Palestinian medics said at least 31 people were killed during an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, with nearly half the deaths in northern areas where the army has been carrying out a month-long campaign that it says aims to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

Palestinians said the new air and ground attacks and forced evacuations amounted to “ethnic cleansing” aimed at evacuating two towns and a populated camp in northern Gaza to create buffer zones. Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas militants who launched attacks from there.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on homes in the town of Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, the largest of the region’s eight historic refugee camps and the focus of the army’s new offensive, medics said.

The rest were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and southern areas; one of them, in Khan Younis, killed eight people, including four children, health officials said.

Israel did not comment on its military operations in Gaza on Sunday.

The statement said that on Saturday, the Israeli army sent a new army division to Jabalia to join two other operational battalions. It was stated that hundreds of Palestinian militants have been killed in the “clashes” that have taken place since October 5, when the raid began.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army’s Palestinian civil affairs office, COGAT, said it facilitated the launch of the second round of the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza on Saturday, with 58,604 children receiving a dose of the vaccine.

Gaza’s health ministry said Israel’s military offensive in northern Gaza prevented vaccinations for thousands of children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.

It was stated that on Saturday, while parents were bringing their children for anti-polio medication, a clinic came under Israeli fire and four children were injured.

‘TRUCE!’

The head of the World Health Organization said in a statement that the clinic incident occurred despite a humanitarian pause in which the two warring sides, Israel and Hamas, agreed to allow the vaccination campaign.

“A @WHO team was just in the area. This attack during a humanitarian pause jeopardizes the sanctity of protecting children’s health and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post. he said. Saturday at X.

“These vital pauses specific to the humanitarian zone must be strictly respected. Ceasefire!” he said.

The Israeli army, which has not yet commented on Tedros’ words, said that it checked the report about the clinic.

A larger ceasefire that would end the war and allow for the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held captive in Gaza, as well as Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, remains elusive due to disagreements between Hamas and Israel.

Hamas rejects recent offers of a temporary ceasefire and wants an agreement to end the war permanently; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the war can only end with the elimination of Hamas.

The war broke out after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli records.

Israeli retaliatory strikes killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced much of Gaza to rubble.