Palestinians are leaving eastern Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, en masse as an Israeli evacuation order affects some 250,000 people, the United Nations said Tuesday.
The Israeli military estimates that approximately 1.9 million people – more than 80% of all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – are now concentrated in the central part of the area.
While the exact number of people fleeing Khan Younis was not immediately known, Sigrid Kaag, the UN’s top humanitarian official for Gaza, said there were about 1.9 million displaced people in Gaza. She said civilians in the besieged area had been pushed “into an abyss of suffering.”
Israel has told evacuees to seek refuge in an overcrowded coastal area with few basic services and dotted with sprawling tent camps. The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and supplies into Gaza, leaving people completely dependent on humanitarian aid. The UN’s top court has concluded there is a “credible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel vehemently denies.
On Monday, the Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate much of Khan Younis and nearby areas and move to the Israeli-declared safe zone, suggesting that Israel will launch a new ground assault on the city.
However, an Israeli strike inside the safe zone on Tuesday killed at least 12 people, including nine members of the same family. Some of the dead had fled Khan Younis just hours earlier, said Asmaa Salim, a relative who lived in the targeted house in Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.
Israel launched the war in Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7, in which militants swept into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 people, some of whom remain in custody.
Since then, more than 37,900 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli ground offensives and bombardments, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
