Israel launched a new ground and air offensive in central Gaza on Monday, pushing into Deir Al Balah with tanks and continued airstrikes following heavy bombardments overnight.
The escalation comes amid growing international alarm over mounting civilian casualties after dozens of Palestinians seeking aid were killed Sunday in one of the deadliest incidents since Israel introduced a new humanitarian delivery system in late May.
The Israeli army had previously refrained from escalating military operations in Deir Al Balah due to some of the remaining Israeli hostages being help captive in the area, Israeli sources told Reuters.
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Sunday to the city's residents, urging them to move south to the town of Al Mawasi on the coast.
“The Defense Army continues to operate with great force to destroy the enemy's capabilities and terrorist infrastructure in the area, as it expands its activities,” IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee said.
Families of Israeli hostages criticize offensive
Families of the some 50 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza said they were “shocked” by news of the latest offensive.
“The people of Israel will not forgive anyone who knowingly endangered the hostages—both the living and the deceased,” they said in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. “No one will be able to claim they didn't know what was at stake.”
It added that the Israeli government has not provided any clear explanation as to how “the offensive in the Deir Al Balah area does not put the hostages at serious risk.”
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Sunday’s displacement orders were “yet another devastating blow to the already fragile lifelines keeping people alive across the Gaza Strip.”
Initial estimates indicate that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area at the time the order was issued, including some 30,000 people sheltering in 57 displacement sites,” it said in a statement on Sunday night.
OCHA says that with the latest displacement order over 87% of Gaza is now under such orders, or under the control of the Israeli military.
“[Sunday] was a horrible night but we made it through,” resident Oday Basheer, who helps run a kitchen in Deir Al Balah, told TIME.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) called the situation “extremely critical.”
“Shelling is taking place all around our office, and military vehicles are just 400 metres away from our colleagues and their families, who endured a harrowing night after relocating there,” MAP Communications Officer Mai Elawawda said in a statement.
Read more: We Need to Feed the World Again—And Stop a Global Hunger Crisis
Dozens killed at aid centers
The military escalation comes after at least 73 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while trying to collect aid, according to Gaza health officials. At least 67 were killed waiting for aid from a U.N. convoy in northern Gaza and a further six people killed in Khan Younis in the south.
Gaza health officials said that Sunday’s deaths in northern Gaza occurred near the Zikim border crossing point, where a 25-truck World Food Programme (WFP) convoy entered the strip.
The U.N.-run WFP says that after the convoy entered, it was surrounded by people seeking aid. As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire, WFP said.
“This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza,” WFP said, adding that hunger has reached “new levels of desperation”, with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment.
United Kingdom, Canada, and France, on Monday were among 26 countries to issue a joint statement accusing Israel of the “drip feeding of aid” in Gaza.
“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law,“ the statement read.
“We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.”
The statement reiterated calls for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the return of all remaining hostages still held captive in the enclave.
Read more: $25 Butter and $40 Eggs: The Search for Food in Gaza
Israel’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Oren Marmorstein has called the joint statement “disconnected from reality.”
“All statements and all claims should be directed at the only party responsible for the lack of a deal for the release of hostages and a ceasefire: Hamas,” he posted on X.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Monday that the death toll in the enclave had reached over 59,000 since the start of the Israel-Hamas War in October 2023.
In the absence of independent monitoring on the ground, the ministry is the primary source for casualty data relied upon by humanitarian groups, journalists, and international bodies. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The war was triggered after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages.
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