Israeli military expels dozens of Palestinian families from Beit Lahia, forcing them into Gaza City streets

Dozens of families residing in the town of Beit Lahia were forced by the Israeli military to leave their homes and shelters in northeast Gaza on Wednesday, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to Mada Masr. 

They were directed to walk through the civil administration checkpoint on Salah Eddin road, heading west toward Gaza City — where overcrowding due to forced displacement is becoming acute. 

The mass expulsion comes amid a military offensive that has seen Israel invade northern Gaza and control the movement of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living there by conducting arrests and massive and widespread aerial bombardment on homes and public facilities as well as street-level fire that has killed thousands.

Ahmed Moslah, an eyewitness, described a harrowing night for the Palestinians taking shelter in Beit Lahia’s schools amid intense artillery shelling and continuous gunfire. The Israeli military detonated explosives in the area, he said, causing shrapnel to rain down inside the shelter, where he and his family were staying.

Moslah said that civilians were forced to leave in the early hours of Wednesday morning. 

“The Occupation’s military used megaphones to order the displaced residents out of the shelters. We left with nothing and were forced to walk a particular route under heavy fire, in the dead of night," Moslah told Mada Masr. "We walked for hours along Salah Eddin road toward Gaza City. Now, we’re homeless, stranded in the streets without shelter."

Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal likewise told Mada Masr that Israeli forces targeted civilians with airstrikes and artillery shelling during the night, forcing evacuations in the dark. 

Ibrahim al-Ghandour, another eyewitness, described a large deployment of Israeli aircraft “hovering heavily overhead when we left at dawn carrying nothing but a few blankets."

"Occupation forces fired directly at us as we were moving," Ghandour continued. "Many were injured on the roads, and anyone attempting to rescue them was also targeted."

Images shared by reporters on the ground in northern Gaza showed crowds leaving the area on foot. 

The Gaza Government Media Office said earlier this week that 3,700 people have been reported killed or missing in northern Gaza since Israel began offensive operations in the area on October 6. 

Speaking to Mada Masr on Wednesday, Bassal noted that the death toll has been compounded by Israeli forces’ deliberate disruption of civil defense operations in northern Gaza which prevented the rescue of injured civilians. Thousands of bodies remain trapped under the rubble and strewn along the roads in northern Gaza, Bassal said.

The United Nations and its partners estimated at the end of November that around 80 percent of the remaining population in the North Gaza governorate, where Beit Lahia is located, or the equivalent of at least 100,000 people, have been displaced to Gaza City since October. 

Bassal noted that Gaza City is now hosting nearly half a million residents displaced from areas in the northeast. The city is becoming crowded, he said.

The UN also noted in late November that almost no aid has been supplied to northern Gaza since its invasion in October.