Israeli forces were reported to be pushing into southern Gaza last night as residents and refugees were also told to leave before a new wave of air strikes.
Before last week’s ceasefire, the focus of the war had been on northern Gaza, where the Israeli army has surrounded pockets of Hamas fighters
But late on Sunday, the Israeli military was extending its ground operation “against Hamas centres in all of the Gaza Strip,” the spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. “The forces are coming face-to-face with terrorists and killing them,” he added.
Weeks ago Israel told Gaza’s population that they would be safer if they moved south, leading to a mass migration of more than a million people to Khan Yunis, the territory’s second biggest city, and surrounding areas.
Now Khan Yunis is being targeted too. “The Israeli occupation rang us on our mobile phone with a recorded message, asking us to evacuate to another place because the block we are in is dangerous,” said Mervat al-Abadia, 42, who lives in al-Qarara, a suburb of the city. “I went to my parents’ house in another residential block on the western side, but we had to evacuate again because they said it was also dangerous there.”
In total, about 1.8 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have had to leave their homes at some point during the past eight weeks, according to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, an unprecedented level of displacement.Israeli generals believe that much of Hamas’s strength and its senior leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, head of its military wing the Izz ad-Din al-Qassem Brigades, are in the south.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has made clear that he sees the conquest of the whole area as his target.
Israel said it had intensified efforts to encourage civilians to move from areas likely to be hit, including by publishing online a map showing the strip divided into squares to be used by residents as a reference.
It has also told residents to move to Rafah, the town nearest the Egyptian border. But Ehab al-Sersek, 54, said he had tried that option. “I went with my wife and my children to Rafah and the bombing was just metres away from us. Is this really a safe zone?” he said.
Outside a hospital morgue in Khan Younis, resident Samy al-Najeila carried the body of a child. He said his sons had been preparing to evacuate their home “but the occupation didn’t give us any time”.
“The three-floor building was destroyed completely, the whole block was totally destroyed,” he added.
He said six of the bodies were his relatives “Five people are still under the rubble,” he said. “God help us.”
In a video from the same crowded al-Nasser hospital, James Elder, a Unicef spokesman, said: “I feel like I’m almost failing in my ability to convey the endless killing of children here.”
Israel says it does not target civilians and has taken measures to protect them, including its evacuation orders.
There had been some talk that the Israel Defence Forces would be satisfied with capturing the north of the strip, but Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has made clear that he sees the conquest of the whole area his target.
Israeli generals believe that much of Hamas’s strength and certainly its senior leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, head of its military wing the al-Qassem Brigades, are in or near Khan Yunis.
The Biden administration is urging the Israelis not to repeat the high civilian casualties of the first seven weeks of fighting and bombing, in which an estimated 15,000 people died, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.
Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, repeated demands for a change of course by Israel and said Washington would not allow forcible displacement of the population outside Gaza. “Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” she said on Saturday on a visit to Dubai for the Cop28 conference.
However, OCHA said 160 people had been killed on Saturday in just two buildings that had been struck, one in Gaza City, and one in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Israel says it has intensified efforts to encourage civilians to move from areas likely to be hit, including by publishing online a map showing the strip divided into squares to be used by residents as a reference.
It has also encouraged residents to move to Rafah, the town nearest the Egyptian border. But Ehab al-Sersek, 54, said he had tried that option.
“I went with my wife and my children to Rafah and the bombing was just metres away from us and shrapnel was scattered around us. Is this really a safe zone?” he said.
Abadia also questioned whether there was anywhere her family could be truly safe. “Where will we go now?” she said. “Didn’t they say before that Khan Yunis is a safe area? All of Gaza came to Khan Yunis. Now the suburbs in Khan Yunis have become dangerous too.”
