Israeli Army Accused Of Forcibly Evacuating Palestinians From Northern Gaza

Gaza's government media office accused the Israeli army on Tuesday of forcibly evacuating Palestinians from Beit Hanoun and Jabalia towns in the northern Gaza Strip amid a deadly offensive on the blockaded enclave.

"The Israeli army carried out a military operation in Beit Hanoun and the eastern part of Jabalia in a new crime aimed to empty the two areas," Salama Maruf, the head of the media office, said in a statement.

He said the Israeli army laid a siege around Al-Mahdiya Al-Shawwa school in Beit Hanoun, where hundreds of displaced people are accommodated.

"The occupation army established an investigation center behind the school and ordered everyone to leave at gunpoint," he said.

"Women were forced to remove their hijabs, and men were stripped of their outer clothes," Maruf said, adding that several young men were detained by Israeli forces.

"This new crime was carried out under the cover of heavy artillery shelling, airstrikes, and intense gunfire," he said.

There was no comment from the Israeli military on the report.

Israel has waged a military offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas last October, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 33,800 Palestinians have since been killed and 76,600 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the seaside enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while much of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul -