PALESTINIANS reported heavy fighting with Israeli forces in northern Gaza today.

This followed another order by Israel for Palestinians to evacuate the area as it launches a ground operation a year into the war on Palestinians in Gaza.

At least 15 people, including two women and four children, were killed today in the fighting in Jabaliya, the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital said.

The Israeli military said that it killed about 20 Palestinians in air strikes and ground fighting in Jabaliya. It said troops located a large quantity of weapons, including grenades and rifles.

The north, including Gaza City, was the first target of Israel’s ground offensive. Entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble and the region has been largely isolated by Israeli troops since last October, when Israel ordered everyone to leave.

Hundreds of thousands of people have remained there despite the harsh conditions, leading Israel to order another mass evacuation in recent days. Israel has prevented residents who left the north during the war from returning.

Jabaliya is home to a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 Nakba (“catastrophe,”) when 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed as part of the establishment of the state of Israel.

Palestinian residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery were pounding Jabaliya as well as Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, towns near the border.

“The situation is extremely difficult. The bombing and explosions haven’t stopped,” said Mahmoud Abu Shehatah, a Jabaliya resident. “It’s like the first days of the war.”

The Israeli army has placed Jabaliya under siege as it steps up its attacks on north Gaza, having failed to quell Hamas and its allies in a year of fighting.

Meanwhile an official of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) highlighted today that the year of fighting has seen the killing of some 175 media workers in Gaza by the Israelis.

IFJ deputy general secretary Tim Dawson told Al Jazeera that the journalist death toll was an “absolutely shocking level of loss of life.

“Well over 10 per cent of journalists in Gaza have lost their lives since this conflict began.”

He explained that past conflict zones had an average death rate for infantry soldiers of around 5 per cent.

He said that given the high death rate of media workers in Gaza it was “very hard not to conclude” these were deliberate killings by Israel.

“What is most important now is for the International Criminal Court to intensify its investigation.

“What we need is judicial review of the evidence and a holding to account, where necessary, of those who perpetrated war crimes.”