70 killed after new evacuation order as Israel sends back tanks into Khan Younis area

Doctors in Gaza said on Monday that Israel had brought its tanks back into the wider Khan Younis area after ordering the evacuation of several neighboring areas that they said had been used by rebels for attacks followed and at least 70 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire.

They said Palestinians were killed by tank fire in the town of Bani Suhaila and other towns east of Khan Younis, and the area was also bombed from the air. Residents of the densely built-up area of southern Gaza said the tanks advanced for more than two kilometres (1.2 miles) into Bani Suhaila, forcing residents to flee under fire.

"It is like doomsday," one resident, who only identified himself as Abu Khaled, told Reuters via chat app. “People are running under fire, many dead and wounded on the streets.”

Gaza’s health ministry said several women and children were among the dead and at least 200 others were wounded. The ministry did not distinguish between militiamen and civilians in the death toll. The Israeli army said in a statement that the order to evacuate residents east of Khan Younis came as a result of intelligence reports indicating that the rebels are firing rockets from those areas and that Hamas is trying to reorganize its ranks.

The army said: “Since this morning, IAF and IDF artillery forces have attacked more than 30 terrorist infrastructure sites in Khan Younis, including the area from which a shell was fired towards Nirim in southern Israel, early this morning.”

Palestinian officials said that about 400,000 people live in the targeted areas and dozens of families have begun to flee their homes, adding that they did not have time to find shelter before the attacks began.

Some families fled in donkey carts, others on foot, carrying mattresses and other belongings with them. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said two of its clinics east of Khan Younis were shut down due to the new attack.

At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, people stood outside the morgue to say goodbye to their deceased relatives. Ahmed Samour, who lost many of his relatives in the bombing east of Khan Yunis, said: “We are tired, we are tired of Gaza. Our children are martyred every day, every moment.”

“No one asked us to evacuate. In the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, an Israeli air strike hit a tent used by local journalists at Al-Aqsa Hospital inside, causing the death of one person.

The media office of the Hamas-led Gaza government said that two others were wounded. The press release added that this new death brings the total number of Palestinian journalists killed in the Israeli attack to 163.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli military announced that it had issued a new evacuation order due to new attacks carried out by Palestinian rebels, including rocket firing from targeted areas east of Khan Yunis. The Palestinians said the orders do not apply to medical facilities.

The army said it had modified the boundaries of the designated humanitarian zone in the coastal Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Yunis to keep civilians away from combat zones with Palestinian rebels led by Hamas.

Gaza's Civil Emergency Services Authority said the new Israeli orders showed it had reduced the size of designated humanitarian areas in the southern and central areas, where 1.7 million people reside, to 48 square kilometers (18.5 square miles) from 65 square kilometers (25 square miles) in Gaza.

The Palestinians, the United Nations and international humanitarian agencies have declared that there is no longer a safe place in Gaza.

Health officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on Monday urged people to donate blood as large numbers of infected people fled to the medical center.

A man who arrived at the hospital in an ambulance carrying bodies said: “A family, including children, was torn apart while they were sleeping.” Israel vowed to completely destroy Hamas after the movement's rebels killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage in a cross-border attack in October.

On January 7, 2023, according to Israeli statistics. Gaza health authorities said the number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli retaliatory raid has since reached at least 39,006 as of Monday.

A ceasefire effort led by Qatar and Egypt and supported by the United States has failed so far due to disagreements over terms between fighters who blame each other for the stalemate.