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Israel’s military has ordered an evacuation of parts of eastern Gaza, hours after launching a wave of airstrikes that killed more than 400 people , shattering the pause in hostilities since mid-January in the devastated Palestinian territory.
The evacuation orders, which cover the northern town of Beit Hanoun and other communities further south, suggest that Israeli troops may launch renewed ground operations within hours.
Palestinian health authorities reported a total of 404 deaths in the strikes, which Israeli military officials said targeted Hamas military commanders and political officials. More than 600 were reported injured. Both air attacks and artillery fire was reported to be continuing across much of Gaza at noon local time.
Aid officials in Gaza described “a very bad night” and said that hundreds, possibly thousands, were already on the move to comply with the Israeli evacuation orders. “There is no resilience. People have hardly recovered from so much violence. They are in a very weak state, physically and psychologically,” one aid official in Gaza told the Guardian.
In Washington, a White House spokesperson said Israel had consulted the US administration before it carried out the strikes.
Attacks were reported in northern Gaza and in the central cities of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. One strike was reported to have killed 17 members of a family in Rafah. The dead included five children, their parents, and a man and his three children, medics at the hospital that received the bodies said.
Another, in Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis, resulted in the deaths of 13 people.
There were also reports of other strikes on schools used as shelters for the displaced, individual apartments in tower blocks in Gaza City, and in tented encampments in the coastal zone of al-Mawasi.
Casualties included senior Hamas officials, including the most senior political leader in Gaza and ministers, as well as many women and children, Palestinian officials said.
Civil defence teams in Gaza said they were overwhelmed. The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams dealt with 86 people killed and 134 wounded.
Officials from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza and al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, which have all been extensively damaged in the war, said that altogether they had received about 85 dead.
Witnesses said patients lay on the floor at the hospital, some screaming, and a young girl cried as her bloody arm was bandaged.
Israeli and US officials blame Hamas for the renewed violence, saying the Islamist militant organisation has refused to release more of the 59 hostages it holds in Gaza, thus breaking the ceasefire agreement that came into effect in January. Hamas said hostage releases were due only during a scheduled second phase that Israel agreed in January but has since refused to discuss or implement.
In a statement issued shortly after strikes began, Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, said “the gates of hell will open in Gaza” and that Hamas would be hit with a force it has “never seen before” if it did not release all remaining hostages.
“We will not stop fighting until all of the hostages return home and all the war’s aims are achieved,” Katz said.
The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Hamas of “repeated refusal” to release hostages and of rejecting proposals from Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, for an extension of the pause in hostilities. “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” it said in a statement.
The first phase of the ceasefire agreed in January involved 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight dead Israelis returned by militant groups in Gaza in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Under the scheduled second phase of the ceasefire, there would have been a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the release of all hostages and a definitive end to hostilities. With the backing of the US, Israel has been pushing instead been for the return of all remaining hostages in exchange for further prisoner releases and a 30- to 60-day truce, in line with Witkoff’s proposal.
Earlier this month, Israel blocked deliveries of aid from entering Gaza and cut off remaining electricity supplies in a bid to pressure Hamas.
The US national security council spokesperson, Brian Hughes, said Hamas “could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war”.
Taher al-Nunu, a Hamas official, said the international community faced “a moral test”.
“Either it allows the return of the crimes committed by the occupation army or it enforces a commitment to ending the aggression and war against innocent people in Gaza,” al-Nunu said.
The strikes come at a tense moment in Israel domestic politics. Netanyahu said on Sunday he would fire Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, a controversial move that immediately prompted accusations of authoritarianism and plans for major protests on Wednesday.
In his statement about the latest strikes, Netanyahu said he had approved the attacks “over the weekend”, suggesting the decision preceded the announcement of his intention to fire Bar.
Critics accuse Netanyahu of using war to maintain his own grip on power.
“It is all connected … The hostages have been sacrificed for political reasons,” said Ora Peled Nakash, a former senior officer in Israel’s navy and protest organiser. Recent polls show widespread support in Israel for a deal to end the war.
Much of Gaza lies in ruins after 15 months of fighting, which erupted on 7 October 2023 when thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 hostages.
The Israeli campaign in response has killed more than 48,000 people and reduced much of the territory to ruins. Ninety per cent of houses are damaged or destroyed, and much of the population is displaced. Roads, hospitals, schools, sanitation systems and much else has been reduced to rubble.
With Reuters and Associated Press
