[Source: Reuters]

Israeli forces carrying out a weeks-long offensive in northern Gaza ordered any residents remaining in Beit Hanoun to leave the town on Sunday, citing Palestinian militant rocket fire from the area, residents said.

The instruction to leave has caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected, the residents said.

Israel says its almost three-month-old campaign in northern Gaza is aimed at Hamas militants and preventing them from regrouping. Its instructions to civilians to evacuate are meant to keep them out of harm’s way, the military says.

Palestinian and United Nations officials say no place is safe in Gaza and that evacuations worsen the humanitarian conditions of the population.

Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya has been cleared of people and razed, fuelling speculation Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends.

The Israeli military announced its new push into the Beit Hanoun area on Saturday. It said the rocket fire into Israel continued throughout Sunday despite the intense operation there.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost communication with people still trapped in the town, and it was unable to send teams into the area because of the raid.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 23 people on Sunday. One of those strikes killed seven people and wounded others at Al-WAFA Hospital in Gaza City, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said in a statement.

Later on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed seven additional people in a house in Beit Hanoun, medics said. There was no immediate Israeli comment.