By David Gritten, BBC News
EPATens of thousands of Palestinians are seeking shelter and safety as the exodus from Khan Younis, Gaza’s second city, continues in response to Israeli military evacuation orders.
The UN estimates that 250,000 people in the city’s eastern neighborhoods are affected by the orders issued Monday, which suggest Israeli forces are about to return.
An Israeli airstrike on Tuesday reportedly killed 12 Palestinians in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone to which residents have been urged to flee.
A large hospital in Khan Younis is now also empty, after all its patients and medical staff left.
Much of the town was destroyed in a lengthy Israeli offensive earlier this year, but many Palestinians have moved there to escape another Israeli operation in the nearby town of Rafah.
Explosions, shelling and gunfire were also heard across Gaza City on Wednesday as Israeli forces continued to battle Hamas and other armed groups in the eastern Shejaiya district for a seventh day.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.
More than 37,950 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Speaking from Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Louise Wateridge of the UN refugee agency (UNRWA) told the BBC that her staff on the ground had observed the “very chaotic” movement of civilians from eastern Khan Younis.
“It’s different from previous trips, where we saw loaded trucks and vehicles,” she said.
“There are few vehicles available, little fuel, the roads are very dangerous, the situation is very dangerous. People are really at that stage, they are carrying what they can in their hands and moving around. It’s devastating.”
Marwan, a father of four whose wife is pregnant, told the BBC it took his family three hours to travel about 7km (4 miles) on a donkey cart from Khan Younis to al-Mawasi, which lies inside an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” with no basic services.
“We left in a hurry, so we couldn’t get all our luggage and important things,” he said. “I called a friend who lives in al-Mawasi. He told me there was a place near my house and I could come.”
He added: “For the bathroom I have to dig into the sand and mud and make a big hole.”
On Tuesday afternoon, nine members of an extended family who had fled Khan Younis were reportedly among 12 people killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which is also inside the “humanitarian zone.”
The Associated Press cited hospital documents saying that Dr. Hossam Hamdan, a 62-year-old dermatologist, his wife, their adult son and daughter were among the dead.Four of Dr Hamdan’s grandchildren and the mother of two of them were also killed, along with two other residents of the building and a man who was in the street outside, he added.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was verifying the reports.
ReutersOn Tuesday evening, the World Health Organization announced that the European Hospital in Gaza, in eastern Khan Younis, was completely empty, after its 320 patients and all medical staff left the city in response to an evacuation order for the surrounding area.
Most of the patients have been transferred to Nasser Hospital, which is now at full capacity and lacking medical supplies and drugs for surgery, he warned.
“The European Hospital in Gaza, one of the largest referral hospitals in the south, must be protected and made operational immediately. Gaza cannot afford to lose more hospitals,” wrote Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, on X, formerly Twitter.
An Israeli defense agency said it had not ordered patients and staff at the European Hospital to leave. But the head of the emergency department said the Hamas-run Health Ministry had ordered their evacuation.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in London, Orly Goldschmidt, said the evacuation orders were part of Israel’s efforts to minimise civilian casualties and accused Hamas members of entrenching themselves in residential areas.
“We know that they are also hiding in Khan Younis and we want the civilian population out of there, so as not to harm the Palestinian population and to kill only Hamas members,” she told the BBC on Tuesday.
The Israeli military has not announced the start of an operation in eastern Khan Younis. But the evacuation orders are seen as a sign that the area will be next to be invaded by Israeli troops, who believe Hamas and its allies have regrouped there.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) said Monday it had fired about 20 rockets from Khan Younis toward southern Israeli border towns, the largest such attack from Gaza in months, but no casualties were reported.
An estimated 80,000 other Palestinians in northern Gaza have been affected by Israeli evacuation orders targeting the Shejaiya district, east of Gaza City, which Israeli troops returned to last week.
Medics told Reuters news agency that four people were killed in an airstrike on Wednesday, while the Israeli military said it had struck and dismantled more than 50 “terrorist infrastructure sites” over the past day.
The Israeli military also said strikes killed “terrorists who posed a threat” to its troops in central Gaza. Local health officials said three people were killed in a car strike in Deir al-Balah, and five others were killed in two strikes in the nearby Maghazi urban refugee camp.
In the southernmost city of Rafah, Israeli forces reportedly shelled several areas of the city and continued to demolish apartment buildings.
The Israeli military said a “targeted” operation was continuing in Rafah and that ground forces supported by aircraft had “dismantled several terrorist infrastructure sites and eliminated terrorists.”
