Monday evening, Ms. Abu Daqqa and her family heard that the Israeli army had ordered another evacuation of the city. The all-too-familiar sound of artillery fire began, she said, prompting her and family members to flee to the northwest.

Her family joined thousands of people who filled the streets of the devastated city on Monday night, heading to the coastal Mawasi area, which Israel has designated as a “safer zone.”

On Tuesday, residents of Khan Younis said most of the explosions they heard appeared to be further south, in Rafah. But they feared the large-scale evacuation order could also herald a renewed military operation in their own city.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the military would continue to operate in Gaza after the Rafah offensive ends to prevent Hamas from regaining control. The invasion began in October after Hamas led a bloody cross-border attack into Israel that the government says left some 1,200 people dead and 250 hostages taken.

Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli brigadier general, said Israeli forces would try to root out the remaining Hamas fighters, a process he said could take years. Over time, Israel hopes to erode Hamas forces so thoroughly that Gaza will need fewer and fewer troops to control, he said.

“Every time the terrorists manage to establish themselves, there will be an incursion to deal with them,” said Gen. Avivi, who heads the hawkish Israel Defense and Security Forum. “These incursions can last a few days or a week — usually no more than a few days — and then you withdraw.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have poured into Khan Younis and central Gaza since Israel began its Rafah operation, creating tent camps where finding enough food and clean water is often a daily struggle. The humanitarian crisis has increased international pressure on Israel.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had built a power line to a desalination plant in Khan Younis to increase production. A senior Israeli military official said the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah would pay for the electricity and UNICEF, the United Nations agency, would operate the plant.

Amid the panic caused by the latest evacuation order in Khan Younis, the European hospital there transported most of its medical staff and about 600 patients by ambulance to hospitals deeper in the city. Many of the doctors and patients there, frightened by what they had seen during Israeli raids on other hospitals, were unwilling to risk staying, said Dr. Saleh al-Homs.

He left the facility at night, only to find out on Tuesday morning that the Israeli army had said there was “no intention to evacuate the European hospital”.

“Why did they wait until the hospital was evacuated to issue that statement telling us not to evacuate?” Dr. al-Homs asked. “People were terrified and desperate to get out.”

Jamal Azzam, a nurse at the hospital, said he had received calls from the Israeli army ordering the staff to evacuate.

Four premature babies were taken by ambulance to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Mr Azzam said. Many families sheltering in tents around the hospital had also fled, he said.

“This is torture,” Mr Azzam said.