Dozens of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza camp | News on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for the ceasefire talks if the Israeli “massacres” continue.

Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed dozens of people and advancing Israeli army tanks in Gaza City have also forced residents to flee, Palestinian officials said.

On Tuesday, an airstrike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan, east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 29 people, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.

The Israeli military said it was investigating the report.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza government’s media office, said dozens more were killed in other Israeli strikes in central Gaza. At least 60 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, he said.

Residents of the enclave reported that Israeli tanks entering Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa, Shujayea and Sabra neighborhoods shelled streets and buildings, forcing them to flee their homes.

This was followed by Israeli military orders published on social media to evacuate several districts in the east and west of Gaza City, including these neighborhoods.

“We hold the occupation and the US government responsible for the horrific massacres of civilians,” al-Thawabta said in a statement.

In Gaza City, the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said their fighters had fought Israeli forces with machine guns, mortar fire and anti-tank missiles, killing or wounding Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli military did not comment on the casualties, but said its soldiers were involved in close combat with Hamas fighters.

The heavy fighting comes as CIA Director William Burns and Israel’s Mossad chief David Barnea prepare to travel to Qatar on Wednesday after Burns held talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to broker a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

But Israel’s renewed attack jeopardizes the talks at a crucial moment and could throw the negotiations “back to square one,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was quoted as saying on Monday.

On Tuesday, videos on social media showed families crammed into donkey carts and in the backs of trucks loaded with mattresses and other belongings as they moved through the streets of Gaza to flee the areas where Israel had issued an evacuation order.

“Gaza City is being wiped out. That’s what’s happening. Israel is forcing us to leave our homes under fire,” Um Tamer, a mother of seven, told Reuters via a chat app. She said it was the seventh time her family had fled their home in Gaza City in the north of the enclave, one of Israel’s first targets when the war began in October.

“We can’t take it anymore. Enough of death and humiliation. End the war now,” she said.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed “appallment” at the way in which civilians, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times, have been ordered to go to areas where “military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed or injured”.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said all its medical clinics in Gaza City were out of service due to Israeli evacuation orders, with thousands of people being driven west toward the Mediterranean and further south.

Jagan Chapagain, chairman of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said on social media platform X that “the closure of these vital medical facilities further worsens the situation of an already desolate health system.”

“These clinics and medical facilities are often the only lifeline for many civilians.”

At least 38,243 people have been killed and 88,243 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 is estimated at 1,139. ​​Dozens of people are still being held captive in Gaza.