Israel justified the attack by saying Hamas had a “terrorist infrastructure” in the area. Israeli forces had left the area in April after a four-month military offensive.
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The Israeli army on Monday again attacked the town of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, with dozens of deaths, and ordered the population in the east of the city to leave the area again.
In a statement, the army justified the decision by the fact that the Islamist movement Hamas has a “terrorist infrastructure” in the area, designated by the Israelis as a “safe zone” in May, at the start of their offensive on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza and where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were concentrated.
Israeli forces left Khan Younis in April, following a four-month-long military offensive. At the end of this offensive, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi announced the near “elimination” of Hamas after losing most of its military capabilities.
However, Israel now admits that the Palestinian armed group launches numerous rockets from that area, and suspects that Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, considered the main person responsible for the attacks of October 7, remains in one of the underground tunnels in the area.
The Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip announced at least 70 deaths following the Israeli attacks on Khan Yunis, as part of the population was again displaced to the “humanitarian zone” of Mawasi, whose area was reduced.
Khan Younis was a “safe” refuge until a new evacuation order came. Movement and bustle continue inside Gaza, but some choose to stay.
“The massacre attacks carried out by the Zionist occupation in the Khan Yunis region since morning until now” have caused the death of “70 martyrs and more than 200 wounded, many of them in serious condition,” the ministry said.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that The order to evacuate part of the city’s population affects 400,000 peopleaccusing Israeli forces of “committing crimes against humanity in an organized, planned and premeditated manner, forcing thousands of displaced people and civilians to leave their homes and shelters, where they already had a difficult life,” according to a statement.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the evacuation order forced the closure of clinics in the eastern part of the city.
????Palestinian Red Crescent teams today recovered several martyrs from the bombing of a house in Abasan al-Kabira, east of #KhanYunis city and transported them to Nasser Medical Hospital.
???? Filmed by volunteer Raed Al-Sharif. pic.twitter.com/BzOJSn3XNk— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) July 22, 2024
Although the Israeli military says it aims to “mitigate damage to the civilian population and keep civilians away from combat zones,” there have been several reports of attacks by Jewish troops in areas with high concentrations of population, including Rafah or in displaced persons camps in the central Gaza Strip, including the July 13 attack in the humanitarian zone of Mawasi, which left 90 dead and 300 wounded according to local authorities.
These new orders put a squeeze on the scarce land available in the Mawasi area, where more than a million displaced people are concentrated, most of whom come from Rafah.
“The situation is impossible. The cycle of fear and displacement has been going on for too long. Everyone is exhausted,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said in a message on social media.
Families in Khan Younis have once again received evacuation orders from the Israeli authorities.
Thousands of people are on the move again, fleeing strikes and military operations.
The situation is impossible. The cycle of fear and displacement has lasted too long. Everyone is exhausted. pic.twitter.com/HwdMLwlqxF
—UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 22, 2024
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, this Monday More than 39,000 dead since the start of the Israeli offensive in October and at least 80,000 injured.
This toll does not include the thousands of bodies that remain under the rubble in hard-to-reach places, in a scenario of almost total devastation.
On July 5, three academics published a paper in the scientific journal The Lancet stating that it was “not implausible” that the death toll in the Gaza Strip had exceeded 186,000 in the past nine and a half months – five times the figure reported by Gaza health ministry officials, referring to identified deaths. The estimate is based on a “conservative” history of other conflicts, of four indirect deaths for every direct death, using figures from Gaza health authorities.
This estimate includes lack of medical care and medicine, disease, deliberate starvation, abductions by Israeli forces and summary executions.
The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas was triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist group on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, which left around 1,200 dead and more than two hundred hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
The Israeli army has responded with a devastating military campaign in Gaza that has already caused more than 38,800 deaths and nearly 90,000 wounded, according to the Ministry of Health of the enclave, controlled by Hamas since 2007.
Source: Observadora
