Israel orders Gazans to Flee, Bombs Ares Where it Sens Them

Israel’s military posted a map on X on Monday morning with around a quarter of the city of Khan Younis marked off in yellow as territory that must be evacuated at once. Three arrows pointed south and west, telling people to head towards the Mediterranean coast and towards Rafah, near the Egyptian border.

The Israeli military’s chief Arabic-language spokesperson later said in a post on X that the central road out of Khan Younis to the north “constitutes a battlefield” and was now shut. Access would be permitted on the western outskirts of the city, while in Rafah, a short “tactical suspension of military activities” would allow access until the early afternoon.

In Rafah, bombing at one site overnight had torn a crater the size of a basketball court out of the earth. A dead toddler’s bare feet and black trousers poked out from under a pile of rubble. Men struggled with their bare hands to move a chunk of the concrete that had crushed the child.

Later they chanted “God is Great” and wept as they marched through the ruins carrying the body in a bundle and that of another small child body wrapped in a blanket.

“We were asleep and safe, they told us it was a safe area, Rafah and all,” said Salah al-Arja, owner of one of the houses destroyed at the site.

“There were children, women and martyrs,” he said. “They tell you it is a safe area, but there is no safe area in all of the Gaza Strip, it is all lies and manipulations.”

Israel blames Hamas for putting civilians in danger by operating from civilian areas, including in tunnels which can only be destroyed by large bombs. Hamas denies it does so.

As many as 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes in an Israeli bombing campaign that has reduced much of the crowded coastal strip to a desolate wasteland. Medical officials in the enclave say bombing has killed more than 15,500 people, with thousands more missing and feared buried in rubble.

Israel launched its assault to annihilate Gaza’s ruling Hamas Islamists in retaliation for an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by its gunmen, who killed 1,200 people and seized 240 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israeli forces largely captured the northern half of Gaza in November, and since a week-long truce collapsed on Friday they have swiftly pushed deep into the southern half. Tanks driving into Gaza from the border fence in the east along the road that divides Khan Younis from the city of Deir al-Balah further north have reached a flour mill halfway to the Mediterranean coast, cutting off the main north-south route, residents say.

Source: Reuters