“Where is the Red Cross? … where is the United Nations?” a woman screamed outside the emergency department. “My children, since 10pm, are still under the rubble.”
Satellite photos taken on Sunday showed tanks and troops massing outside Khan Younis, the latest target of the offensive, which was home to more than 400,000 people before the war.
“The situation is getting worse by the hour,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative on the occupied Palestinian territory, told reporters via video link from Gaza.
“There’s intensified bombing going on all around, including here in the southern areas, Khan Younis and even in Rafah.”
Israel has ordered people out of nearly two dozen neighbourhoods instead of the entire region, as it did in the north. But with most of Gaza’s population already packed into the south, cramming UN shelters and family homes, there are few places left to go. Israel has barred people who fled the north earlier in the war from returning.
Palestinians say that as Israel continues to strike across the besieged territory, there are no areas where they feel safe, and many fear that if they leave their homes they will never be allowed to return.
Khan Younis in the cross hairs
Satellite photos from Sunday, analysed by Associated Press early on Tuesday, show around 150 Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles just under 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) north of the heart of Khan Younis. The army did not respond to a request for comment and rarely publicises troop deployments.
Constant bombardment on the edge of Khan Younis lit up the sky over the town Monday evening.
Over the past few days, Israeli strikes have been “on a ferocious scale,” said Mohammed Aghaalkurdi, an aid worker with the group Medical Aid for Palestinians in Khan Younis.
Adding to the chaos, phone and internet networks across Gaza collapsed again on Monday evening, the Palestinian telecoms provider PalTel said. It was the latest of several outages that have complicated rescue efforts. Communications were restored hours later.
The area that Israel ordered evacuated covers about a fifth of Khan Younis. Before the war, that area was home to some 117,000 people, and now it also houses more than 50,000 people displaced from the north, living in 21 shelters, the UN said. It was not known how many were fleeing.
Israeli media also reported intense fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants in northern Gaza – in the Jabaliya refugee camp, a built-up urban area, and in the Gaza City district of Shijaiya, both of which have seen intense bombardment and battles in recent weeks.
Quest to eliminate Hamas
Israel says it must dismantle Hamas’ extensive military infrastructure and remove it from power to prevent a repeat of the October 7 attack that ignited the war. The surprise assault through the border fence saw Hamas and other Palestinian militants kill about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capture some 240 men, women and children.
The Israeli military says it makes every effort to spare civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields as it fights in dense residential areas, where it has a labyrinth of tunnels, bunkers, rocket launchers and sniper nests.
But the militant group is deeply rooted in Palestinian society, and its determination to end decades of open-ended Israeli military rule is shared by most Palestinians, even those opposed to its ideology and its attacks on Israeli civilians. That will complicate any effort to eliminate Hamas without causing massive casualties and displacement.
Even after weeks of unrelenting bombardment, Hamas’ leaders in Gaza were able to conduct complex ceasefire negotiations and orchestrate the release of more than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners last week. Palestinian militants have also kept up their rocket fire into Israel, both before and after the truce.
The fighting has meanwhile brought unprecedented death and destruction to the coastal strip.
Netanyahu’s corruption trial resumes in midst of Israel-Gaza war
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The Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the territory since October 7 has surpassed 15,890 people – 70 per cent women and children – with more than 42,000 wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. It says hundreds have been killed or wounded since the ceasefire’s end, and many still are trapped under rubble.
An Israeli army official provided a similar figure for the death toll in Gaza on Monday, after weeks in which Israeli officials had cast doubt on the ministry’s count. The official said at least 15,000 people have been killed, including 5,000 militants, without saying how the military arrived at its figures. The military says 84 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that it was too soon to pass judgment on Israeli operations, but that it was unusual for a modern military to identify precise areas of expected ground manoeuvres and ask people to move out, as Israel has done in Khan Younis.
“These are the kinds of steps that we have asked them to undertake.” he said. “These are the conversations we’re having day in, day out.”
Israel considers flooding Gaza tunnels with seawater, report says
Israel considers flooding Gaza tunnels with seawater, report says
The US has pledged unwavering support to Israel since the October 7 attack, including rushing weapons and other aid to the country.
Air strikes and the ground offensive in northern Gaza have reduced large swathes of Gaza City and nearby areas to a rubble-filled wasteland. Hundreds of thousands of residents fled south during the assault.
Now around 2 million people – most of the territory’s population – are crowded into the 230 square kilometres (90 square miles) of southern and central Gaza. Since the truce’s collapse, the military has ordered the population out of an area of about 62 square kilometres (24 square miles) in and near Khan Younis, according to the evacuation maps issued by the Israeli military.
That further reduces the space available for Palestinians by more than a quarter.
Additional reporting by Reuters