Gaza war: Palestinians flee as Israeli forces go back into Jabalia

Women who were filmed fleeing Jabalia on foot on Monday morning said they had decided to leave after seeing tanks advance into the area.

“The tank was behind the school classrooms,” Umm Jumma told Reuters news agency. “We did not want to leave until we saw it with our own eyes.”

Another woman said: “We have been displaced from one place to the next. And now we have left. We don’t know where to go.”

Hamas-affiliated Safa news agency reported clashes between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli tanks east of Jabalia camp’s market, near several UN-run schools which were being used as shelters by civilians.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa meanwhile reported that two people were killed in Israeli strikes on homes in Jabalia camp on Monday and that a number of other people were killed in a strike in Jabalia town.

It also cited ambulance crews as saying the bodies of 20 civilians had so far been recovered in Jabalia and taken to Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

On Sunday, the IDF said troops had begun an operation in Jabalia the previous evening that was “based on intelligence information regarding attempts by Hamas to reassemble its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area”.

Civilians there had been told to evacuate temporarily to “shelters in western Gaza City”, it added.

The IDF also said on Sunday that it was operating in the Zeitoun area, in eastern Gaza City, to “eliminate terrorists and dismantle terrorist infrastructure”.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said the bombardment and evacuation orders had “created more displacement and fear for thousands of families” in northern Gaza.

Safa reported that Zeitoun was hit by Israeli shellfire on Monday morning.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Hamas accused Israel of “escalating their brutal massacres in various areas of the Gaza Strip”.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 252 others were taken hostage.

More than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.