His home, he mentioned, had “vanished.” As a substitute have been piles of rebar and cement. Nothing was salvageable: The home, he estimated, had been hit by an airstrike after which bulldozed. Different homes had been burned.
On Sunday, the six-month anniversary of the assaults on Israel on Oct. 7 and the beginning of the devastating battle that adopted, the Israel Protection Forces mentioned in a press release that it was withdrawing all however one brigade from the south of Gaza, marking an obvious turning level within the battle.
But for residents of Khan Younis making the journey dwelling, that is no return to normalcy. Greater than 33,000 individuals in Gaza have been killed within the battle thus far, in keeping with the Gaza Well being Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, whereas satellite tv for pc imagery from the United Nations has discovered 12,710 buildings within the metropolis have been destroyed, second solely to Gaza Metropolis.
Gaza’s Civil Protection Ministry mentioned Monday that they’d discovered 28 decomposing our bodies round Khan Younis thus far.
Nasser Hospital, the primary medical web site within the metropolis, was nonetheless standing, however barely, its inside devastated. Rubble and crushed, overturned vehicles and vehicles lay strewn within the surrounding streets.
The humanitarian employee had borrowed his brother-in-law’s jeep to drive into Khan Younis from the coastal city of Mawassi on Sunday, the place he, his spouse and 6 youngsters had fled final month after fearing that their earlier place of refuge, Rafah, could be Israel’s subsequent goal.
He mentioned that the size of the injury had made navigation troublesome. To succeed in his space, he stopped different vehicles and passersby to crowdsource the proper routes to take. The previous roads he had recognized so effectively have been destroyed by airstrikes or blocked by rubble, he mentioned. He took a circuitous path and infrequently discovered new quasi-roads cast by Israeli tanks.
When he arrived, his coronary heart sank. “It was fully tousled,” he mentioned of his neighborhood: “Not solely demolished however distorted in a approach that nobody may acknowledge it.”
Khan Younis was dwelling to roughly 400,000 individuals. It served as an financial middle for southern Gaza and had a wealthy cultural historical past.
Town grew to become swollen with displaced individuals after Israel warned these dwelling in Gaza’s densely populated north to evacuate on Oct. 12, main lots of of hundreds to heed the warning. Two weeks later, after pounding airstrikes within the north, Israel launched its floor invasion.
Khan Younis was vital to Israel’s navy targets. It was the birthplace of Yehiya Sinwar, the chief of Hamas within the Gaza Strip. Israeli officers had mentioned that town was a stronghold for Hamas, and prompt Sinwar was hiding in Khan Younis.
On Dec. 4, Israeli forces started pushing additional south into Gaza, telling the civilians who had fled to Khan Younis to now head on once more, and most went to the southern border metropolis of Rafah.
Roughly half of Gaza’s prewar inhabitants has been condensed into Rafah, surging the small metropolis’s prewar inhabitants with tent cities. However even amid warnings of a possible Rafah offensive by the Israeli navy — a plan Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned in remarks Monday should proceed “in an effort to obtain victory” — some are too scared to return.
“Now we have really lived the worst days of our lives” because the battle began, mentioned Muhammed Al-Atrash, a 44-year-old father of three from Khan Younis now dwelling in a tent in Rafah. “We get all the things via struggling. We rely on canned meals for our food plan. We reside in fixed nervousness and concern.”
The navy exercise in Khan Younis has left the household dwelling “unlivable,” Al-Atrash mentioned Sunday. “The doorways and home windows have been all damaged. The partitions are collapsing. We don’t reside in security in any respect.”
The humanitarian employee mentioned that touring again to his dwelling in Khan Younis prompted appreciable private ache and he couldn’t bear to return once more.
“My youngsters and spouse insisted to go right this moment,” he mentioned on Monday. “They requested me to accompany them, and I mentioned no.”
He tried to stop them from going. They employed a taxi anyway. “Nothing good can come out of it,” he mentioned.
Jennifer Hassan and Lior Soroka contributed to this report.