Dozens of families in northern Gaza have packed up their belongings and fled once again after a warning from the Israeli military of a fresh ground operation against Hamas in the Jabalya area.
“People left their homes this morning, and they don’t know where to go, carrying some simple belongings. There are no means of transportation,” Abu Alaa Asaf, a resident of Beit Lahiya, said.
The Israeli military called on Palestinian residents to evacuate areas in the north, which is home to Gaza’s biggest refugee camp, before announcing that two brigades of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) encircled Jabalya to stop Hamas from rebuilding its operational capabilities.
Before this, airstrikes were carried out, hitting “dozens of military targets,” the Israeli military said. Hamas’s military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said Saturday it was engaged in “fierce fights” with Israeli forces in northern Gaza.
“We heard the sounds of explosions all night long as if the war started today,” Asaf said.
Ismail Zaida, a resident of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in the north, saw “hundreds” of people fleeing towards Gaza City, also in northern Gaza.
Some northern residents are refusing to move to Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the south. Last month, Israel struck the area, killing at least 19 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
“People would rather die at home than get humiliated here and there,” Zaida said.
“Where do we go? From one death to another? Death is everywhere whether in the south or north,” Zaida said.
Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Saturday killed 23 people and injured 93, the Lebanese health ministry has said.
People were killed in strikes that targeted cities and villages in southern and northern Lebanon, including in Nabatieh, Bekaa, Baalbek and Mount Lebanon, the ministry said.
It’s unclear if the death toll includes strikes on Beirut on Saturday night, in which buildings were heavily damaged. At least two of the blasts triggered what appeared to be secondary explosions, according to the CNN team on the ground. One of the blasts hit the road to the airport.
On Sunday morning, a large plume of smoke rose into the Lebanese capital’s skyline after a strike targeted the city’s suburbs. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it would not comment on what it was targeting in the area.