© Reuters. Displaced Palestinians keep exterior their tent the place they take shelter, because the battle between Israel and Hamas continues, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, within the southern Gaza Strip December 2, 2023. REUTERS/Saleh Salem
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By Arafat Barbakh and Nidal al-Mughrabi
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza (Reuters) -Beneath aerial bombardment from Israel, folks sheltering within the south of the Gaza Strip after fleeing their houses earlier within the warfare stated on Saturday that they had nowhere secure to go now.
The town of Khan Younis is the main focus of Israeli air strikes and artillery fireplace after preventing resumed on Friday following the collapse of a week-long truce. Its inhabitants has swelled in current weeks as a number of hundred thousand folks from the northern Gaza Strip have fled south.
Some are tenting in tents, others in faculties. Some are sleeping in stairwells or exterior the few hospitals working within the metropolis. A World Well being Organisation official stated on Friday that one of many hospitals was “like a horror movie” as lots of of wounded youngsters and adults waited for therapy.
Abu Wael Nasrallah, 80, scoffed on the Israeli military’s newest order to maneuver additional south to Rafah, bordering Egypt. Kids had been injured in Israeli strikes within the city on Friday.
The message was delivered through leaflets dropped from the sky over a number of districts in Khan Younis.
“This is nonsense,” Nasrallah informed Reuters. He had heeded Israeli evacuation orders and moved from the northern Gaza Strip earlier within the warfare that broke out on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants crossed into Israel and killed 1,200 folks, largely civilians.
Some 193 Palestinians had been killed because the truce expired, the Gaza well being ministry stated on Saturday, including to the dying toll of greater than 15,000 Gazans introduced by Palestinian well being authorities.
Israel says it’s making efforts to stop civilian casualties because the preventing strikes south. Addressing reporters in Tel Aviv on Saturday, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated humanitarian teams had been knowledgeable of what he described the “safer areas”.
“We’ve not asked the whole population of the south to relocate, we’ve not even asked the whole population of Khan Younis to relocate. But those neighbourhoods, those specific areas where we know there is going to be heavy combat, we’ve asked people there to relocate,” Mark Regev stated.
‘NIGHT OF HORROR’
Nasrallah stated he and his household would keep put as a result of that they had already misplaced all the pieces.
“There is nothing left to fear. Our homes are gone, our property is gone, our money is gone, our sons have been killed, some are handicapped. What is left to cry for?”
A mom of 4, who gave her identify as Samira, stated she had fled south from Gaza Metropolis along with her youngsters after Israel started bombing there final month. They now shelter with mates in a house west of Khan Younis.
She stated Friday evening had been one of the crucial terrifying since she arrived: “A night of horror.”
She and different residents stated they feared the depth of the bombing in Khan Younis and the close by metropolis of Deir al-Balah meant Israel’s floor invasion of the south was imminent.
One other man, who gave his identify as Yamen, stated he and his spouse and 6 youngsters had fled the north weeks in the past and had been sleeping in a college.
“Where to after Deir al Abalah, after Khan Younis?” he stated. “I don’t know where to take my family.”
The U.N. estimates that as much as 1.8 million folks within the Gaza Strip – or almost 80% of the inhabitants – have been pressured to flee throughout Israel’s devastating bombing marketing campaign.
Israel has sworn to annihilate Gaza-based Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 assault.