Israeli forces conducting a prolonged offensive in northern Gaza ordered the remaining residents of Beit Hanoun to evacuate Sunday, according to local accounts.
The instruction to residents to leave caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected, the residents said.
Israel says its almost three-month-old campaign in northern Gaza is aimed at regrouping Hamas members. Its instructions to civilians to evacuate are meant to keep them out of harm's way, the military claims.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say no place is safe in Gaza and that evacuations worsen the humanitarian conditions of the population.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia has been cleared of people and razed, fueling speculation that Israel intends to permanently depopulate the area.
The Israeli military announced its new push into the Beit Hanoun area Saturday.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost communication with people still trapped in the town and it was unable to send teams into the area because of the raid.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 16 people Sunday. One of those strikes killed seven people and wounded others at Al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said in a statement.
"Seven martyrs and several injured people, including critical cases, have been recovered following the Israeli strike on the upper floor of Al-Wafaa Hospital in central Gaza City," a civil defense agency statement said.
The Israeli military claimed targeting Hamas members, who allegedly operated from the compound, saying the place no longer served as a hospital.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the hospital was still in use.
"The Al-Wafa Hospital is partially operational, providing care to patients with physical disabilities," the ministry's director general, Munir al-Barsh, told AFP.
"The hospital had been rehabilitated and was getting ready to receive patients. Had it not been targeted by Israeli shelling today, it would have been ready to fully reopen in the next few days," he said.
The strike on Al-Wafa Hospital came a day after the military ended a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. The military also detained the hospital's chief, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, saying he was suspected of being a Hamas member.
The raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in the area out of service, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X.
Some patients were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital, which is not in service and medics were prevented from joining them there, the Health Ministry said. Other patients and staff were taken to other medical facilities.
On Sunday, health officials said an Israeli tank shell hit the upper floor of the Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City near the X-ray division.
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to health officials. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by the Hamas incursion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which caused 1,200 deaths and took 251 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
