Updated March 23, 2025 at 06:44 AM ET
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes across the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 26 Palestinians overnight into Sunday, including a Hamas political leader and several women and children. Residents said tanks had advanced into an area of the southern city of Rafah as the military ordered it evacuated.
The military ordered people to leave the already heavily destroyed Tel al-Sultan neighborhood on foot along a single route to Mawasi, a sprawling area of squalid tent camps. Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas last week when it launched a surprise wave of airstrikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians.
Late Saturday, Israel's Cabinet approved a proposal to set up a new directorate tasked with advancing the "voluntary departure" of Palestinians in line with U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to depopulate Gaza and rebuild it for others. Palestinians say they do not want to leave their homeland, and rights groups have said the plan could amount to expulsion in violation of international law.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the new body would be "subject to Israeli and international law" and coordinate "passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries."
In Rafah on Sunday, Palestinian men, women and children could be seen walking along a dirt road and carrying their belongings in their arms, a recurring scene in a war that has forced most of Gaza's population to flee within the territory, often multiple times.
"It's displacement under fire," said Mustafa Gaber, a local journalist who left Tel al-Sultan with his family. In a video call, he said hundreds of people were fleeing as tank and drone fire echoed nearby. "There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult," he said.
Mohammed Abu Taha, another resident who fled, said many people were unable to evacuate because of the surprise incursion overnight. He also said his sister and her family were sheltering in a school in an area of Rafah surrounded by Israeli forces.
At least 2 families among those killed in southern Gaza
Two hospitals in southern Gaza said they had received 17 bodies from strikes overnight, including several women and children. The toll did not include the Hamas official and his wife.
The European Hospital said the dead included five children and their parents killed in a strike in Khan Younis. Another family — two girls and their parents — were killed in a separate strike on the southern city. The Kuwaiti Hospital said it received the bodies of a woman and child killed in another strike.
Hamas separately said that Salah Bardawil, a member of its political bureau and the Palestinian parliament, was killed in a strike in Mawasi that also killed his wife. Bardawil was a well-known member of the group's political wing who gave media interviews over the years.
The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said Israeli forces were preventing its ambulances from responding to strikes in Rafah and that several of its medics had been wounded.
There was no immediate comment from the military.
In a separate development, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are allied with Hamas, launched another missile at Israel overnight and into Sunday, setting off air raid sirens. The Israeli military said the projectile was intercepted, and there were no reports of casualties or damage.
The Houthis resumed their attacks on Israel, portraying them as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians, despite recent U.S. strikes targeting the Yemeni rebels.
Ceasefire in tatters after Israeli strikes
The ceasefire that took hold in January paused 15 months of heavy fighting ignited by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel.
Twenty-five Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes, and there was a surge in humanitarian aid.
The sides were supposed to begin negotiations in early February on the next phase of the truce, in which Hamas was to release the remaining 59 hostages — 35 of whom are believed to be dead — in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
Those talks never began, and Israel backed out of the ceasefire agreement after Hamas refused Israeli and U.S.-backed proposals to release more hostages ahead of any talks on a lasting truce.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage in the Oct. 7 attack. Most of the captives have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals, while Israeli forces rescued eight alive and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel's offensive has killed at least 49,747 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up more than half the dead but does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its records. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and at its height had displaced around 90% of the population. Israel sealed off the territory of 2 million Palestinians from food, fuel, medicine and other supplies earlier this month to pressure Hamas to change the ceasefire agreement.
Copyright 2025 NPR