Israeli forces strike in the “in the heart” of Khan Younis; Gaza’s second-largest city

On Tuesday, Israeli forces initiated an assault on the primary city in the southern Gaza Strip, where hospitals were overrun with numerous Palestinian casualties. This seemed to be the most significant ground offensive since a ceasefire happened last week.

“We are in the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation,” the commander of the Israeli military’s Southern Command, General Yaron Finkelman, said in a statement.

According to residents, Israeli tanks entered the eastern sections of Khan Younis for the first time, moving westward from the Israeli border fence. House-to-house gun battles were raging around the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, which appeared to be the heaviest fighting of the 2-month-old war.

Israel ordered people out of swathes of the main southern city in the Gaza Strip as it pressed its ground campaign deep into the south, sending desperate residents fleeing even as it dropped bombs on areas where it told them to go https://t.co/u1aGFpjVCv pic.twitter.com/tOeuE7nzXv

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 4, 2023

“Sixty days after the war began our forces are now encircling the Khan Younis area in the southern Gaza Strip,” said Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the Israeli army’s chief of general staff, on Tuesday.

Hamas’ armed wing, the al Qassam Brigades, said its fighters had destroyed or damaged 24 Israeli military vehicles and snipers had killed or wounded eight Israeli soldiers in ongoing clashes in various areas of Khan Younis.

Khan Yunis pic.twitter.com/RW6pJ8GQ2B

— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) December 5, 2023

Though the verification of Hamas claims was not immediately possible, the frequency of the posts appeared to corroborate Israeli reports of intense urban combat occurring around Khan Younis, the largest city in the southern part of the coastal enclave.

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Having previously seized the northern half of Gaza last month and pausing for a week-long truce, the Israeli forces are now expanding their ground campaign to encompass the entire enclave. Their stated objective is to eradicate the Hamas rulers in control.

🚨BREAKING: Barrage of rockets towards southern #Israel.
Picture via Tzofar app pic.twitter.com/a7KiMysSbg

— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) December 5, 2023

This assault into the south now threatens to fuel a new wave of displaced Palestinians and a worsening of Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe.

According to the UN,1.87 million people, more than 80 per cent of Gaza’s population, have been driven from their homes, and that fighting is now preventing distribution of food, water and medicine outside a tiny sliver of southern Gaza.