Residents flee as Israel pounds Khan Younis
Israeli forces advancing into the southern Gaza Strip's main city pounded areas near the biggest hospital still functioning in the enclave yesterday, sending patients and residents fleeing a battle they feared would lay the city to waste.
Gaza's health ministry said 172 people had been killed in Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours, including 16 in a single strike on a house in the southern city of Rafah.
At least 326 Palestinians were also injured, the ministry added.
The heaviest battle of the year so far was under way in Khan Younis, a city that is sheltering hundreds of thousands of people who fled the north earlier in the offensive, now in its fourth month.
The charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has doctors at the city's Nasser Hospital, said patients and displaced people sheltering there were fleeing in panic.
The renewed strikes came as medicine for hostages held by Hamas fighters and fresh aid for civilians entered the Palestinian territory under a newly brokered deal, mediator Qatar said.
At least 24,620 Palestinians, most of them women, children and adolescents, have been killed in Israeli bombardments and a ground offensive since October 7, according to figures from the health ministry.
Khan Younis residents said yesterday the fighting had come closer than ever to Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital still working in the enclave, raising fears it would fall under siege and be shut like Shifa, the main hospital in the north, captured by Israeli forces in November.
Two-thirds of Gaza's hospitals, including all medical facilities in the northern half of the enclave, have already ceased functioning altogether, and the rest are only partly functional. Losing Nasser would sharply curtail the limited
trauma care still available for Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that, while Israel had already shifted to smaller scale operations in Gaza's north, the fierce battle for Khan Younis was likely to rage on for up to two months.
- Death toll in enclave rises to 24,620
- Israel says battle for Khan Younis could last up to 2 months
Fears are mounting the Israel's offensive in Gaza will trigger an all-out war across the Middle East, with growing violence involving Iran-aligned groups.
Israel has long been exchanging cross-border fire with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. Military chief Herzi Halevi warned on Wednesday the likelihood of war on Israel's northern border with Lebanon in the coming months was "much higher".
Meanwhile, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said yesterday Israel should allow displaced Palestinians in Gaza to return to their homes.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Amman, Safadi also said it was essential to end the offensive in Gaza and avert an escalation of violence in the wider region.
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