(2 Aug 2014) Palestinian families fleeing the fighting in the Gaza Strip continued to shelter at a school run by the United Nations in Gaza City on Saturday.
Although Israel's military on Saturday told residents of the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya that it would be safe for them to return to their homes, most families sheltering at the New Gaza Preparatory Boys School still did not feel safe to leave the shelter.
The area of Beit Lahiya, from which Gaza militants had fired rockets at Israel in the past, had come under heavy tank fire during Israel's ground operation, forcing
thousands of residents to flee the area.
Also on Saturday, Israeli troops and tanks started a gradual redeployment away from the area east of the south-central Gaza town of Khan Younis to the border with Israel, residents and police officials there said.
Some families left the school on Saturday morning to return to their homes, but most people sheltering there were too scared to do the same.
"This is a trick. They want to kill us in our houses," said housewife Sabah Al Attar, one of those taking refuge at the school, reacting to the Israeli army announcement.
Another evacuee, Aysha Al Sultan, also said she was too scared to leave the school, and that she and her family had nowhere to go.
"We are too scared to go back, even if they ask us to return we don't have houses to go to. Where should we go? There is nothing good there. Nobody understands how, how we are suffering," Al Sultan said.
Israel launched an aerial offensive on July 8 to stop unrelenting Gaza rocket fire toward its cities and communities and later expanded it to a ground offensive mostly aimed at destroying an elaborate Hamas cross-border tunnel network used for attacks inside Israel.
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