Israel orders more Gaza evacuations as envoys seek truce

Palestinian Territories – AFP

Israel has ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza’s main city as diplomats pressed on with efforts to secure a pause in the war that Hamas says has claimed 20,000 lives.

The United Nations said Israel had issued evacuation orders on Wednesday for large areas of Khan Yunis, where more than 140,000 displaced people were sheltering.

Israel told civilians to leave the north of the besieged Palestinian territory at the beginning of its war, urging them to seek safety in southern areas.

But as places for people to go continued to shrink, international outrage has mounted over the rising death toll.

Israel has killed at least 20,000 people since October 7 when a Hamas attack resulted in deaths of 1,140 people. The Palestinians killed in Israel’s war include 8,000 children and 6,200 women.

UN relief chief Martin Griffiths deemed it a “tragic and shameful milestone”.

In the southern city of Rafah, residents expressed hope that truce talks would succeed. “I wish for a complete ceasefire, and to put an end to the series of death and suffering. It’s been more than 75 days,” said Kassem Shurrab, 25.

A Hamas official told AFP that “a total ceasefire and a retreat of the Israeli occupation army from the Gaza Strip are a precondition for any serious negotiation” on a prisoner swap.

Mossad director David Barnea held a “positive meeting” in Warsaw this week with CIA chief Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a source familiar with the talks told AFP.

– ‘Most sadistic’ – 

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Thursday that Israeli forces carried out operations overnight in the West Bank.

An AFPTV live camera on Wednesday filmed two bombs hitting Rafah, where many of the territory’s estimated 1.9 million displaced have fled.

The health ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians when houses and a mosque in Rafah “were targeted”.

It said later at least 30 more people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit two houses east of Khan Yunis.

Crowds swarmed the rubble, digging with shovels and a backhoe to try to free the victims. One blackened body lay under a blue blanket on the blood-soaked ground.

“Enough, enough of this. We have lost everything and we can’t take it anymore,” Samar Abu Luli, a woman in Rafah, said after Israeli strikes on the city’s Al-Shabura neighbourhood.

UN rights expert Francesca Albanese said Israel was assaulting Gaza’s health system, with their attacks “taking the most sadistic forms”.