Israel army tells Gazans to evacuate part of southern city of Rafah

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military on Sunday urged residents of the southern Gaza city of Rafah to evacuate as forces launched an offensive against militants in the area.

Hamas also said a senior Hamas official was killed in an Israeli strike.

In a statement on X, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said the army "launched an offensive to strike the terrorist organisations" in Rafah's Tal al-Sultan district.

Adraee called on Palestinians there to leave the "dangerous combat zone" and move further north.

Leaflets bearing the same message were dropped over Tal al-Sultan by drone, AFP correspondents said.

Earlier, an Israeli strike on a tent encampment in Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza's Khan Yunis area, killed senior Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil and his wife, the Islamist movement said in a statement Sunday.

Bardawil, a well-known Hamas figure, was a member of the movement's political bureau and the Palestinian Legislative Council,  the Palestinian Authority's parliament which has not met since 2007.

The Israeli military also announced on Sunday that it was conducting operations in Beit Hanun, in the north of the Gaza Strip.

"During the operation, fighter jets struck several Hamas targets," the army said in a statement.

Israel, vowing to destroy Palestinian militant group Hamas, on Tuesday resumed intense bombardment of Gaza and redeployed ground troops, shattering a truce that had largely held since January 19.

Before its renewed assault, Israel in early March blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into war-ravaged Gaza and cut electricity supply, in a bid to force Hamas to accept the Israeli terms for an extension of the ceasefire and release the 58 hostages still held by Palestinian militants since the October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

The electricity supplied by Israel had fed Gaza's main water desalination plant, and the decision to cut power has aggravated already dire conditions for Gaza's 2.4 million people.

Rafah, on the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, was already the target of a major Israeli offensive about a year ago.