By SAMY MAGDY and WAFAA SHURAFA DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces deepened an operation in the Gaza Strip’s largest city in what the military said was meant to weed out militants, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing on Monday from an area already ravaged in the early weeks of the nine-month-long war. The incursion into the eastern part of Gaza City expands Israel’s engagement in the northern part of the beleaguered territory, an area Israel said it had seized control of months ago yet which has seen pockets of militant resurgence that have scaled back Israeli military gains and drawn forces back into such operations.