The Gaza Strip’s First Battle: An Israeli Army Monitor of the Campaign to Overthroe the First Day of the First World War II. An Israeli Fireball
Fighting intensified in southern Gaza on Monday, with medical personnel reporting heavy exchanges of gunfire and a surge of Israeli tanks and troops into areas around hospitals.
More than 25,000 people have been killed and over 63,000 others have been injured in Gaza since Israel began its campaign to defeat Hamas, according to the health authorities.
Naseem Hasan, the ambulance officer at the hospital, told an interviewer that tanks were 100 meters south from the hospital, and could target anyone. He said one ambulance carrying a person who had been shot in the head was not able to reach Nasser this morning and had to go to a hospital in Rafah — a journey that took three hours.
In a statement, the Red Crescent said the presence of Israeli troops near Al-Amal Hospital, which it operates, meant that its ambulances could not reach the injured in Khan Younis. It said that anyone attempting to move around the area was coming under fire.
Tariq, who fled to the Egyptian side of the border, told NPR the situation in Khan Younis was worse than he thought. He decided to keep his name private because of his safety concerns.
A spokesman for the Israeli army issued a statement on X for residents of Khan Younis to evacuate a number of neighborhoods. But it’s unclear how effective such messaging is as a result of the communications blackout. Israel’s military also has said because of the dense civilian population in Khan Younis its operations will be “precise.”
Israeli forces, using thousands of airstrikes and a ground invasion, largely secured military control of northern Gaza before pushing south. Almost all of the people in Gaza have been displaced due to the war, according to the UN, while more than 60 percent of homes have been damaged or destroyed.
A training center for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is believed to have been hit, killing at least six people. The training center was a shelter for 30,000 people.
The Israeli military did not respond to the request for comment. On Sunday, the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israeli forces in southern Gaza were acting with great precision and that they would be expanding their operations.
“The plumes of smoke from the tanks, artillery and planes belonging to the Air Force will continue to cover the Gaza Strip’s skies until we achieve our goals, chief among them toppling Hamas and returning the hostages to their homes,” he said in a statement.
The ministry said on Sunday that more than 25,000 people had been killed since Israel began its bombardment of the strip after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on its territory, which Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people.
Israeli forces “targeted terrorist cells carrying R.P.G.s near the troops, those launching anti-tank missiles, and terror operatives who had rigged compounds with explosives,” the military said in a statement, referring to rocket-propelled grenade launchers. A number of weapons, military compounds, shafts and ready-to-launch rockets were located during the activity.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel began the campaign after Hamas attacked the country on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and taking around 240 people hostage, according to the Israeli authorities. There are more than 100 hostages that are still in captivity.
“The road was full of cars where you have mattresses and luggage on top of the cars fleeing from the Khan Younis area, using all means of transportation including carriages pulled by donkeys and horses,” he said. ” If you look at the pictures from 1948, there are the same families, same faces, the same scenes of desperation, the same anxiety, and the same age of the people in them.” He referred to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the establishment of Israel.
The number of evacuees from Khan Younis during the current fighting is shocking, according to the president of MedGlobal.
“There was targeted bombing and tanks, and it took us all by surprise. He said that no one told them to leave the area, and they woke up to find tanks in front of their houses. I saw people dead on the ground because the ambulances couldn’t get to them.