The first impulse was to grab essential goods and flee Khan Younis as soon as Israel gave the order to evacuate the town’s residents on Monday. Ahmed al-Najjar, 26, and his family still traveled a few kilometers toward Rafah, but decided to return home despite the Israeli attacks expected in the region in the coming days, as Israel increasingly claims to be close to eliminating Hamas and completing the armed mission in Gaza.

“We didn’t know where we were going and we didn’t have enough money to buy a new tent. We had to spend the night on the street and this increased our stress. This morning we decided to go back home. There is no room left,” al-Najjar said, as quoted by AFP. “What happens, happens.” We have nothing to lose now“.

It has been a few weeks since Khan Younis was abandoned by the Israeli army after intense bombardments left a trail of destruction in the city. Successive evacuation orders caused a shuttle between the two cities in the Gaza Strip since October 7. Now, whether due to lack of fuel, lack of transportation or simply lack of hope, many residents or displaced people in Khan Younis are deciding to stay and wait to see what happens next.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that around 250 thousand people have been affected by the Israeli military’s order on Monday for civilians to leave al-Qarara, Bani Suhaila and other locations near Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city. In total, since the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced due to the ongoing war.

The Israeli army continues to issue evacuation orders for areas it had previously declared “safe”

Humanitarian aid is not arriving, houses are being destroyed and, every time an area seems to be clear of danger, a new evacuation order is issued. The main difficulties arise from the need to evacuate hospitals, which are full of patients with reduced mobility and in need of constant care. On Tuesday, Khan Younis hospital was practically empty. By early afternoon, the WHO reported that only three patients had not yet been removed from the facility.

On the social network X (formerly Twitter), the Israel Defense Forces insisted that the evacuation order does not apply to patients or medical staff at the Khan Younis European Hospital. Nevertheless, “the hospital staff and patients decided to evacuate themselves,” WHO representative Rik Peeperkorn said on Tuesday.

The call to move towards the Al Mawasi Humanitarian Zone does not apply to patients at the European Hospital or the medical staff working there.

There is no intention to evacuate the European Hospital in the Khan Yunis area. https://t.co/MditW1DJ9g

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 2, 2024

For Luciano Zaccara, a professor of politics at the Center for Gulf Studies at Qatar University, Israel’s evacuation order indicates its failure to achieve the goal of “eliminating Hamas” and its intention to exhaust the Palestinian population in Gaza.

Quoted by Aljazeera, the expert has no doubt that Israel wants to win this war.”exhausting people“The successive evacuation orders “create many more problems and harm to Palestinians who cannot stay in one place for more than a month or 15 days.”

On Tuesday, António Guterres reacted to Israel’s order to evacuate the city of Khan Yunis, saying that it shows, “once again,” that “nowhere is safe in Gaza” for Palestinian civilians.

“This is another stop in this deadly circular motion that the people of Gaza have to face regularly,” the UN Secretary-General said, as quoted by France24, in a statement in which he also reiterated calls for a ceasefire, which he considers the only way to preserve the physical integrity of the population.

The timeline of intermittent “security” in Khan Younis

Khan Younis is the second largest city in the Gaza Strip and was one of the main targets of the Israeli army after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. The southern Gaza city was, in fact, the first place to be bombed by Israel after the end of the ceasefire.

On day December 5, 2023Israeli forces surrounded Khan Younis, displacing thousands of people who sought refuge in the nearby town of Rafah. At the time, Israel indicated that the operation in the region would last up to four weeks.

Khan Younis, one of the Israeli army’s targets and the birthplace of Israel’s main enemies

Just over two months later, the February 14thIsrael has ordered a new evacuation of the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, with snipers firing on anyone moving in and around the hospital.

At the beginning of April Israeli troops withdrew from Khan Younis to prepare for a ground invasion of Rafah, leaving residents to return to a city in ruins, a solution adopted by hundreds of thousands of displaced people. During May, tent camps in Khan Younis increased after Israel ordered the evacuation of 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah.

Pressure on Hamas or Rafah offensive: what does the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Gaza mean?

Alarm bells that a threat to the al-Mawasi “safe zone” between Rafah and Khan Younis could be approaching began ringing on June 23, after an Israeli strike killed 25 people. Confirmation came on Monday, July 1, when Israel issued an evacuation order for eastern Khan Younis, directing residents to an unspecified “humanitarian zone.”