Cairo/Gaza: Israel issued a new evacuation order late Sunday for Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, forcing more families to flee, as it said forces planned to crack down on the Hamas militant group and other operatives in the area. In recent days, Israel has issued several evacuation orders from Gaza, the most since the start of the 10-month war, which has drawn protests from Palestinians, the United Nations and aid officials over the shrinking of humanitarian zones and the lack of safe zones.
The municipality of Deir al-Balah says that Israel's evacuation order has displaced 250,000 people so far.
According to doctors, Israeli military attacks killed at least seven Palestinians on Monday. Two were killed in Deir al-Balah, where about a million people have taken refuge, two in a school in the al-Nusirat camp, and three in the southern city of Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
The new orders forced many families and patients to leave al-Aqsa Hospital, the main medical center in Deir al-Balah, where hundreds of thousands of residents and displaced people had taken refuge in fear of bombing.
The hospital is close to the area covered by the evacuation notice.
An explosion caused panic approximately 250 meters (820 feet) away from the Al-Aqsa hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a statement in X on Sunday night.
“As a result, MSF is considering whether to suspend wound care for the time being while trying to maintain life-saving treatment.”
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, out of about 650 patients, only 100 remain in the hospital, seven of whom are in the intensive care unit.
“This situation is unacceptable. Al-Aqsa has been working beyond capacity for weeks due to the lack of alternatives for patients. All warring parties must respect the hospital as well as patients' access to medical care.
Diplomatic impasse
Sovasan Abuafesh said that she and her children have now been displaced 11 times.
I left half my children behind with my furniture and now I am with my little children and my daughter, only God can help us… I have no money for transportation, I am going to zone 17 where my family is staying. I took my children and there are three of them left. I don't know where,” said the woman.
The escalation comes with little hope of an end to the war, as diplomacy by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States has so far failed to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas, whose leaders are blamed for the loss of the war. agreement
Neither Hamas nor Israel agreed to several compromises offered by mediators at Sunday's talks in Cairo, two Egyptian security sources said.
However, a senior US official described the talks as “constructive” and said they were held in a spirit on the part of all parties to reach a “final and workable agreement”.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official, said the group rejected Israel's new terms during talks in which the group did not participate, adding that US statements about an imminent cease-fire deal were false and aimed at serving electoral purposes.
US President Joe Biden and his administration have faced growing protests in the US over aid to Israel ahead of the November election.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Humanitarian agencies say the densely populated region has been devastated, with most of its 2.3 million people displaced multiple times and facing dire shortages of food and medicine.
The war began with a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage.
