GAZA: Palestinians on Monday fled heavy battles in Gaza City as the Zionist military expanded an evacuation order nine months into its war with Hamas fighters. While fighting raged, Hamas and the Zionist entity staked their claims for truce talks as mediators Egypt and Qatar were due to host new meetings this week, according to officials. Zionist troops and tanks pushed into parts of Gaza City, in the besieged territory’s north, and battled Palestinian militants.

Thousands were on the move again, according to the civil defense agency in the territory. Witnesses said messages on loudspeakers urged civilians to leave Gaza City’s Daraj and Tuffah neighborhoods. The Zionist military called on Palestinians to leave Tel Al-Hawa, Sabra and Rimal in Gaza City’s west, the army’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on social media, expanding its evacuation zone in the territory’s biggest city with the third order in less than two weeks.

Hamas said the new Zionist offensive in Gaza City will not succeed in breaking them. “The arrogant enemy, which is practicing the ugliest forms of aggression and violations against unarmed civilians, with absolute

backing from the US administration will not succeed in breaking our steadfast people regardless of how much it escalates its crimes,” the group said in a statement.

AFP photographers saw Palestinians leave on foot, bikes and on donkey carts, carrying their belongings through rubble-strewn streets. Muhammad Bisan said he had been through “an indescribable night” in Gaza City. “Planes and artillery are bombing and drones are firing from all directions, and we do not know where to run, right or left,” he told AFP.

One tank thrust pushed people towards the western road near the Mediterranean, residents said. “The enemy is behind us and the sea is in front of us, where we will we go?” said Abdel-Ghani, a Gaza City resident. “Tank shells and missiles from the planes are falling on the roads and houses like hell from a volcano. People are running in all directions and no one knows where to go,” Abdel-Ghani told Reuters via a chat app.

Elsewhere in Gaza, AFPTV images showed Palestine Red Crescent members removing a body from the rubble after a strike in Jabalia, another Gaza City district. The Zionist military offensive has killed at least 38,193 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to data from the territory’s health ministry. The toll includes at least 40 deaths over the previous 24 hours, it said.

Diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting aim for an initial six-week ceasefire that would see some captives in Gaza freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, but talks would continue for a comprehensive deal to end the war. Hamas has signaled it would drop its insistence on a “complete” ceasefire, a demand the Zionist entity has repeatedly rejected.

A top Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that mediators had offered assurances “that as long as the... negotiations continued, the ceasefire would continue”. Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reiterated in a statement that “any deal will allow (the Zionist entity) to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved”.

The military said Zionist forces were carrying out an operation against Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in the area of the Gaza City headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. There was no immediate comment from UNRWA, whose facilities across Gaza have come under attack before. Witnesses reported gunfire from Zionist vehicles east of Khan Yunis.

Gaza’s civil defense reported “dozens of martyrs and wounded” across the coastal territory, saying rescuers were unable to reach some areas due to the intense fighting. A Hamas senior official on Monday accused the Zionist premier of stepping up bombardment in order to derail the latest truce effort. “Whenever a round of negotiations begins and a breakthrough is within reach, he... escalates the aggression,” the Hamas official charged, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Two separate strikes, on Saturday in the central Nuseirat refugee camp and on Sunday in Gaza City, killed people in schools turned into displacement shelters. The United Nations estimates 90 percent of Gazans have fled their homes. The Zionist entity has also exchanged near daily cross-border fire with Hamas’ Lebanese ally Hezbollah, raising fears of all-out war as such exchanges escalate. On Monday, the Zionists said an air strike had killed a Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah announced the fighter’s death without elaborating. – Agencies