Israel launches storm of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, hospitals overrun

[December 05, 2023]  By Bassam Massoud and Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

GAZA (Reuters) -Israeli forces launched their long-awaited storm of the main city in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, where hospitals were overrun with scores of Palestinian dead and wounded.

In what appeared to be the biggest ground assault since a truce collapsed last week, residents said Israeli tanks had entered the eastern parts of Khan Younis for the first time, crossing from the Israeli border fence and advancing west.

Some took up positions inside the town of Bani Suhaila on Khan Younis' eastern outskirts, while others continued further and were stationed on the edge of a Qatari-funded housing development called Hamad City, residents said.

After days of ordering residents to flee the area, Israeli forces dropped new leaflets on Tuesday with instructions to stay inside shelters during the assault.

"In the coming hours, the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will begin launching an intensive attack on your area of residence to destroy the terrorist organization Hamas," said the leaflets, addressed to residents of six eastern and northern districts, amounting to around a quarter of Khan Younis.

"Don’t move out yet. For your safety, stay in the shelters and the hospitals where you are. Don’t get out. Going out is dangerous. You have been warned.”

The Israelis, who seized the northern half of Gaza last month before pausing for the week-long truce, say they are now extending their ground campaign to the rest of the enclave as they try to annihilate its Hamas rulers.

"We're moving ahead with the second stage now. A second stage that is going to be difficult militarily," government spokesperson Eylon Levy said.

Israel is open to "constructive feedback" on reducing harm to civilians as long as the advice is consistent with its aim of destroying Hamas, he said.

CHILDREN'S BODIES ON THE FLOOR

At Khan Younis' main Nasser hospital, the wounded arrived by ambulance, car, flatbed truck and donkey cart after what survivors described as a strike on a school being used as a shelter for the displaced.

Inside a ward, almost every inch of floor space was taken up by the wounded, medics hurrying from patient to patient while relatives wailed.

A doctor carried the small limp body of a dead boy in a track suit and placed him in a corner, arms splayed across the blood-smeared tile. On the floor next to him, surrounded by discarded bandages and rubber gloves, lay a wounded boy and girl, their limbs tangled with the stands holding the IV drips in their arms.

Two young girls were being treated, still covered in dust from the collapse of the house that had buried their family.

"My parents are under the rubble," sobbed one. "I want my mum, I want my mum, I want my family."

Outside, men carried corpses in white and bloodied shrouds to be taken away for funerals. Around a dozen bodies lay on the ground. Five or six were taken away in a motorcycle cart.

Aisha al-Raqb, a 70-year-old woman, said her son Iyad was among the dead and held out a blood-stained hand.

An Israeli tank maneuvers near Israel's border with southern Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Israel, December 4, 2023. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

"This is his blood. This is his precious blood. May Allah have mercy on his soul. My darling. I (want to) smell his scent, smell his scent, oh God, oh God," she said.

Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashra al-Qidra said at least 43 corpses had already reached Nasser hospital that morning.

"Hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip are totally collapsing, they cannot deal with the quantity and quality of injuries that arrive at the hospitals," he said.

WASHINGTON URGES LESS HARM TO CIVILIANS

Washington has urged close ally Israel to do more to reduce harm to civilians in the next phase of the Gaza war, which Israel launched in retribution for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters who rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israel's tally.

Israel's bombardment has driven 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million residents from their homes, most fleeing south. The enclave is more densely populated than London, and crowded southern areas are now sheltering triple their usual population.

According to Gaza health officials deemed reliable by the United Nations, more than 15,800 people are confirmed dead, with thousands more missing and feared buried under rubble.

Israel says blame for harm to civilians falls on Hamas fighters who operate among them, including from underground tunnels that can be destroyed only with huge bombs, though Hamas denies doing so.

Since the truce collapsed, Israel has been posting an online map to tell Gazans which parts of the enclave to evacuate. The eastern quarter of Khan Younis was marked on it on Monday, and is home to hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom took flight on foot.

"What civilians should do to stay safe is listen to the instructions that are coming out from our Twitter accounts, from our website, and also to look at the leaflets that are landing in their areas," Israeli military spokesperson Richard Hecht said.

Gazans say there is no safe place left to go, with remaining towns and shelters already overwhelmed. Israel has continued to bomb the areas where it is telling people to go.

"The situation is getting worse by the hour," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in Gaza, told reporters via video link from southern Gaza.

(Reporting by Bassam Massoud and Ibrahim Abu Mustafa in Khan Younis, Gaza; Mohammed Salem and Arafat Barbakh in Rafah, Gaza; Maayan Lubell, Ari Rabinovich and Emily Rose in Jerusalem; Maggie Fick in BeirutWriting by Peter Graff, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

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