The Israeli military has asked Palestinians to evacuate a sweep of land to the east of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Monday after rockets were fired towards Israel. Residents have been directed to move to a designated “safe zone” called al-Mawasi, which is already overcrowded with displaced people living in poor conditions.
According to the details, people in the area first received audio messages telling them to leave before the Israeli military posted a message in Arabic repeating the warning on social media.
Reportedly, the order says that Khan Younis will be the latest target of Israel’s raids into parts of Gaza it had previously invaded in the war.
Eyewitnesses say that people have started to flee. Meanwhile, a video was also posted by local Palestinian sources showing exhausted families who fled the city lying on the ground after finding no place to take shelter last night.
Furthermore, the massive evacuation order covers the area around the European hospital to the south-east of Khan Younis. According to the local reporters, staff have started to move some key equipment to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, and some staff and patients have also left. On Sunday, Israel’s prime minister said its troops were engaged in a “difficult fight” across the entire Palestinian territory.
However, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), earlier, around 80,000 people in the Shejaiya area of Gaza were ordered by the Israeli military to evacuate and move south. However, these people were unable to pass through Israeli checkpoints in the Wadi Gaza area, so they were forced to move westward instead of going south as directed.
Reaction
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Washington condemns the Israeli occupation of Gaza and that a ceasefire is necessary to defuse tensions in the region.
The UK has also slammed an Israeli announcement that five settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank are to be legalised and condemned “punitive measures” taken against the Palestinian Authority.
Meanwhile, the director of Gaza’s main hospital, Mohammed Abu Selmia, who recently got released after seven months of detention without charge, has raised questions about Israel’s claims of Hamas activity at the hospital. Abu Selmia alleged that he and other detainees were subjected to harsh conditions and torture while in Israeli custody.
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an attack on southern Israel on October 7. According to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, more than 37,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 23 over the past 24 hours.
On Monday morning, sirens sounded in Israeli communities near the Gaza border fence, many of which have been evacuated since the 7 October attack.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the latest rocket-fire had come from the southern Khan Younis area and that its artillery had struck the sources.
