News - Middle East: Israeli forces have launched a new brutal aerial and ground assault following forced displacement orders targeting parts of Deir al-Balah, a central Gaza area previously designated as a so-called “safe humanitarian zone.”

On Monday, Israel carried out intense airstrikes and a large-scale ground offensive in Gaza, targeting Deir al-Balah and the surrounding areas.

Local residents and witnesses described a relentless overnight bombardment in the central Gaza City. 

The latest assault came just hours after the Israeli military air-dropped leaflets over residential neighborhoods in Deir al-Balah, ordering civilians to evacuate southward toward al-Mawasi, an already overcrowded and underserved strip of land.

The area under evacuation lies between central Deir al-Balah and southern Khan Yunis and is home to nearly 100,000 people, many of whom have been displaced multiple times. The Israeli army’s order includes the forced removal of displaced families living in makeshift tents.

Reports suggest that Israeli ground troops may be preparing to advance from northern Khan Yunis to storm the southwestern flank of Deir al-Balah, a move that could sever the city’s southern edge from the rest of the central region.

If Israel proceeds with a ground incursion, it could result in the loss of yet another stretch of vital farmland, further exacerbating the already catastrophic famine gripping the Gaza Strip.

Observers now warn that Israel may be seeking to carve out a new military corridor, effectively cutting Khan Yunis off from central Gaza. Similar divisions were previously enacted when Rafah was isolated from Khan Yunis.

Such fragmentation of the Gaza Strip into isolated zones would grant Israel near-total control while pushing civilians into ever-smaller, overcrowded pockets, primarily along the coastline.

With the growing threat of widespread starvation, the UN, in a statement released by its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) emphasized the importance of Deir al-Balah for what remained of the struggling international aid effort.

“Any damage to this infrastructure will have life-threatening consequences,” the agency said.

“With this latest order, the area of Gaza under displacement orders or within Israeli-militarized zones has risen to 87.8%, leaving 2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12% of the strip, where essential services have collapsed,” OCHA stated. 

The latest Israeli assault follows Sunday’s massacre of desperate Palestinians seeking food aid, one of the deadliest single-day death tolls in Gaza in the past 21 months.

At least 73 people were killed and around 150 others wounded by Israeli gunfire as they waited for food assistance across the besieged Palestinian territory.

In total, nearly 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces across Gaza on Sunday alone.

The attacks were among the deadliest in a series of repeated incidents in recent weeks, where Palestinians seeking aid have been killed. 

The UN rights office has documented the killing of about 1,000 Palestinians in the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza GHF sites, while some were killed en route to other aid convoys.

The Israeli regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has killed at least 59,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since October 7, 2023.

Israel has long been accused of using food as a weapon of war against the Palestinians in the besieged strip.

Source: Press TV