Israeli troops bombed the besieged city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesdaywhere residents are trying to find shelter amid the heaviest fighting in the two-month war against Hamas.
The streets of the city, where Israeli ground troops also operate, were virtually empty on Wednesday morningwhile hospitals do not stop receiving dead and wounded, according to AFP journalists.
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Hundreds of thousands of civilians gather in and around this city, many of them displaced several times since the start of this war which pushes them into an ever-tightening perimeter near the closed border with Egypt.
Thousands of them continue to flee towards the southern city of Rafah, responding to instructions from the Israeli army.
“We were in the center of Khan Yunis. The entire city suffers incessant destruction and bombing. There are many people there who arrive from the north in disastrous conditions, without shelter, looking for their children”Hassan al Qadi, a resident of Khan Younis displaced to Rafah, told AFP.
“We want to understand. If they want to kill us, they should surround us in one place and eliminate us all together. But pushing us to move from one place to another is not fair,” he said.
Khan Yunis, surrounded
After entering the northern Gaza Strip by land on October 27, Israeli troops expanded their operations to the entire territory controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas.
(Keep reading: Hamas assures that it will not negotiate with Israel if the attacks in the Gaza Strip continue.)
Israel vowed to eliminate the group after the Oct. 7 attack in which Islamist militants killed 1,200 people.mostly civilians, and took about 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
The offensive against Gaza has left 16,248 dead, mostly women and children, according to the press office of the Hamas-run government.
Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi announced Tuesday that his troops are “surrounding the Khan Younis area.” “We have taken many Hamas strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip and now we are acting against their strongholds in the south,” he said.
Sources from Hamas and Islamic Jihad explained to AFP that their militants are fighting Israeli troops to prevent them from entering Khan Younis.
According to the press office of the Hamas government, artillery fire left “dozens dead and wounded” on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in the east of this city.
The movement’s Ministry of Health also reported a bombing against the Nuseirat refugee camp (central Gaza), which left six dead, and another with several deaths in Jabaliya (north).
‘Absolute horror’
Israel had urged civilians in northern Gaza to seek refuge in the south of this densely populated territory.
Many fled to Khan Yunis thinking it would be safer. But with the expansion of its operations, Israel urged the population to move further south, triggering “panic, fear and anxiety”, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the director of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
(You may be interested in: Why did Khan Yunis become the new target of Israel’s war in Gaza?).
“The humanitarian situation is catastrophic,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
“Palestinians in Gaza live in absolute horror that is only getting worse,” he added.
The World Food Program said aid distribution in Gaza was “almost impossible” and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that it only reached, and in limited quantity, the city of Rafah.
The Israeli army sends daily messages to Khan Yunis warning of an imminent bombardment and urging the population to leave their neighborhoods.
But the UN, which estimated that 28% of the Gaza Strip is affected by these evacuation orders, considered “impossible” to establish safe zones to accommodate civilians as Israel intends.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza,” criticized UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.
“Not the hospitals, not the shelters, not the refugee camps. Nobody is safe,” he insisted. The UN estimates that 1.9 million people (three-quarters of the population) were displaced by the war in Gaza.
‘Mission critical’ to rescue hostages
The fighting resumed after the collapse of the truce negotiated with the mediation of Qatar that allowed the exchange of dozens of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
The Israeli government estimates that 138 hostages are still being held in Gaza, whose rescue is a “critical mission,” in the words of army spokesman Daniel Hagari. “Every minute of captivity puts your life at risk,” stressed the spokesperson, who assured that “the Red Cross must have access to the hostages held by Hamas.”
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In the midst of hostilities, diplomatic maneuvers continue to try to stop the conflict. The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani said his country is “constantly working to renew” the truce.
In a telephone conversation, the heads of diplomacy of the United States and China, Antony Blinken and Wang Yi, They agreed on the need to de-escalate the conflict.
And Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday for a diplomatic tour of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in which he will also address this war.
AFP
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