2024-04-08 10:50:54
Large numbers of Palestinians moved to the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, on Monday, to salvage what they might from amidst the widespread destruction caused by the Israeli attack, a day following the Israeli army announced the withdrawal of its forces from the area.
Many returned to the second largest city in the Strip to find that their former hometown was featureless, with dozens of buildings destroyed or damaged, with piles of rubble found in place of apartments and shops.
In Khan Yunis, where Israel sent forces into the city last December, streets were bulldozed and schools and hospitals were damaged due to the fighting.
“Several areas, especially the city center, have become uninhabitable,” said Mahmoud Abdel Ghani, who fled Khan Yunis in December when Israel began its ground invasion of the city.
He added: “I found my house and my neighbors’ houses turned into rubble,” according to what the Associated Press reported.
The withdrawal of Israeli forces from Khan Yunis marks the end of a major phase in the war once morest Hamas, and the reduction of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip to one of their lowest levels since the start of the war.
Israel says that the city is a major stronghold of Hamas, and that its operation over the past few months resulted in the deaths of thousands of activists and caused severe damage to an extensive network of tunnels that Hamas uses to transport weapons and fighters, and claimed to find evidence of the presence of detainees there.
In the absence of a military presence in the city, Hamas may seek to reorganize its ranks there as it did in other areas where the army reduced the number of its forces.
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