Israeli shelling and airstrikes killed at least 19 people in central and south Gaza on Tuesday including two policemen who were helping protect humanitarian aid deliveries in the southern city of Rafah, Palestinian medics said.
Seventeen of the deaths, they said, occurred in separate Israeli airstrikes on the al-Bureij and al-Maghazi refugee camps and the city of Deir-al-Balah in central Gaza, and by late Tuesday tanks were shelling an area just east of the al-Nusseirat camp, residents said.
Some told Reuters via chat app that the renewed Israeli military push was sowing panic, with some families living in al-Maghazi starting to flee under tank fire, with four shells crashing near a clinic in the camp.
In a brief statement issued earlier in the day, the Israeli military said jets were hitting Hamas targets in central Gaza while ground forces were operating “in a focused manner with guidance from intelligence” in the al-Bureij area.
It gave no update on activity in Rafah, into which Israeli forces swept last month in what the military calls a limited operation to root out Hamas’ last intact combat units after almost eight months of devastating war in the Gaza Strip.
