Gaza health officials said at least 50 Palestinians, including two children, were killed in Khan Yunis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, in the past 24 hours when an Israeli airstrike hit a house.
Israeli troops have surrounded the city, which residents say is under almost constant air and land fire.
Les combats continuent de faire rage à #KhanYounès, dans la bande de #Gaza.
Les civils tentent d'évacuer, parfois au péril de leur vie
— CITOYEN BAKADIFUILA (@CongoVrai) January 25, 2024
Palestinian doctors note that Israeli tanks have blockaded the two main hospitals still operating in the city, Nasser and Al-Amal, and are shelling facilities around them, trapping medical teams, patients and displaced people who have taken refuge in and around the medical facilities.
Most of the 2.3 million Gaza Strip residents driven out of the northern enclave during the first phase of Israeli military operations are now crowded into Khan Younis and smaller towns to the north and south.
In addition, due to the blockade of hospitals, which Israel calls Hamas bases for carrying out attacksThe Palestinian organization denies that it is impossible to transport the wounded and dead there. The Israeli fire has forced many displaced people to once again seek safe refuge, doctors and residents say.
Residents complained on Wednesday that warnings from Israeli troops to evacuate civilians from areas in the line of fire came after operations began and the main road leading from Khan Yunis was already closed.
Meanwhile, the UN announced yesterday that Israeli tanks struck targets in Gaza where displaced Palestinians had taken refuge, killing at least nine people and wounding 75. Israel denies its troops are responsible for the attack and suggests Hamas may have bombed the building. He added that he was investigating the incident.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said less than 20% of the roughly 60-square-kilometer Palestinian enclave in the south of the country shelters 1.5 million people and warned that “the sharp escalation of fighting threatens their survival.” “All hospitals in the Gaza Strip are overcrowded and lacking medicine, fuel, food and water. Many are hosting thousands of displaced families. And now two more facilities (in Khan Yunis) are at risk of being lost due to the fighting. Cumulative impact on the system health crisis is devastating and immediate action must be taken,” the ICRC said in a statement.
Thomas White, director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, today criticized Israel’s military operations in neighborhoods where vulnerable civilians live. “Violent clashes near the remaining hospitals in Khan Younis, including Nasser and Al-Amal, have effectively encircled these facilities, terrorizing workers, patients and displaced people who are trapped,” his statement said. “Al Khair Hospital is closed after patients, including women who had just had a caesarean section, were evacuated in the middle of the night,” it added.
Residents in northern Gaza complain that they are almost out of food, mostly flour, and are grinding animal feed. The Israeli army said today it has killed more than 9,000 Hamas militants and lost 220 soldiers in the three-and-a-half month war that began after the Palestinian movement launched an unprecedented offensive against Israel.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry announced that Israeli forces have killed at least 370 people since October 7. Israeli troops killed a 24-year-old Palestinian man in a village near Jenin after Israeli soldiers surrounded his family’s home and exchanged fire, doctors said today.
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