GAZA/BEIRUT: Zionist forces stepped up bombardment across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and ordered more evacuations, creating a fresh wave of displacement from northern Gaza, to which Palestinians fear they will not be able to return. Palestinian health officials said at least 12 people had been killed and several others wounded in a Zionist air strike on a school housing displaced families in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.

As Zionist tanks advanced in Beit Lahia, a month into a new push on northern Gaza, dozens of families streamed out, arriving at schools and other shelters in Gaza City with whatever belongings and food they could bring. Drones hovered overhead broadcasting evacuation orders, which were also carried on social media outlets, audio and text messages sent to residents’ phones, one displaced man said.

“After they displaced most or all of the people in Jabalia, now they are bombing everywhere, killing people on the roads and inside their houses to force everyone out,” the man told Reuters via a chat app, giving only one name, Ahmed, for fear of repercussions. Palestinian officials say the Zionist entity is carrying out a plan of ethnic cleansing. Residents say no aid has entered Jabalia, Beit Lahia or Beit Hanoun since the operation began on Oct 5.

Later, the army posted new evacuation orders to residents in neighborhoods near and inside Gaza City. The new orders covered the northern part of the Shati camp and three other neighborhoods in Gaza City. Palestinian medics said Zionist fire had killed six people in Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, as well as four people in Beit Lahia and seven in Rafah, near the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.

Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, most of whose 2.3 million people have been forced to leave their homes. The Zionist campaign has turned much of the Gaza Strip into a wasteland suffering a humanitarian catastrophe. The Zionist military campaign has killed 43,469 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians.

Violence has also surged across the Zionist-occupied West Bank since the start of the Zionist war in Gaza. In Tulkarm, Zionist forces shot dead a Palestinian man during a raid, medics said, adding that a Zionist drone had wounded five other people, including a mother and her son, who had learning difficulties. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Zionist security forces. The Palestinian health ministry put the number at 775, including 167 children.

Five UN peacekeepers were wounded in a Zionist air strike in south Lebanon on Thursday, the United Nations said, in a raid that also killed three civilians. The Zionist entity launched a barrage of strikes after Hezbollah said it carried out a missile attack targeting a military base near Ben Gurion International Airport on Wednesday.

The Wednesday attack came as Lebanon’s health ministry said 40 people had been killed in Zionist strikes around the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold in the east. The raid in which the UN peacekeepers were wounded struck near an army checkpoint in south Lebanon’s main city Sidon.

“The (Zionist) enemy targeted a car while it was passing through the Awali checkpoint,” the army said in a statement. Three civilians in the car were killed, the military said, and three soldiers at the checkpoint were wounded along with five members of the Malaysian contingent of the UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL.

Israel launched raids across the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight, with one hitting an area near the airport. Taxi driver Abu Elie, who was at the airport when the strikes hit, told AFP “the entire car park shook”. “People were carrying their suitcases on their shoulders and running,” he said. Officials told AFP the raid had caused minor damage but the terminal building was safe and flights were running as normal.

The strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs were so intense many residents of the city were unable to sleep. “Death has become a matter of luck. We can either die or survive,” said Ramzi Zaiter, a resident of south Beirut. Since Sept 23, more than 2,600 people have been killed in Zionist strikes on Lebanon, according to Health Minister Firass Abiad. – Agencies