IDF says Hamas operating in Khan Younis safe zone, issues new evacuation orders
Civilians evacuate al-Jalaa neighborhood as IDF says it has ‘precise intelligence’ on a resurgence of terror activity in southern Gaza after rockets were launched at Kissufim
The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday that it had “precise intelligence” indicating that the Hamas terror group was operating out of the designated humanitarian zone in the southern Gaza Strip, and further adjusted the zone’s boundaries, hours after it issued new evacuation warnings for Palestinians in the Khan Younis area.
The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee instructed civilians in several zones in the Khan Younis area to evacuate to the Israel-designated humanitarian zone in the early hours of Sunday morning, after four rockets were launched at the Israeli border community of Kissufim on Saturday.
A strike was later directed against the Khan Younis launch site by troops with the IDF’s 98th Division, and another was carried out against a building used by Hamas’s rocket unit.
As part of its preparations for a planned operation against renewed Hamas activity in the area, the military also adjusted the boundaries of the humanitarian zone itself, and civilians sheltering in the al-Jaala neighborhood of Khan Younis were told to evacuate to a different section of the safe zone.
The order was given in light of what the military said was “precise intelligence indicating that Hamas has embedded terror infrastructure in the area.”
“Due to many acts of terrorism, the exploitation of the humanitarian zone for terrorist activity and the firing of rockets at the State of Israel from the al-Jalaa neighborhood, remaining in this area has become dangerous,” the IDF said.
The instructions were transmitted via leaflets dropped from aircraft, SMS messages, phone calls and media broadcasts, with the military saying that the early warning was aimed at mitigating harm to civilians.
The evacuation instruction covered districts in the center, east and west, making it one of the largest such orders in the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, two days after tanks returned to the east of the city.
Hospitals in the affected zones did not need to evacuate, a military source said, adding that IDF had communicated this to Palestinian health officials and officials in the international community.
Families began leaving the area almost immediately after the call to evacuate, fearing fresh missile strikes and fighting, AFP journalists reported.
Crowds of people, mainly from the Hamad neighborhood in al-Jalaa, left with whatever they could get their hands on, some loading mattresses, clothing and cooking utensils into pickup trucks, while others simply walked with their bags.
Young men and women escorted elderly family members, while others tried to catch a ride to safer zones.
Palestinian media outlets shared footage of civilians leaving the affected area at night, flashlights in hand in order to see the path.
تغطية صحفية: نزوح العائلات من بعض المناطق الشرقية في مدينة خانيونس بعد تهديدات الاحتلال وقصفه لها pic.twitter.com/30nmkHIZiM
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 10, 2024
“We’re exhausted. This is the 10th time I and my family have had to leave our shelter,” said Zaki Mohammad, 28, who lives in the Hamad housing project in western Khan Younis, where the occupants of two multi-floor buildings were ordered to leave.
“People are carrying their belongings, their children, their hopes and their fears and running towards the unknown, because there is no safe place,” he told Reuters via a chat app. “We are running from death to death.”
Further south, the IDF said on Sunday morning that it had struck a cell of terror operatives that were identified emerging from a tunnel shaft in Rafah.
The operatives were spotted by soldiers monitoring surveillance cameras, the IDF said, and they were struck and killed by a drone a short while later.
Also in Rafah, the military said that troops with the 162nd Division had directed an airstrike on a building where a cell of operatives had been spotted.
More than 30 other targets were struck by Israeli aircraft in the last day across the Palestinian enclave, the IDF said, including buildings used by terror groups, anti-tank launch positions, and weapon depots.
The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, which saw terrorists murder some 1,200 people and seize 251 hostages. It is believed that 111 of the hostages abducted on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
In response, Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza with the proclaimed objectives of dismantling Hamas and getting the hostages back.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle as of May and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including schools and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 331.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
