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Israeli military strikes killed at least 55 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry reported on 15 October, as Israel continues its operation, known as the Generals' Plan, to expel northern Gaza's remaining 300,000 Palestinian inhabitants.
Palestinian health officials reported at least 11 people killed by Israeli fire on Tuesday near the Al-Falouja neighborhood in Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, while 10 more were killed when an Israeli missile targeted a house in Bani Suhaila in Khan Yunis in the south of the strip.
Earlier on Tuesday, another Israeli airstrike destroyed three houses in the Sabra suburb of Gaza City. Rescue workers said they recovered two bodies from the destroyed homes, while 12 others believed to have been in the houses at the time of the strike remain missing.
Five more were killed when a house was struck in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
Monday was a particularly bloody day, as Israeli artillery fire struck the food distribution center in Jabalia refugee camp, killing ten people.
The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said shells hit inside and outside the distribution center on Monday morning as some hungry people were trying to get food handouts.
Israeli forces also bombed tent shelters in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital complex early on Monday. Several people were burned to death, and dozens suffered burns before rescue workers were able to put out the fires.
The death toll resulting from Israeli strikes on northern Gaza in recent days caused a spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to condemn the "large number of civilian casualties."
"The secretary-general condemns the large number of civilian casualties in the intensifying Israeli campaign in northern Gaza, including its schools, displacing sheltered Palestinian civilians," he told reporters at a news conference in New York.
The killings come as Palestinians must decide whether to stay in their homes or flee to the south as the Israeli military has demanded.
The UN said on Sunday that more than 50,000 people had fled the Jabalia area but that others remained trapped in their homes amid increased bombardment and fighting on the ground. Others refuse to flee, knowing Israeli forces would likely never let them return even after the fighting ends.
Palestinians in Gaza are aware of reports in the Israeli media that the military seeks to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza, in a repeat of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their lands in 1948, known as the Nakba, which forced some 750,000 Palestinians to become refugees, including many expelled to Gaza, in the first place.
Known as the Generals' Plan, Israel's effort to expel as many civilians as possible from northern Gaza and starve any who remain, along with any Hamas fighters, is beginning to receive attention even in the western press.
The Financial Times (FT) reported on 15 October that "Israel appears to be starting to implement a controversial plan to force Hamas into submission by laying siege to the north of Gaza and starving those who remain, Israeli human rights groups have warned."
"The so-called Generals' Plan, created by former national security adviser Giora Eiland, calls for Israel to order civilians to leave north Gaza for other areas of the enclave, and then declare the north a closed military zone. Those who did not leave would be considered military targets, and totally cut off from supplies of food, water, and medicines," FT said.
AP reported that "one official with knowledge of the matter said parts of the plan are already being implemented, without specifying which parts."
FT quoted Tania Hary, executive director of the human rights group Gisha, as saying that implementing such a plan is a clear violation of the laws of war.
"People who can't go - and also anyone who chooses to stay - don't lose their status as non-combatants. They continue to be civilians," she said.
"And Israel still has an obligation to protect them and to follow the rules of international humanitarian law."
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