JERUSALEM – Israeli forces battled Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, triggering a UN warning of an “even more hellish scenario” as the fighting pushes civilians into an ever-shrinking area of ​​the besieged territory.

After initially focusing on the north of the Gaza Strip, the army now sent ground troops to the south and dropped leaflets urging Palestinian civilians in other districts to evacuate.

Witnesses told AFP that Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers and bulldozers were spotted on Monday near the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, which is full of displaced civilians.

The Israeli army said it was taking “aggressive action” against Hamas and other militants in Khan Yunis, warning that the main road to the north and east of the city represented “a battlefield.”

Hamas claimed via Telegram that its militants attacked two personnel carriers and a tank near Khan Yunis.

Its military branch also said it fired rockets at Beersheba in southern Israel on Tuesday, while the Israeli military said rocket warning sirens sounded there.

According to Israeli authorities, Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 hostages on October 7.

In retaliation for the worst attack in its history, Israel has vowed to root out Hamas and secure the release of all hostages held in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says the war has killed nearly 15,900 people in the territory, about 70 percent of them women and children.

“NOWHERE SAFE”

International aid organizations have warned that civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip are running out of options to escape.

“Nowhere in Gaza is safe and there is nowhere left to go,” said Lynn Hastings, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories.

“If possible, an even more hellish scenario is looming that humanitarian operations may not be able to respond to,” Hastings said in a statement.

Ambulances, trucks and other vehicles brought more bloodied, dust-covered injured people, including children, to Khan Yunis’ Nasser Hospital.

After visiting another medical facility in the city, the European Hospital, International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric said she saw horrors that were difficult to describe.

“What shocked me the most were the children with terrible injuries and at the same time losing their parents with no one to care for them,” she said in a video.

“We cannot turn away from what is clearly a moral failing in the face of the international community,” she added.

With their belongings piled on donkey carts, battered vehicles and even camels, Gazans headed south to escape the expanding Israeli offensive.

An estimated 1.8 million people are displaced in Gaza – around three quarters of the population, according to UN figures.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said an Israeli order to move people from Khan Yunis to the southern city of Rafah “caused panic, fear and concern.”

People are being pushed into an area that makes up less than a third of the Gaza Strip and roads in the south are clogged, he said.

Even in Rafah, resident Abu Jahar al-Hajj said an airstrike near his home felt “like an earthquake.”

“Pieces of concrete fell on us,” he said.

Three more Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in the territory, the army said on Tuesday, bringing the number of troop deaths there to 78.

The military denied telling the World Health Organization to empty an aid camp in southern Gaza within 24 hours before ground operations in the area render it unusable.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus previously wrote on the social media platform

COMMUNICATION SHEET

Key ally the United States has warned Israel to do more to prevent civilian casualties as operations shift south.

Israel said on Monday it does not want to force Palestinian civilians to leave their homes permanently, but is instead seeking assistance from aid agencies to improve infrastructure in a tiny coastal area in the Gaza Strip called Al-Mawasi.

“We have asked civilians to evacuate the battlefield and we have established a designated humanitarian zone within the Gaza Strip,” Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.

In addition to dropping leaflets, the army warned civilians in Gaza to leave certain areas of impending attacks through mobile phone messages.

However, according to the Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel, all mobile and telephone services were interrupted throughout the Gaza Strip on Monday “due to the interruption of the main fiber optic routes from the Israeli side.”

Global network monitor Netblocks confirmed on Tuesday that Gaza residents were experiencing “a complete communications blackout.”

The fighting followed the collapse of a Qatar-brokered ceasefire on Friday in which scores of Israeli and other hostages were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli military says at least 137 hostages are still being held in Gaza, but Hamas has ruled out further releases until a permanent ceasefire is agreed.

Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, denounced what he called “shameful” international inaction over the war at the opening of a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The war has raised fears of a wider regional conflict, with frequent exchanges of fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah across Israel’s border with Lebanon.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military said its warplanes had attacked Hezbollah positions in response to takeoffs from Lebanon to Israel on Monday.

There has also been an increase in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. According to Palestinian authorities, more than 250 Palestinians have been killed there since the war began.