Dozens killed, thousands displaced as Israeli operation begins in Khan Younis

“Since the morning they began bombing, dropping evacuation leaflets on us,” said Mariam Moussa, speaking to Mada Masr while holding her child as they traveled out of Khan Younis on Monday.

Moussa is one of thousands who fled the area after Israeli forces launched a new offensive there yesterday, ordering residents to evacuate areas in the central and eastern parts of the city and conducting aerial raids which killed at least 70 Palestinians as of the time of writing.

The Israeli military claimed it was conducting the operations due to “terrorist infrastructure” it said Hamas embedded in the area in order to launch rockets targeting nearby Israeli settlements.

Palestinian residents being evacuated said that Israeli jets began bombing early on Monday morning at the same time as leaflets were distributed telling people to leave.

Soad Abdalla, speaking to Mada Masr after being forcibly displaced from east Khan Younis and on the road to find a new place to shelter, described “rockets and shelling from the morning.” Al-Araby TV correspondent Abdullah Meqdad reported that Israeli tanks advanced into the center of the town of Bani Suheila, in the east of Khan Younis, on the same day.

The raids killed over 73 people in Khan Younis on Monday, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. It noted that 24 children were among those killed.

Another evacuee, Mohamed al-Ashram, likewise described “bombing from the morning and shelling and drones.” He added, “What scared us was how many people were fleeing.” 

Hundreds were visible on the roads out of east Khan Younis on Monday, sharing donkey carts, cars or small vans piled high with mattresses and materials to build tents, and transport food, water, household and personal possessions.

As many as 400,000 people were at risk of displacement, according to reports on the number of residents who were taking shelter in the zones outlined in the evacuation maps the Israeli military posted on Monday.

Gaza's Civil Defense Directorate said that the expansion of the Occupation’s combat zone had reduced the areas classified as humanitarian spaces from 45 to 28 square kilometers.

Many were unsure where they should turn next, telling Mada Masr that this was the sixth or seventh time they had been displaced. 

“They told us to go to safe areas in Hamad,” an area in northwestern Khan Younis, Moussa said. “But we don’t know where our fate lies.”

Aid organizations meanwhile described a new influx of displaced people to Mawasi, saying they were struggling to meet the scale of need in the coastal area to which many have fled. Nedal Hajila, who works with the World Central Kitchen to provide food and tents to the displaced, told Mada Masr that there is a shortage of materials needed to set up new tents, such as nylon and wood. She said the humanitarian zone toward which the Israeli military instructed Khan Younis residents to move is already overcrowded with tents.

Israel’s military conducted a similar operation in Khan Younis in December, mounting an incursion into the city’s east and stationing the 98th Brigade there for a period of around four months.

In their wake, the Israeli soldiers left widespread destruction, with civilian homes and vital facilities grazed to the ground. 

Yet with many areas of the Gaza Strip overcrowded with tents or semi-functional facilities hosting the 83 percent of the coastal enclave’s population which has been displaced, some had returned to the remains of their neighborhoods in east Khan Younis. 

Moussa described her displacement journey. “This is the sixth time we’ve been displaced. We were displaced the first time from Beni Suheila to Khan Younis, then from Khan Younis to Mawasi, then to Rafah and then we returned and then were displaced again.”

Mostafa Abi Naja, another former resident of Beni Suheila described a similar cycle for him and his family. “From where? From Beni Suheila to the school, from the school to Khan Younis, then to the sea, back to Khan Younis and then back to Beni Suheila.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement on Monday that the Israeli military is intentionally “cycling the displacement of residents to exacerbate their suffering.” 

Abi Naja said the endless displacement is exhausting. “Why are they treating us like this? Evacuation, evacuation, evacuation. Better relieve us of this life, we don’t want it.”