Israeli forces evacuated parts of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday and bombed the area, local health officials reported, killing dozens and wounding hundreds, adding to the devastation in a city already badly scarred by nine-and-a-half months of war.
The army said it was advancing into the area as Hamas was trying to regroup there and had used parts of an area designated a humanitarian zone to fire rockets at Israel. The army also warned civilians to leave “certain areas of Khan Yunis” early on Monday before the operation began, noting that it had reduced the areas designated for people displaced by the war.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 70 bodies had been brought to Nasser Hospital and at least 200 people were injured, adding that the figures could not be independently verified and others were almost certainly buried under the rubble. The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams in the area had responded to at least 12 dead and 50 wounded.
Mohamed Saqer, head of nursing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, said hundreds of injured men, women, children and elderly people had been brought to the hospital, which was lacking basic supplies such as mattresses, blankets and syringes.
“The situation is terrible,” Dr. Saqer said in an interview, adding that some of the injured required amputations and others suffered severe burns.
The Israeli army said it ordered a withdrawal from eastern Khan Yunis as it “plans a strong operation” against Hamas in the area. It said it struck more than 30 positions on Monday “including the source of the shells fired towards Nirim in southern Israel.”
Residents of eastern Khan Yunis have been told to seek temporary shelter in areas closer to the Mediterranean coast that Israel has designated a humanitarian zone, but aid workers and displaced Palestinians say there is not enough clean water and other basic supplies for the large numbers of people who have fled.
The army had previously ordered evacuations from the city but not everyone had left, aid workers and residents said, and on Monday the army said the “remaining residents” in the city's eastern districts should move to “the coordinated humanitarian area in Al Mawashi.”
“The request for temporary evacuation has been conveyed to residents through Arabic text messages, telephone calls and media broadcasts,” the Israeli army said.
Gaza residents have long complained that these messages are either difficult to receive — power and cell phone service are frequently cut off — or difficult to understand.
The army said it would “continue its operations against the Hamas terrorist organization, which is using Gaza's civilians as human shields for its terrorist activities and infrastructure.”
The Israeli army said evacuation orders were given ahead of the attack on the area, and pictures showed thousands of people trying to flee the area in donkey carts or on foot.
Nearly all of Gaza's 2.2 million residents have been forced to flee their homes, many of them repeatedly forced to relocate, since Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 people and sparked the war.
The army confirmed on Monday that two Israeli men kidnapped on Oct. 7 had died in Hamas captivity. The two were Yagev Bukshtab, 35, who was abducted from Nirim kibbutz along with his wife, Rimon, who was released in November as part of a hostage deal, and Alex Dansig, who was abducted from Nir Oz kibbutz and would have turned 76 on Sunday.
The Israeli army said the circumstances of the deaths were being investigated by “all specialized agencies” but the bodies remain in the possession of Hamas, which announced their deaths in March, saying they were killed by Israeli artillery fire.
The announcement brings to 46 the number of hostages in the Gaza Strip who were captured and presumed dead on October 7, out of 120 people both alive and dead. According to the Hostage Families Forum, there are 46 hostages in total being held in the Strip.
More than 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza and nearly 90,000 wounded, according to Palestinian health officials. The Health Ministry figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but list identified bodies as men, women, children and elderly. More than 270 aid workers have been killed during the war, according to the United Nations.
Louise Waterridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the main U.N. agency that provides assistance to the Palestinians, said the situation in the Israeli-designated humanitarian area was “extremely dire,” with a lack of shelter, water, food, medicine and sanitation, and that many civilians who had moved multiple times from one Gaza Strip to another in search of safety no longer knew where to go.
Khan Yunis was the site of a major Israeli ground operation in the spring aimed at driving out Hamas' military wing and destroying Hamas tunnels. At the time, Israel ordered its residents to evacuate, with many moving south to the city of Rafah on the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt. Residents who returned to Khan Yunis in April said parts of the city were so badly damaged that they were almost unrecognizable.
In a separate incident on Sunday, UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israeli forces opened fire on four UN convoys traveling north into Gaza City, hitting one five times but causing no casualties.
Ms Waterridge, who was in the car that was hit, said the bullet penetrated her vehicle as it was stopped at a waiting area outside the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. She described the incident as horrific and said she was lucky to be sitting in the passenger seat, away from where the bullet penetrated.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thomas Fuller Contributed report.
