Israel bombs Khan Younis again, forcing thousands to flee Gaza | International

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants have been forcibly moving from one place to another in the strip for nine months at a pace set by attacks by Israeli occupation troops. Khan Younis, in the south, amid army bombardment, is once again the scene of an exodus of thousands of people (up to 250,000, according to UN estimates) after the army, which has killed 37,925 Gazans since October, began to press back from the eastern sector of this city, which it has already controlled for four months, according to official figures. At the same time, clashes with Palestinian factions are intensifying in other parts of the enclave, some of which it is already believed to have controlled for months.

The armed forces attacked different targets in Khan Yunis, Gaza’s second most populated district, from where, according to military spokesman Avichai Adraee, the Palestinian resistance fired about twenty projectiles on Monday. During the night from Monday to Tuesday, “fighter aircraft, in cooperation with the Southern Command, attacked terrorist targets in the area, including about 20 rockets launched yesterday towards (Israeli) cities around the Gaza Strip. The targets attacked included a weapons depot, operational apartments and other terrorist structures, ”Adraee said from his social network account X (formerly Twitter).

Earlier, on Monday, he made public a new order of forced displacement for the residents of twenty locations east of Khan Younis, where it borders the border fence with Israel, to the west, on the Mediterranean coast. Israel considers these places unsafe for residents.

The bombings and population movements were ordered after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, according to his office, that Israel was “moving toward the end of the phase of dismantling the Hamas terrorist forces and will continue to attack their remnants.”

“Just weeks after people were forced to return to devastated Khan Yunis, Israeli authorities have issued new evacuation orders for the area,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) condemned in a statement. The agency estimates that up to 250,000 people will have to flee the area “even though nowhere in Gaza is safe.” Many came from neighbouring Rafah, the epicentre of Israeli attacks over the past two months.

Another dance that does not stop is that of health centers harassed by soldiers, the Khan Younis European Hospital has been left practically empty due to the need to evacuate patients and workers who have to avoid the threat of military Israelis, warns the World Health Organization (WHO). Rick Peeperkorn, representative of that UN agency in Palestine, said that this Tuesday at noon there were only three patients left in the facilities, while the evacuated hospital did not suffer damage, reports Reuters. Local journalists have shown photographs of the transfer of the wounded and sick.

The Israeli army has assured that the orders issued for the population to move towards western Gaza will not affect the prisoners and staff of the European Hospital. Earlier, they had already denied that there was an order to evacuate the hospitals in Khan Younis, as was the case shortly before the army’s assault on the Al Nasser Complex last February.

Israel’s latest order to expel the population, which the UN considers illegal, once again creates a “heartbreaking, terrifying and incredibly difficult” situation, Sam Rose, UNRWA planning director for the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the Strip, explained in a statement to the Qatari network Al Jazeera. “This represents another chapter of misery for millions of people” of whom “most have been displaced several times. Some people had just returned from Rafah, where they were displaced a few weeks ago,” Rose said, adding that the Al Mawasi area where they have been sent is “overcrowded,” with no space for new tents, water, infrastructure or access to health services. Since the order given is “urgent,” the civilians “know that if they do not leave within 24 hours, the worst awaits them.”

Meanwhile, clashes are taking place between the army and Palestinian armed resistance groups in other parts of the enclave, where, according to officials, in the past 24 hours, as of Tuesday afternoon, at least 25 Gazans and two Israeli soldiers have been killed by both parties. The Al Araby television network broadcast images of the attack in Gaza City this Tuesday, showing a destroyed bread stand with traces of blood, without giving the number of victims. The Shuja’iyya neighborhood in the east of the enclave capital remains the site of fighting. There, last December, Israeli soldiers killed three hostages of that nationality when they were carrying a white flag in an attempt to gain freedom.

Follow all international updates Facebook And Xor in Our weekly newsletter,