Israeli shelling pummelled the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah on Monday as the army warned it was launching an operation “in an area where it has not operated before”.
The Israeli military on Sunday ordered those in the central Gaza area, thought to be between 50,000 and 80,000 people, to leave immediately.
The spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP that “we received calls from several families trapped in the Al-Baraka area of Deir el-Balah due to shelling by Israeli tanks”.
“There are a number of wounded, but no one can reach the area to evacuate them,” he said.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the latest order leaves 87.8 percent of Gaza’s area under “evacuation orders” or within Israeli militarised zones.
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Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,895 Palestinians since October 2023, while almost the entire population has been displaced.
On Sunday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said he had ordered the withdrawal of the residency permit of Jonathan Whittall, head of the OCHA in Israel.
Sa’ar said Whittall had spread falsehoods about Israel’s assault on Gaza, citing his “biased and hostile conduct against Israel”.
Whittall had previously described Palestinians in Gaza as “slowly dying” as a result of the war and Israel’s blockade.
Widespread hunger
Palestinian health officials reported on Sunday that 18 people had died from malnutrition the previous day.
They warned that hundreds more could soon face the same fate as hospitals are overwhelmed with patients suffering from dizziness and exhaustion caused by severe food shortages.
Among those who died was a four-year-old girl, according to the Wafa news agency.
Medics at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah confirmed that the girl, identified as Razan Abu Zaher, died on Sunday due to complications arising from acute malnutrition.
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The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) has warned of a sharp rise in child malnutrition. Between March and June, Unrwa’s health centres conducted nearly 74,000 screenings for children under the age of five.
These screenings revealed approximately 5,500 cases of severe acute malnutrition and more than 800 were classified as the most critical.
Pope Leo on Sunday called for an end to the “barbarity of war”, as he spoke of his profound pain over an Israeli strike on the sole Catholic church in Gaza.
Three people died and several were injured, including the parish priest, in the Israeli strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza City on Thursday.
Photos show the church’s roof struck near the main cross, its stone facade scorched and its windows shattered.
Speaking after his Angelus prayer, the pope read out the names of those killed in the incident.
“I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, of indiscriminate use of force and forced displacement of the population,” he said.
Earlier this week, Pope Leo was criticised for making a “vague” statement about the attack and failing to mention Israel.
