Israeli ground troops have launched a new incursion into Khan Yunis, a major city in the southern Gaza Strip, which was partially abandoned by civilians yesterday, Thursday, following an evacuation order from the Israeli Army, and where soldiers are engaged in fighting even underground to eliminate “terrorist targets,” the Army reported on Friday (9.08.2024).
“After receiving intelligence indicating the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the Khan Yunis area (…) the 98th Division of the Israel Defense Forces began its operational activity in the area,” said a military statement.
“Troops are engaged in both above-ground and underground combat to eliminate terrorists in the area while locating and dismantling weapons and infrastructure,” he added.
In addition, the Israeli Air Force bombed more than 30 targets in Khan Yunis, including suspected weapons storage facilities and militants “who planned and carried out mortar and sniper attacks against troops,” the army said.
According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, several civilians were killed in a bombing targeting a tent housing displaced people in the Abasan al-Kabira area, east of Khan Yunis.
The war in Gaza broke out on October 7 last year after a Hamas attack on Israel that left some 1,200 dead and 251 kidnapped.
Jan Yunis, historic bastion of Palestinian militias in Gaza
Khan Yunis has historically been a stronghold of Palestinian militants in Gaza, and on Thursday the Israeli army again ordered the evacuation of several neighborhoods: Al Salqa, Al Qarara, Bani Suhaila, Abasan, Khirbet Khuza’a, all in the east and northeast of the city.
Shortly after the Israeli armed forces issued their evacuation order, the Gaza Civil Defence services announced that they had recovered five dead people from the rubble of a house in Al Qarara, following an Israeli air strike.
On August 4, Israel also ordered the evacuation of neighborhoods in the southeast of the city, following an incursion in late July that left some 300 dead.
Residents of this area have no choice but to move towards the ever-shrinking “humanitarian zone” of Mawasi, which has been the target of bombing anyway and where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are crammed into a swarm of tents in dire humanitarian conditions.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 200,000 people were evacuated from Khan Yunis between 22 and 27 July, during the latest Israeli ground incursion, which left much of the town completely razed to the ground.
General offensive in the Gaza Strip
On the other hand, the Israeli Army continued its offensive by air, land and sea throughout the enclave, where it attacked 60 targets.
The army said it had eliminated dozens of suspected militants in Rafah with shelling, artillery fire and hand-to-hand combat, while in the centre of the Strip, the military identified militants who were heading to shoot at them and were subsequently eliminated.
At least eight civilians were killed and many others injured in the early hours of the morning in Jabalia, in northern Gaza; in the refugee camps of Nuseirat and Maghazi, in the central part of the enclave; and in southern Rafah, according to the Wafa agency.
Some reports about the war in Gaza cannot be independently confirmed.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which are acting as mediators of a ceasefire, yesterday demanded that Israel and Hamas “resume urgent discussions on Thursday, August 15, in Doha or Cairo to close all remaining gaps and begin implementation of the agreement without further delay.”
Israel announced it would send a delegation on Thursday, but Hamas has not commented.
After more than 10 months of escalation, the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has left almost 40,000 dead – most of them children and women -, more than 90,000 wounded, 10,000 missing under the rubble and 1.9 million displaced people who are surviving in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis due to widespread destruction, the collapse of hospitals, outbreaks of epidemics, the threat of famine and shortages of drinking water, food and medicine.
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