What’s happened in Gaza since the truce ended?

In the three days since the truce ended, Israel is replaying in the south the same steps it took in the north.

Those steps saw the Occupation devastate the north beyond recognition in a period of just seven weeks, displace over 1 million people and kill over 15,000 people in the process.

After a truce which gave the strip seven days of relative calm, Occupation planes dropped leaflets on the residents of Khan Younis in the strip’s south on Friday. The leaflets contained evacuation orders, telling them to leave Qarara, Khirbet Khazaa, Abasan, and Bani Suheila. They ordered the residents to “evacuate immediately and head to shelters in the Rafah area,” describing Khan Younis as a “dangerous fighting zone.”

Around 1,300,000 people are thought to be in Khan Younis, according to the Khan Younis Relief Committee, a people’s organization comprising several local charities.

“What happened in Gaza and the north tells us that these leaflets are serious,” said Abu Yazan, a father of eight from western Khan Younis.

Mohammad, another Khan Younis resident who lives near an area of eastern Khan Younis subject to evacuation orders, said: “It is terrifying. My family and I are displaced from Gaza. My mother is sick and unable to move, so I’m trying to arrange an emergency evacuation plan for the worst conditions, most importantly, how to transport my mother and scatter the family into groups. We are many, and so far there is no place for us to rent or host us, or even temporary shelter centers.”

 Evacuation is not a guarantee of safety. Israeli forces have targeted the Salah al-Din road linking Khan Younis and Rafah, with several deaths reported in Rafah. The Israeli army targeted Rafah and Khan Younis in the south on Friday, in addition to an area in the eastern part of the central region, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. More deaths and injuries ensued after the targeting a school sheltering displaced people in the Maghazi camp and residential towers in Khan Younis governorate in southern Gaza. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation's air force and artillery continued to target the northern and eastern parts of Khan Younis and its agricultural areas.

At least another 200 people have been killed since Friday, bringing the death toll since October to 15,207 Palestinians, Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said on Saturday night. Over 40,000 people are injured and thousands are missing under the rubble.

This is the same scenario residents of the north were subjected to, spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Raed al-Nems told Mada Masr. Residents were told to leave Khan Younis and head to Rafah, then the Occupation intensified its aerial and artillery bombardment of the city, leading to hundreds of injuries and deaths, he said.

Many people leaving northern Gaza following the Occupation’s evacuation orders were killed or injured as they tried to make the 25 km journey to Gaza’s south during the first seven weeks of the war.

Since Friday, Israeli forces have also advanced into Khan Younis from the north east, according to journalists and residents of the city who spoke to Mada Masr. The Occupation separated Khan Younis from central Gaza, establishing a military checkpoint cutting the city off from the remainder of the strip to the north.

Residents in the besieged city said that Israeli forces were instructing them to move to the west of Khan Younis or to other adjacent areas, until "targeted areas are cleared."

Meanwhile the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that it had targeted an Israeli force stationed inside a building in Khan Yunis, and had shelled Tel Aviv with a barrage of rockets.

The assault on southern Gaza could force as many as one million Palestinian refugees into Egypt, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarani warned on Thursday.

The scenario, which has been circulating for weeks in news reports and discussed in political circles as a potential outcome of Israel’s assault on the strip, has been strongly rejected in public statements by Egypt.

Meeting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Dubai at the UN Climate Change Conference on Saturday, US Vice President Kamala Harris said that the United States fiercely opposes the forced relocation of Gaza residents outside the strip.

US officials were reported to have discussed Israel’s hostilities in Gaza’s south even before the truce ended. "We have reinforced this in very clear language with the government of Israel – very important that the conduct of the Israeli campaign when it moves to the south must be done in a way that is to a maximum extent not designed to produce significant further displacement of persons," a US administration official told Reuters last week.

Rashed Rajab, a resident of northern Gaza who fled to the south at the beginning of the war, told Mada Masr that displacement to the Egyptian border is not a practical option, at least for residents of Khan Younis. Palestinian Rafah — which lies adjacent to Egyptian Rafah across the border — is no safer than Khan Younis itself, he said.

Abu Yazan also said that he has no interest in leaving Gaza. “Even if we are forced to be displaced to the south, we will not leave Palestinian land. It is better to die here than to be displaced outside it.”

How the truce ended

The Occupation announced the end of the truce on Friday morning, claiming that Hamas had violated the agreement by firing shells toward Israeli territory. Shortly afterward, Israel began bombing Gaza.

In successive statements later in the day, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, announced that it responded to the Occupation’s renewed bombing on Gaza by targeting Ashkelon, Sderot, Bir al-Sabaa, the Re'im military base, the Netivot and Ashdod settlements and a trooper carrier in northern Gaza.

The terms of the truce, which began on November 24, was an exchange of prisoners in successive batches, and with children and civilian women being the first to be released. The release of military personnel and civilian men — a more complex matter for negotiation — was to be discussed later.

The truce allowed urgently needed aid to enter Gaza in larger volumes than the Occupation had allowed so far since the war began – even though it was still meager compared to pre-October 7 levels.

The Israeli prime minister’s office issued a statement on behalf of the Mossad on Saturday afternoon, stating that “due to the impasse that the negotiations have reached and at the instruction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mossad Chief David Barnea instructed the Mossad team in Doha to return to Israel and that Hamas had “not implemented its obligations under the agreement.”

The White House issued a statement placing blame for the collapse of the ceasefire on Hamas, saying that it had failed to present a new list of Israeli prisoners for release.

According to Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, three Israeli officials said that in the hours leading up to the truce extension deadline, Hamas did not send a list of prisoners for release but instead sent messages through Qatari and Egyptian mediators proposing to start a discussion on what concessions Israel would be willing to give in return for the release of elderly men.

In a statement issued on Friday, Hamas said that Israel bears the responsibility for resuming the war and refusing to accept Hamas’s offer to release elderly men and two Israeli prisoners, as well as return the bodies of three members of the Bibas family, who were killed in Israeli airstrikes, and release their father so he can attend their funeral.

Ravid cites Hamas official Osama Hamdan’s comments to Al-Araby news channel, writing that Hamdan said Israel presented a list of women for release that included Israeli soldiers. When Hamas refused, Hamdan continued, Israel refused any counter offer.

Fattah member Ayman al-Raqab is quoted in Sputnik saying that the resumption of Israel’s aggression on Gaza was preceded by the US giving the greenlight for an Israeli  invasion into the southern part of the strip.

Raqab is quoted saying that “the Occupation wants to improve negotiation conditions with Hamas and negotiate under fire in order to pressure Hamas to agree to the release of its prisoners at the lowest price possible” and to be satisfied with a prisoner exchange on its own terms without linking it to a wider political agreement.