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CAIRO/GAZA —Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress.
The latest Israeli attacks destroyed homes in towns east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and thousands of people were forced to head west to seek shelter, residents said.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received distress calls from residents trapped in their homes in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis, but were unable to reach the town.
Medics later said two Palestinians had been killed in an airstrike on Bani Suhaila, where the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said fighters had detonated a bomb against an Israeli army personnel carrier.
The Israeli military, which has been trying to eradicate Hamas since the October 7 attack on Israel, said it had been operating in areas from which fighters had been able to fire rockets into Israel and attack Israeli troops.
Gaza health officials said Israeli military strikes in the past 24 hours had killed at least 55 people, the latest casualties in a war that health authorities in the enclave say has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
"Where should we go? Shall we cross into the sea?" said Ghada, who has been displaced with her family six times during the war, via a chat app from Hamad City in northwestern Khan Younis.
"We are exhausted, starved, and want the war to end now, now not an hour later," she said.
Residents said they had been ordered to head west toward a designated humanitarian area but that the area was now unsafe. The Israeli military issued the evacuation orders on social media, and some residents received orders to leave by phone.
Israeli forces also mounted airstrikes on several areas of central and northern Gaza, including one on al-Bureij camp in central Gaza that health officials said killed nine people.
In the southern area of Rafah, the military said it engaged in close-quarter combat with militants.
"During scans in the area, the troops located a tunnel shaft, a large number of weapons, and night vision equipment inside a children's bedroom in a civilian building," the military said.
One soldier was seriously injured during combat on Wednesday, the military said. It has so far lost 326 troops in the war in Gaza.
The Palestinian Health Ministry does not distinguish between combatant and non-combatants in its fatality reports, but local health officials say most of the Palestinians killed have been civilians. Israel says at least a third are fighters.
Hamas-led fighters triggered the war on October 7 by storming into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies. About 120 hostages are being held though Israel believes a third of them are dead.
Some Palestinians who gathered at a hospital in Khan Younis before funerals criticized the United States, Israel's most important international ally, for welcoming Netanyahu.
He addressed Congress later Wednesday and is to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would meet Netanyahu in Florida on Friday.
"The United States is a main partner in what is happening in Gaza. We are being killed because of the United States. We are being slaughtered by American planes, American ships, American tanks and American troops," said Kazem Abu Taha, a displaced resident from Rafah.
The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.