Destruction in the city of Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, April 8, 2024/Reuters
Palestinian residents began returning to Khan Yunis today (Monday), a day after the IDF withdrew from the second largest city in the Gaza Strip, and discovered ruined villages where their homes once stood.
The city's streets were destroyed, and schools and hospitals were damaged by the intense fighting between the army and the terrorist organizations. "L entered Khan Yunis in December, and yesterday he captured the 98th Division that was maneuvering in the city.
Israel claims that the army is now preparing for action in the last stronghold of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in the city of Rafah, which is south of Khan Yunis, despite the international concern about the expansion of the humanitarian crisis.
"Many areas, especially the city center, are unlivable," Mahmoud Abdel Ghani, who fled the city in December, told the Associated Press. "I discovered that my house and the houses of my neighbors had become ruins."
Bassel Abu Nasser, who fled the city following an airstrike that hit his home in January, said that most of the city was destroyed.
"There is no sense of life here," said the 37-year-old father of two. "They (the IDF forces) left nothing here."
The withdrawal from Khan Yunis, and the reduction of the IDF's forces in the Strip to the lowest level since the beginning of the war six months ago, may slightly ease the overcrowding in Rafah, where approximately 1.4 million Palestinians are crowded.
However, many residents have no homes to return to and Khan Yunis remains full In addition to this, the security vacuum in the city may give Hamas an opportunity to try and re-establish itself, as it has tried to do in other places in the Strip from which the IDF has evacuated.
But the IDF thwarted such an attempt in Gaza City, in a prolonged operation at the Shifa Hospital where, according to the army, hundreds of terrorists, including senior officials, were killed and arrested.
The World Health Organization said that the hospital, which was the largest health center in the Strip before the war broke out, remained an "empty shell". Israel accused Hamas of turning it into a military center and hiding among civilians.
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