Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the US Congress.
The latest Israeli attacks destroyed homes in towns east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and thousands of people were forced to head west to seek shelter, residents said.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received distress calls from residents trapped in their homes in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis but were unable to reach the town.
Medics later said two Palestinians had been killed in an airstrike on Bani Suhaila, where the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas said fighters had detonated a bomb against an Israeli army personnel carrier.
Israel’s military, which is trying to eradicate Hamas after the October 7 attack on Israel, said it had been operating in areas from which fighters had been able to fire rockets into Israel and attack Israeli troops.
Gaza health officials said Israeli military strikes in the past 24 hours had killed at least 55 people, the latest casualties in a war that health authorities in the enclave say has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
“Where should we go? Shall we cross into the sea?” Ghada, who has been displaced with her family six times during the war, said via a chat app from Hamad City in northwestern Khan Younis.
“We are exhausted, starved and want the war to end now, now not an hour later.”
Residents said they had been ordered to head west towards a designated humanitarian area but that the area was now unsafe. The Israeli military issued the evacuation orders on social media and some residents received orders to leave by phone.
Israeli forces also launched airstrikes on several areas of central and northern Gaza, including one on Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza which health officials said killed nine people.
Hamas-led fighters triggered the war on October 7 by storming into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies. Some 120 hostages are still being held though Israel believes one in three are dead.
Some Palestinians who gathered at a hospital in Khan Younis before funerals criticised the United States, Israel’s most important international ally, for welcoming Netanyahu.
He was due to address Congress later on Wednesday and to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would meet Netanyahu in Florida on Friday.
“The United States is a main partner in what is happening in Gaza. We are being killed because of the United States. We are being slaughtered by American planes, American ships, American tanks, and American troops,” said Kazem Abu Taha, a displaced resident from Rafah.
A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Reuters: “The Congress invitation to Netanyahu to make a speech gives legitimacy to the crimes of the war of genocide in Gaza. Receiving a war criminal is a shame to all Americans”.
Israel has rejected accusations brought by South Africa at the UN’s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against Palestinians. It has reacted angrily to a decision by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
Netanyahu says a deal to release Israelis from captivity in Gaza could be near but Hamas officials say they see no change in Israel’s stance.
Hamas wants a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says the war cannot end before Hamas is eradicated.