RAFAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — Israel struck Gaza on Sunday and troops were battling militants in several areas of the Palestinian territory after an Israeli evacuation order sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing from Rafah.

In Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city which sits on the Egyptian border, the Kuwaiti hospital said on Sunday it had received the bodies of “18 martyrs” killed in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours.

Gaza’s civil defense agency reported at least two fatalities, a father and son, both doctors, in a strike on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Months after Israel said it had dismantled Hamas’s command structure in northern Gaza, which was devastated by intense violence in the early stages of the war, fighting has resumed in recent days in Jabalia refugee camp and Gaza City’s Zeitun neighborhood.

Military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said late on Saturday that “in recent weeks we have identified attempts by Hamas to rebuild its military capabilities in Jabalia, and we are acting to destroy these attempts.” He also said there was an operation in Zeitun.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondents reported intense clashes and heavy gunfire from Israeli helicopters in the Zeitun area early on Sunday, with medics and witnesses saying troops were engaged in combat in Zeitun as well as Jabalia.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faced increasing domestic pressure to secure the release of the remaining hostages, has pledged to “eliminate” Hamas battalions in Rafah.

Israel defied international opposition this week and sent tanks and troops into eastern Rafah, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.

The military on Saturday expanded an evacuation order for eastern Rafah and said 300,000 Palestinians had left the area.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave a similar estimate of “around 300,000 people” who have fled Rafah over the past week, decrying in a post on X the “forced and inhumane displacement of Palestinians” who have “nowhere safe to go” in Gaza.

Palestinians in Rafah, many of them displaced by the fighting elsewhere in the territory, piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings onto vehicles and prepared to flee again.

Residents were told to go to the “humanitarian zone” of Al-Mawasi, on the coast northwest of Rafah, though aid groups have warned it was not ready for an influx of people.

EU chief Charles Michel said on social media that Rafah civilians were being ordered to “unsafe zones,” denouncing it as “unacceptable”.

Hisham Adwan, spokesperson for the Gaza crossings authority, told AFP on Sunday that the Rafah crossing has remained closed since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side on Tuesday, “preventing the entry of humanitarian aid” and the departure of patients in need of medical care.

He said Israeli forces “have advanced from the eastern border” about 2.5 kilometers into Rafah.