CAIRO, Nov 3: Israeli forces stepped up bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Sunday killing at least 23 people, Palestinian medics said, with over half the deaths in northern areas where the army has waged a month-long campaign it says is to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were "ethnic cleansing" aimed at emptying two north Gaza towns and a camp of their populations to create buffer zones. Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas militants who launch attacks from there.
Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on houses in Beit Lahiya town and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave's eight historic refugee camps and the focus of the army's new military offensive. The rest were killed in separate Israeli air strikes in Gaza City and the southern areas.
Israel has not commented on its military actions on Sunday in northern Gaza.
On Saturday, the Israeli military sent a new army division to Jabalia to join two other operating battalions, a statement said. It said that hundreds of Palestinian militants have so far been killed in the "battles" since the raid began on Oct. 5.
Meanwhile, COGAT, the Israeli army's Palestinian civilian affairs agency, said it facilitated the launch of the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza on Saturday and that 58,604 children have received a dose.
The Gaza health ministry said Israel's military offensive in northern Gaza was stopping them from vaccinating thousands of children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun. —REUTERS
