Palestinian death toll tops 35,000 as Israel pushes back into northern Gaza

A displaced Palestinian woman, who fled Jabalia after the Israeli military called on residents to evacuate, sits atop her belongings as she travels in an animal-drawn cart in Gaza City. — Reuters

Israel sent tanks into eastern Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip early on Sunday, after a night of heavy aerial and ground bombardments, killing 19 people and wounding dozens of others, health officials said.

The death toll in Israel's military operation in Gaza has now passed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. The bombardment has laid waste to the coastal enclave and caused a deep humanitarian crisis.

Jabalia is the biggest of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps and is home to more than 100,000 people, most of whom were descendants of Palestinians who were driven from towns and villages in what is now Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that led to the creation the state of Israel.

Late on Saturday, the Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia are preventing Hamas, which controls Gaza, from re-establishing its military capabilities there.

"We identified in the past weeks attempts by Hamas to rehabilitate its military capabilities in Jabalia. We are operating there to eliminate those attempts," said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel's military spokesperson, during a briefing to reporters.

Hagari also said that Israeli forces operating in Gaza City's Zeitoun district killed about 30 Palestinian militants.

"Bombardment from the air and ground hasn't stopped since yesterday, they were bombing everywhere, including near schools that are housing people who lost their houses," said Saed, 45, a resident of Jabalia.

"War is restarting, this is how it looks in Jabalia," he told Reuters via a chat app. "The new incursion forces many families to evacuate."

The army sent tanks back into Al Zeitoun, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, as well as Al Sabra, where residents also reported heavy bombardments that destroyed several houses, including high-rise residential buildings.

The army had claimed to have gained control of most of these areas months ago.

The Israeli Defence Forces said air sirens had sounded in the southern Kerem Shalom area and it had successfully intercepted two rockets launched from the vicinity of Rafah. It said there were no injuries and no damage reported.

Later on Sunday, sirens sounded in the Israeli city of Ashkelon as a result of incoming rocket fire from Gaza, which signalled militants there were still able to launch rocket attacks after over seven months of war.

Hamas's Al Aqsa TV said on its telegram account, the rockets were launched from Jabalia, despite the active army raid.

Tanks did not invade eastern Deir Al Balah city, residents and Hamas media said, but some Israeli tanks and bulldozers penetrated the fence on the outskirts of the city prompting a gunfight with Hamas fighters.

In an airstrike late on Saturday in Deir Al Balah, two doctors, a father and his son, were killed, health officials said.

The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters attacked Israeli forces in several areas inside Gaza with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, including in Rafah, previously the Palestinians' last refuge where more than a million people were sheltering.

The Palestinian Telecommunication company said internet services in southern areas of the enclave were severed because of the ongoing "aggression", adding that workers were seeking to resolve the problem.

On Sunday, more families, estimated in the thousands, were leaving Rafah as the Israeli military pressure intensified. Tank shells landed across the city as the army gave new evacuation orders covering some neighbourhoods in the centre of the city, which borders Egypt.

"As I moved out of Rafah, I passed through Khan Younis, I cried, I didn't know if was I crying for what I was passing through, the humiliation and the feeling of loss I felt or for what I have seen," said Tamer Al Burai, a resident from Gaza, who had been sheltering in Rafah.

"I saw a ghost city, all buildings on the two sides of the road, complete districts were wiped out. People are fleeing for safety, knowing there was no place safe, and there are no tents and no people to care for them," he told Reuters.

Burai, a Palestinian businessman, said the Palestinians were abandoned by the world and left to face their destiny as the war entered its eighth month, with world powers failing to end hostilities and international mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire collapsing over Hamas and Israel disputes.

"No ceasefire, no UN decision, no hope," he said.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri said Cairo would continue its mediation between Israel and Hamas and urged the two sides to show the flexibility and the will needed to reach a deal.