While the Israeli military have expanded his offensive in the Gaza Strip, taking control of several territory in some parts of the South and North and issuing new evacuation orders, many people who had recently returned to their homes have been displaced again.
The Israeli journey in the southern city of Rafah has pushed thousands of families from the Tal -ult district, near the border with Egypt, to escape on foot on Sunday before the Israeli troops completely surround the area in the afternoon.
For many, the new mass movement round has reported painful memories of the previous days of the war in Gaza. The residents of such al -ults and nearby areas have declared that they had to travel a specific path in the middle of a bombing, transporting very few objects, during the sacred month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the day.
Most of those who fled on Sunday walked for several miles north towards the city of Khan Youunis, where they remained without a refuge due to a serious lack of necessity and basic tents, said the local government of Rafah, which includes such al-suultan, in a note.
The Israeli army renewed its offensive in Gaza last week after an impasse in the talks to extend a fragile and temporarily ceased the fire with Hamas which entered into force in mid -January. That truce was to be the first of the three phases that led to the end of a war started with the assault led by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, but the second phase was delayed indefinitely.
The Ministry of Health of Gaza declared on Monday that 61 people were killed in the Israeli bombings the past day, one day after saying that the budget of the victims in the Enclave had exceeded 50,000 since the war began almost 18 months ago. The ministry figures do not distinguish between civilians and fighters.
The Israeli army declared in a Sunday declaration that his troops had killed several fighters to such a al-suite and broke into a site that said it was used as a Hamas command and control center. He did not provide evidence of his statements, which could not be verified independently.
On Monday, at Jazeera reported that Hussam Shabat, a journalist who contributed to his coverage of the war, was killed in an Israeli air attack on his car in the north of Gaza. At least 208 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war, according to the Gaza government press office. The Israeli army said she was examining the relationship.
The videos circulating online and verified by the New York Times show the apparently lifeless bodies of Mr. Shabat and two other men, as well as a donkey who had pulled a trolley, on a dusty road to Beit Laia, in the north of Gaza. Next to them there is a car with what seems to be a bullet holes or shrapnel, with an emblem of Al Jazeera and the “TV” letters on the windshield. A man shouts the name of Mr. Shabat and shakes his body, trying to get an answer, while others take away a person whose condition is not clear.
The Palestinian civil defense in Gaza said on Sunday that the Israeli siege of such Al-Sultan had endangered the life of almost 50,000 people who lived there, with some incapable or unwilling to escape. Some residents, after months of repeated movements, only recently have been able to return to their homes, or what remained, during the ceased fire of short duration.
“We started with the dresses on the back under fire and bombing,” said Mustafa Jabr, 36 years old, after walking for almost six hours along a sandy route with his family from home to tal -ult on Sunday morning. “It was a very surprising and intense attack,” he said from the house of a friend in the south of Khan Youunis, where the family was now repaired.
Jabr said that before surrounding the neighborhood, the Israeli vehicles had regularly patrolled the area around the corridor of Filadelfi, a narrow strip of Gaza along the border with Egypt and one of the main attack points in the interviews of ceased the fire. But at dawn on Sunday, the residents were exchanged of “sudden bombings”, before flyers order people to evacuate along a specified route they began to rain, he said.
“So we headed to the north under a hailstorm of bombing of tanks and fire of the quadricotor who wounded dozens,” said Jabr. “Many elderly people were abandoned along the way because they were too weak to continue walking on the sand,” he said, adding, “the scenes I saw along the way were horrible, there were so many children, elderly and disabled people”.
Mr. Jabr’s family was now among an increasing number of families in Gaza who wondered once again when they were able to return to their homes.
Ahmad and Fate Al-Sayyed also fled on Sunday, walking with their four children in the tent of a relative in Western Khan Younis. They had recently returned to their home damaged to Rafah after nine months of shelter in a tent in Khan Youunis, just to find himself in another tent less than a month later.
“I thought that the second phase of the negotiations would start while we had returned to our house in Rafah,” said Al-Sayyed.
Although the occasional shots have been listened to in Rafah in the last few days, Al-Sayyed has claimed to have been shocked when Israeli troops advanced in the area. “We never imagined that he would intensified in a complete siege and a military operation,” he said. “
As soon as the evacuation orders have been issued, Al-Sayyed told his children to prepare two clothes each in their school bags.
Some on the path transported terrified and crying children, while others tightened anything. Most adults, observing Ramadan, did not eat or drink anything along the way.
The elderly and the sick, some in a wheelchair, fought to keep up while the drones “followed us, moving above, moving to the right and left, looking at every step,” said Al-Sayy.
The crowd found itself trapped for almost an hour and a half after the Israeli forces blocked the road, while the people begged the red cross to save them.
“We were able to hear bulldozers and occasional shots,” said Al-Sayyed. “Later, I saw how they had eliminated the paths that people could cross, build sand mounds around the area, arrange fences and cameras and place soldiers above those sand barriers,” he added, referring to Israeli troops.
He was therefore in charge of continuing to walk towards a United Nations warehouse, where an Israeli tank stopped them and the troops told everyone to sit on the ground.
“After almost 20 minutes, the soldiers asked women and children to sit on the right side of the road, while men were ordered to sit on the left side,” said Al-Sayy. “People were terrified and their eyes were full of fear,” he said, adding: “Mothers cried for their adult children, not wanting to be separated by them, fearing that they would be killed or arrested”.
In the end, it was Mr.’s turn to Sayyed to be sought by soldiers. He said he was ordered to undress and was forced to remain sitting, with blindfolded eyes, for more than an hour. He was then released and met his wife and children.
“Everything I could feel was crying and everything I could see were frightened faces,” said Mrs. Al-Sayyed.
“My son Mohammed was very terrified when he saw a dead boy,” he added. “He has just collapsed on the sand, screaming completely unbridled, and everything I could do was crying with him.”
Iyad abuheweila Reports contributed by Istanbul.