The Israeli military issued a sweeping evacuation order for the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, signaling that it could relaunch intensive assaults in the area.

The order, which came during the Eid al-Fitr holiday ending Ramadan, heralded renewed hardship for Palestinians in the southernmost city of Rafah, which has been battered by the war between Israel and Hamas. The city has endured periods of being overwhelmed with displaced people and of being depopulated by evacuation orders. The war restarted two weeks ago after a monthslong ceasefire collapsed.

In the past, the Israeli military has ordered evacuations before both aerial attacks and ground maneuvers that it has said were targeting Hamas.

Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, on Monday posted a map of the affected areas on his social media accounts, including Rafah and parts of neighboring Khan Younis. He said Palestinians must relocate to shelters in a coastal region to the north.

Israel’s military “is returning to fighting with great force to take out the capabilities of terrorists organizations in these areas,” he wrote.

This month, Adraee announced an evacuation order for some neighborhoods in Rafah, and the maps he posted Monday again included those.

It was not clear how many people were still in Rafah when Adraee made his post and how many intended to follow his instructions. While hundreds of thousands of people lived there before the war, wide swaths of the city have since been reduced to rubble.

Over the past two weeks, Adraee has issued evacuation orders for other parts of Gaza, but many residents of those areas have seemingly ignored them.

Since the start of the war ignited by the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel, Palestinians in Gaza have been repeatedly displaced by the fighting — a miserable experience that has forced many people to live in crowded makeshift shelters next to strangers.

The Israeli military resumed its attacks against Hamas in Gaza on March 18, after Israel and Hamas failed to reach an agreement to extend a ceasefire that started in January.

In Lebanon

The Israeli military struck a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs early Tuesday, killing at least three people, as it said it targeted a member of the Hezbollah militant group.

The airstrike came without warning days after Israel launched an attack on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Friday for the first time since a ceasefire ended fighting between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group in November. The Israeli military then had warned residents in the crowded suburbs before the attack after two projectiles were launched from southern Lebanon, which Hezbollah denied firing.

At least seven other people were wounded in Tuesday’s strike, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The Israeli military said in a statement the latest strike targeted a Hezbollah member who had been helping the Palestinian Hamas group in the Gaza Strip in attacks against Israel. It said the airstrike was “under the direction of the Shin Bet,” Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.

Hezbollah did not comment on the strike.

Yemen update

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed Tuesday that they shot down another American MQ-9 Reaper drone, even as the U.S. kept up its campaign of intense airstrikes targeting the group.

The reported shootdown over Yemen’s contested Marib governate came as airstrikes hit around Sanaa, the country’s rebel-held capital, and Saada, a stronghold for the Houthis.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new warning to both the Houthis and their main benefactor, Iran, describing the group as having “been decimated” by the campaign of strikes that began March 15.

Suspected U.S. airstrikes struck around Yemen’s rebel-held capital overnight into Monday morning, attacks that the Iranian-backed Houthis said killed at least three people.

The full extent of the damage wasn’t clear. The attacks followed a night of airstrikes Friday that appeared particularly intense compared with other days in the campaign that began March 15.

The strikes around Sanaa, Yemen’s capital held by the Houthis since 2014, and Hajjah governorate also wounded 12 others, the rebels said.

This report contains information from the Associated Press.