Women who were filmed fleeing Jabaliya on foot on Monday morning said they decided to leave after seeing tanks moving into the area.
“The tanks are located behind the school classrooms,” Umjuma told Reuters. “We didn’t want to leave until we saw it with our own eyes.”
Another woman said: “We were displaced from one place to another. Now we are gone. We don’t know where to go.”
The Hamas-affiliated Safa news agency reported clashes between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli tanks east of the Jabaliya camp market, near several UN-run schools that are used as shelters for civilians.
Meanwhile, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that two people were killed in an Israeli attack on houses in the Jabaliya refugee camp on Monday, and many others were killed in attacks in the town of Jabaliya.
The report also quoted ambulance personnel as saying that so far, the bodies of 20 civilians have been found in Jabaliya and sent to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had no immediate comment.
On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said its troops had begun an operation the night before in Jabaliya “based on intelligence regarding Hamas’s attempts to reorganize its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area.”
Civilians there were told to temporarily evacuate to “shelters in western Gaza City,” the report added.
The IDF also said on Sunday it was conducting operations in the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City to “eliminate terrorists and dismantle terrorist infrastructure.”
UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said the bombing and evacuation orders “have caused additional displacement and fear for thousands of families in northern Gaza.”
Safa reported that Zeitoun came under Israeli fire on Monday morning.
In a statement on Sunday, Hamas accused Israel of “escalating brutal massacres in multiple areas of Gaza.”
On October 7, Hamas launched a cross-border attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 252 people hostage. Israel launched a military operation in Gaza to destroy Hamas.
Since then, more than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
