Israel orders Gazans to leave, bombards areas where it sends them

GAUZE:

Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of the main southern city in the Gaza Strip on Monday, even as its bombs rained down on areas it had told them to go.

Israeli troops and tanks have also pressed the ground campaign against Hamas militants in the south of the enclave, having largely gained control of the now-destroyed north.

The Israeli military posted a map on social media platform X on Monday morning with about a quarter of the city of Khan Younis marked in yellow as territory to be evacuated immediately.

Three arrows pointed south and west, telling the people to head toward the shores of the Mediterranean and toward Rapha, near the Egyptian border.

Desperate Gazans in Khan Younis packed their belongings and headed for Rafah. Most were on foot, walking past ruined buildings in a solemn and silent procession.

But Rafa herself was under Israeli fire. The head of the United Nations agency in Gaza (UNWRA), Thomas White, said people there were being forced to leave.

“People are begging for advice on where to find safety. We have nothing to tell them,” he told X.

Bombing of a site in Rafah overnight had ripped a basketball court-sized crater from the ground. A dead toddler’s bare feet and black pants poked out from under a pile of rubble. Men struggled with their bare hands to move a piece of concrete that had crushed the child.

They later shouted “God is the greatest” and cried as they walked through the rubble carrying the body on a bundle and the body of another small child wrapped in a blanket.

“We were asleep and safe, they told us it was a safe area, Rafah and all,” said Salah al-Arja, the owner of one of the houses destroyed at the site.

“There were children, women and witnesses,” he said. “They tell you it’s a safe area, but there is no safe area in the whole Gaza Strip, it’s all lies and manipulations.”

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Israel accuses Hamas of endangering civilians by operating from civilian areas, including tunnels that can only be destroyed by large bombs. Hamas denies doing so.

Israel launched its offensive to eliminate Hamas, which rules Gaza, in retaliation for an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by its gunmen. They killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, according to Israeli accounts.

Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday that at least 15,899 Palestinians, 70 percent of them women or under the age of 18, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and artillery in the enclave since October 7. Thousands more are missing and feared buried in the rubble.

Up to 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes in Israel’s bombing campaign that has turned much of the bustling coastal strip into a barren wasteland.

Israeli forces seized much of the northern half of Gaza in November, and since a week-long truce collapsed on Friday, they have quickly pushed deep into the southern half.

Tanks have entered Gaza through the border fence and cut off the main north-south route, residents say. The Israeli military said the main road from Khan Yunis to the north “constitutes a battlefield” and was now closed.

ISRAEL’S GOALS IN THE NORTH ARE ALMOST OVER

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli attack in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, December 4, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS

Israel’s armored corps commander, Brigadier General Hisham Ibrahim, told Army Radio that the army had almost achieved its objectives in northern Gaza.

“We are starting to expand ground maneuvers to other parts of the Strip, with one goal: to topple the Hamas terrorist group,” he said.

The military released footage of troops patrolling in tanks and on foot in heavily damaged fields and urban areas and firing weapons, without specifying the location in Gaza.

Israel says the evacuation orders are aimed at protecting civilians from harm and has called on international organizations to help encourage Gazans to move to areas designated as safe on Israeli maps.

The United Nations said the areas in the south that Israel ordered evacuated within three days of the truce had hosted more than 350,000 people before the war – not counting the hundreds of thousands now fleeing there from other areas.

In Khan Younis, many of those flying on Monday had already been displaced from other areas. Abu Muhammad said Reuters It was now the third time he had been forced to flee since leaving his home in the northern city of Gaza.

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli attack in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, December 4, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS

“Why did they drive us out of our homes in Gaza (City) if they planned to kill us here?” he said.

In a house in Khan Younis that was hit overnight, flames licked up the collapsed masonry and gray smoke billowed from the rubble.

A child’s stuffed sheep lay in a pile of dust. Boys were picking up the debris. Nearby, Nesrine Abdelmoty stood among damaged furniture in the rented room where she lives with her estranged daughter and two-year-old baby.

“We were sleeping at 5 in the morning when we felt things fall apart, everything went upside down,” he said Reuters. “They told (people) to move from the north to Khan Yunis, since the south is safer. And now, they bombed Khan Yunis. Even Khan Yunis is not safe now, and even if we move to Rafah, Rafah it’s not safe either. Where do they want us to go?”

Israel’s closest ally, the United States, has called on it to do more to protect civilians in southern Gaza than in last month’s campaign in the north.

Israel allowed additional humanitarian supplies into the enclave during the ceasefire, but the United Nations says this was insignificant compared to the region’s huge humanitarian needs and has now been cut off by renewed fighting.