Israel moves into Gaza’s second-largest city Khan Younis, battle intensifies

Israel said on Tuesday (December 5) that its troops had entered Gaza’s second-largest city as intensified bombardment sent streams of ambulances and cars racing to hospitals with wounded and dead Palestinians, including children, in a bloody new phase of the war.

The military said its forces were “in the heart” of Khan Younis, which has emerged as the first target in the expanded ground offensive into southern Gaza that Israel says aims to destroy Hamas.

Military officials said they were engaged in the “most intense day” of battles since the ground offensive began more than five weeks ago, with heavy firefights also taking place in northern Gaza.

The assault into the south is pushing a new wave of displaced Palestinians almost two months into the war, raising alarm from relief groups that they can’t keep up because insufficient aid supplies are entering Gaza.

The UN said 1.87 million people — more than 80% of Gaza’s population — have been driven from their homes. New evacuation orders by the Israeli military are squeezing people into ever-smaller areas of the tiny coastal strip’s southern portion.

Bombardment has grown fiercer across the territory, including areas where Palestinians are told to seek safety. In the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, just north of Khan Younis, a strike Tuesday destroyed a house where dozens of displaced people were sheltering. At least 34 people were killed, including at least six children, according to an Associated Press reporter at the hospital who counted the bodies.

Under US pressure to prevent further mass casualties in the conflict with Hamas, Israel says it is being more precise as it widens its offensive into southern Gaza. Weeks of bombardment and a ground offensive obliterated much of northern Gaza.

Israel says it must dismantle Hamas’s extensive military infrastructure and remove it from power to prevent a repeat of the October 7 attack that ignited the war. In the surprise attack, Hamas and other Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took captive some 240 men, women and children.

Israel’s assault since October 7 has killed more than 15,890 people in Gaza — 70% of them women and children — with more than 42,000 wounded, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Battles in Khan Younis and North Gaza

Israel military Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said his forces had begun the “third phase of the ground operations,” moving against Hamas in the south after seizing much of the north and “severely damaging Hamas.” Israel has not given details on troops movements, and it was not clear how far they had moved into Khan Younis. Residents said troops had advanced to Bani Suheila, a town on the city’s eastern edge.

Israeli forces also appear to be moving to partially cut across the strip between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. Satellite photos from Sunday showed around 150 Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles on the main road between the two cities.

The past days have brought some of the heaviest bombardment of the entire war, the UN’s humanitarian affairs office OCHA said.

Witnesses said a strike Tuesday hit a school in Khan Younis where hundreds of displaced people were sheltering. Ambulances rushed dozens of wounded to nearby Nasser Hospital, including a young boy in a bloody shirt whose hand had been blown off.

“What’s happening here is unimaginable,” said Hamza al-Bursh, who lives in the neighbourhood of Maan, one of several in and around the city where Israel has ordered civilians to leave. “They strike indiscriminately.” In northern Gaza, the military also said its troops were battling Hamas militants in the Jabaliya refugee camp and the district of Shujaiya on Gaza City's eastern edges. Israel said its forces had taken a number of Hamas positions in Jabaliya and destroyed rocket launchers and underground infrastructure in Shujaiya.

The battles in the north signalled the tough resistance from Hamas. Israeli forces moved into northern Gaza on October 27, and fighting has continued to be heavy, especially in Jabaliya. The military says 86 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive and that thousands of Hamas fighters have been killed, though it has not produced evidence.

Even after weeks of bombardment, Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar — whose location is unknown — was able to conduct complex cease-fire negotiations and orchestrate the release of more than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners last week. Palestinian militants have also kept up their rocket fire into Israel.

Israel ordered the full-scale evacuation of northern Gaza in the early days of the war and has barred people who left from returning. An unknown number of people — likely a few hundred thousand — remain in the north, but the rest of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is squeezed into the 90 square miles of central and southern Gaza.

Since moving into the south, the Israeli military has ordered people out of nearly two dozen neighbourhoods in and around Khan Younis. That further reduced the area where civilians can seek refuge by more than a quarter.

US’s punitive move against Israel

In a rare punitive move against Israel, the US State Department said on Tuesday it will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the step after warning Israel last week that President Joe Biden’s administration would take action over the attacks. Blinken did not announce individual visa bans, but officials said those would be coming this week and could affect dozens of settlers and their families.

“We have underscored to the Israeli government the need to do more to hold accountable extremist settlers who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank,” Blinken said in a statement. “As President Biden has repeatedly said, those attacks are unacceptable.”

“Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians' access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said.

Biden denounces sexual assault by Hamas men

At the same time, Biden has forcefully denounced the reported rape and sexual violence against Israeli girls and women by Hamas militants following the October 7 attack, calling on the world to condemn such conduct “without equivocation” and “without exception.”

Speaking at a campaign fundraiser in Boston on Tuesday, Biden noted that in recent weeks, female survivors and witnesses to the attacks have shared “horrific accounts of unimaginable cruelty”.

“Reports of women raped — repeatedly raped — and their bodies being mutilated while still alive — of women corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them,” Biden said. “It is appalling.”

Witnesses and medical experts have said that Hamas militants committed a series of rapes and other attacks before killing the victims in the October 7 attack, though the extent of the sexual violence remains unknown.

Hamas has denied that militants committed sexual assaults.

(With agency inputs)