Gazans flee destroyed Khan Yunis as new Israel operation begins

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: Crowds fleeing Khan Yunis after an Israeli evacuation order gave way to empty streets on Friday as Palestinian residents tried to escape a new Israeli military operation in Gaza´s main southern area.

“They threw leaflets at us, ordering us to evacuate”, Reem Abu Hayya told AFP, referring to the flyers that Israeli forces drop from planes to order the evacuation of areas ahead of a military operation.

The Khan Yunis area had already seen evacuation orders in late July, and heavy fighting that devastated the area earlier this year.

“We don´t know where we´re going, and we have sick and disabled people with us. Where can we go?” Abu Hayya asked AFP as she stood on the street in front of a building reduced to a pile of rebar and broken concrete.

In a besieged territory that has been consistently bombed over the past 10 months and where supplies enter with great difficulty, people carried all they could as they fled on Thursday.

AFP journalists saw one young man carrying planks of wood loosely tied in bundles, to be used as shelter structure or fuel in the near future.

With petrol scarce, only the most fortunate drove, often with mattresses piled high on the car roof. The vast majority walked. They carried their belongings in plastic and garbage bags, on donkey-pulled carts, bikes, strollers or wheelchairs.

By dusk, streets of Khan Yunis stood completely deserted and eerily quiet, AFP journalists reported. Only the ruins of buildings damaged in earlier strikes still stood. The flyers dropped on Thursday ordered residents to leave eastern towns of Khan Yunis governorate including Al-Salqa, Al-Qarara, Bani Suheila, and neighbourhoods in the city of Khan Yunis.

“Hamas and terrorist organisations continue to launch rockets from your areas”, read the flyers which echoed past orders and warned that the Israeli army “will act forcefully against these elements”.

Late last month Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on social media site X that only “14 percent of areas in Gaza” were not subject to evacuation orders.

On Friday, the military said it launched a new operation in Khan Yunis following “intelligence indicating the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure” there.

“The troops are engaging in combat both above and below-ground to eliminate terrorists in the area while locating and dismantling weaponry and terrorist infrastructure,” the military said in a statement.