Israeli Forces Strike in Humanitarian Zone; Scores Reported Killed
Israel renewed its military assault in parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Monday, in a ground and air operation that local health officials said killed and wounded scores of people, adding to the misery of a city deeply scarred after nine months of war.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had launched the operation because intelligence indicated that Palestinian militants had used the eastern part of the city — part of an area previously designated as a humanitarian, or “safe” zone — to fire rockets toward Israel and that Hamas was attempting to regroup there. Earlier on Monday, the Israeli military had warned people in that area to leave, and photographs showed thousands fleeing.
The Gazan health ministry said 70 bodies were brought to Nasser Hospital, and at least 200 other people had been wounded, adding that others were almost certainly buried under rubble. The Palestine Red Crescent said its teams in the area had dealt with at least 12 people who had been killed and 50 wounded.
Israel’s new evacuation area was previously part of its safe zone.
Evacuation
zone declared
Monday
Evacuation zone
declared since May
Israel’s new evacuation area was previously part of its safe zone.
Evacuation
zone declared
Monday
Evacuation zone
declared since
early May
Dr. Mohammed Saqer, the director general of nursing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said hundreds of injured men, women, children and older people had streamed into the hospital, which lacked mattresses, blankets, syringes and other essentials.
“The situation is appalling,” Dr. Saqer said in an interview, adding that some injuries had necessitated amputations and that some people had sustained serious burns.
Palestinians carrying bodies outside Nasser Hospital after Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Monday.Credit…Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Israeli military said on Monday that it had ordered the evacuation of eastern Khan Younis because it was “about to forcefully operate against” Hamas in the area. Residents were told to seek temporary shelter closer to the coast in an area that Israel has designated as a humanitarian zone.
The military had previously ordered an evacuation of the city but not everyone left, aid workers and residents said, and on Monday the military said that “remaining residents” of eastern neighborhoods of the city should go to the “adjusted Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi.”
“The calls for the temporary evacuation are being communicated to residents through SMS messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic,” the military said.
The military said it would “continue to act against the Hamas terrorist organization, which uses the Gazan civilians as a human shield for its terrorist activities and infrastructure.”
It was not possible to determine the sequence of Monday’s events in Khan Younis and whether the evacuation orders preceded the strikes. Photographs showed thousands of people attempting to flee the area apparently in terror, some on donkey carts and others on foot.
Almost all of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes and many have relocated repeatedly since Oct. 7, when Hamas led an attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people and triggered the war.
Palestinians heading west from an area in eastern Khan Younis on Monday.Credit…Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Since then, more than 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza and nearly 90,000 others have been injured, according to Palestinian health authorities. The ministry’s figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but list the bodies of men, women, children and the elderly it has identified as distinct categories.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman with the main U.N. agency for the Palestinians, UNRWA, said that conditions in zone were “very dire,” with a lack of shelter, water, food, medicine and sanitation, and that many civilians — large numbers of whom had moved repeatedly from one part of Gaza to another to seek safety — were no longer sure where to go.
Khan Younis was the site of a major Israeli military ground operation in the spring aimed at dislodging Hamas’s military wing and destroying tunnels that Israel said Hamas had built. At that time, Israel also told residents to flee, and many went south to the city of Rafah on Gaza’s border with Egypt. Residents who returned to Khan Younis in April said that parts of the city had been so badly damaged as to be almost unrecognizable.
In a separate incident on Sunday, Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, said that Israeli forces shot at a four-car U.N. convoy heading north to Gaza City, hitting one car five times, but causing no casualties.
Ms. Wateridge, who was in the vehicle that was hit, said that bullets had pierced the vehicle while it was stationary at a holding point in front of the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. She described the incident as terrifying and said she was fortunate to have been sitting in the front passenger seat away from where the bullets penetrated the car.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
— Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Iyad Abuheweila
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