Eastern Khan Younis becoming ‘a wasteland’
What’s going on in Khan Younis is basically a repeat of what happened two weeks ago, when the Israeli military took over major parts of the city’s east. Now they’re coming back again.
The military put out a statement justifying its return, saying there are more Hamas operatives in the area. But this is close to the same wording they use when justifying any incursion.
What we see on the ground is recurrent displacement for many families who just made their way back to their homes.
Last night, eastern Khan Younis faced a heavy bombing campaign. Close to 30 air attacks took place in the span of a few hours, destroying buildings and infrastructure. Eastern Khan Younis is becoming uninhabitable, turning gradually into a wasteland.
‘It’s a pattern’: UNRWA official on Israeli attacks on schools in Gaza
Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, told US newspaper The Washington Post that Israel has hit 70 percent of the agency’s schools since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the majority of which were being used as shelters for displaced Palestinians at the time they were attacked.
Her comments to the paper came after Israel attacked two more schools in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least 15 people and injuring about 30 others.
Touma said that the Israeli army has started immediately releasing statements after such attacks, claiming that the buildings are being used by Hamas fighters and that attacking them is justified.
“These are very serious claims,” she said. “We have no way to confirm or deny these claims, nor do we have the ability to investigate. What we do know is that every time these schools or buildings are hit, we’ve had civilians hit, women and children.”
Israel has bombed nine Gaza City school shelters in eight days: Monitor
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor says that the Israeli army has intensified its policy of bombing schools used as shelters for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, killing and injuring hundreds of them.
Just yesterday, two attacks on school shelters in Gaza City killed at least 15 Palestinians and injured some 30 others.
In a report, the human rights group said that these attacks over the past eight days have killed 79 Palestinians and injured 143 others, most of them women and children.
The report says that the actual casualty figures are likely much higher, due to the “loss of others under the rubble who cannot be recovered due to the lack of appropriate equipment for rescue crews”.
63% of Gaza structures damaged, destroyed: UN
The United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) estimates that 63 percent of all structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed during the war. Its findings, based on satellite imagery analyses, classify 156,409 structures as destroyed, severely damaged, moderately damaged or possibly damaged.
The hardest hit areas in recent months have been Rafah and northern Gaza, said UNOSAT, with 2,300 new structures assessed as damaged in northern Gaza and some 15,030 in Rafah.
