Israeli missile and artillery shelling targeted various areas in the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah, killing 8 citizens and injuring 30 more, according to WAFA.
The Israeli strikes took place at dawn, waking up Palestinian civilians as Israeli missiles and artillery shells lit up the sky.
The Israeli army ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians from much of Khan Younis on Monday, a sign that troops are likely to launch a new ground assault into the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city.
The order suggests Khan Younis will be the latest target of Israel’s raids into parts of Gaza it had previously invaded in the war. Much of Khan Younis was destroyed by a long Israeli assault earlier this year, but large numbers of Palestinians had moved back to escape another Israeli offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
Monday’s evacuation order covered the eastern half of Khan Younis and a large swath of the strip’s southeast corner.
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees estimated Tuesday that a quarter of a million people had been impacted since Israel's army issued a new evacuation order for parts of southern Gaza a day earlier.
"We've seen people moving, families moving, people starting to pack up their belongings and try to leave this area," UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told reporters in Geneva via video link from Gaza, adding that the agency "estimates that around 250,000 people have been impacted by these orders".
Earlier in the day, the army said a barrage of rockets out of Gaza was fired from Khan Younis.
As night fell, streams of civilians trudged on foot beside a steady flow of vehicles as people began making their way out of the evacuation zone.
A woman dragged a rolling suitcase with a little girl riding on top. Others carried a few crucial belongings — mattresses, clothing, plastic buckets for washing, and an electric fan. Trucks were piled high with possessions and furniture.
“We received a message on our mobile phones” to evacuate, said one displaced woman, Zeinab Abu Jazar, holding back tears. “Look at these children, how they walk. We did not find a car to ride in.”
A woman holds a baby wrapped in a blanket as displaced Palestinians leave an area in east Khan Yunis. AFP
Unsafe zone
Israel told people to move to Mawassi, a coastal area northwest of Rafah city designated by the Israeli army as a “safe zone," which has become filled with crowded and unsanitary tent camps.
However, Israeli forces have not spared their so-called “safe zone” from a relentless campaign of airstrikes and artillery shelling.
They continued shelling makeshift refugee centres of displaced people in the Mawassi area on Saturday, the third day in a row, killing several Palestinians.
On Friday, Israeli forces killed at least 11 Palestinians and injured 40 others while targeting tents of displaced people in the Mawassi area, according to WAFA.
Airstrikes also targeted several other areas in southern Gaza including the municipality of Shoka, east of Rafah, killing several more people.
Palestinians collect salvageable items following an Israeli raid in the al-Mawasi area, northwest of the city of Rafah. AFP
Evacuating Shijaiyah
Last week, the Israeli army also ordered the evacuation of the north Gaza district of Shijaiyah. Then, intensive fighting started.
On Thursday, Palestinians fled eastern Gaza City under heavy bombardment as the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for the area it had previously declared clear of Hamas militants.
The civil defence agency in Gaza and medics said Israeli strikes overnight and early Thursday killed at least five people in Gaza City and another person in Beit Lahia, also in the north.
A witness in Shijaiyah, who preferred to remain anonymous, told AFP the situation was "very difficult and frightening" as Israeli military vehicles approached the area amid air strikes and shelling.
"Residents are running through the streets in terror ... several wounded and martyrs lie in the streets."
The military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents and displaced Gazans in the Shijaiyah area to leave "for your safety," in a message posted on social media.
They were asked to head south to a declared "humanitarian zone" about 25 kilometres (15 miles) away.
An AFP photographer saw many people leaving on foot, carrying their belongings as they walked through the streets.
A Palestinian man crosses a street with smoke billowing in the background from an area targeted by Israeli bombardment in the Gaza City district of Shujaiya. AFP
Rounding up Palestinians
Since the start of the war in Gaza, the Israeli army has been displacing Palestinians to so-called “safe zones,” where the army has proceeded to rain airstrikes and artillery shells on tents and poorly built shelters killing scores of displaced civilians.
Rafah had 250,000 residents before the war. However, its population had ballooned to some 1.4 million as people from across Gaza fled there. Nearly every space is blanketed with tent camps and families crammed into schools or relatives’ homes. Like the rest of Gaza’s population, they have been largely reliant on aid groups for food and other basics of life.
Still, daily Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling followed them to Rafah, sometimes targeting specific shelters housing displaced people.
An Israeli ground invasion of Rafah forced displaced Palestinians to seek shelter again elsewhere in the strip, where seemingly nowhere is safe and no civilian shelter is beyond targeting.
In early May, tens of thousands of displaced and exhausted Palestinians packed up their tents and other belongings from Rafah, dragging families on a new exodus.
“The war has caught up with us even in schools. There is no safe place at all,” said Nuzhat Jarjer, while her family was packing to leave a UN school-turned-shelter in Rafah which was rapidly emptying the hundreds who had lived there for months.
Palestinians flee western Rafah. AFP
Israeli bombardment has driven some 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population from their homes.
So far, Israel's brutal war on Gaza has killed at least 37,900 people, mostly women and children.
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