The Israeli army says its ground forces have “surrounded” the town of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip after 24 of its soldiers were killed in the enclave, the highest death toll in a single day during three months of war.
“Over the past day, the troops carried out a large operation during which they surrounded Khan Younis and deepened the operation in the region,” the army said in a statement on Tuesday, calling the city a stronghold of the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
“Ground troops engaged in close combat, directed (air) strikes and used intelligence to coordinate fire, resulting in the elimination of dozens of terrorists,” he said. attacks on Gaza’s second largest city.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, said the Israeli army’s operations would only worsen the humanitarian crisis in the increasingly shaken city.of a serious shortage of food, water and medical supplies.
Khan Younis was “designated as a safe zone for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were evacuated from the north and Gaza City at the start of the war,” Mahmoud said, adding that he “It is today a scene of much suffering and devastation.”
Israeli forces killed at least 65 people in attacks on Khan Younis on Monday, according to medical sources.
Palestinian officials have said at least 25,490 people have been killed and 63,000 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll from Hamas attacks in southern Israel stands at 1,139.
Hospitals attacked
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Nasser Hospital and El Amal Municipal Hospital in Khan Younis, among the territory’s few partially functional hospitals, were under “extreme danger” due to Israeli bombardment.
“The buildings of the Nasser medical complex are exposed to shrapnel, endangering the lives of patients, staff and displaced people,” the ministry said on its Telegram channel on Tuesday.
“The Israeli occupation places the Nasser Medical Complex and El Amal Hospital in Khan Younis in extreme danger,” he said, calling for “urgent intervention” to save the two facilities.
🚨Urgent: Continuous Israeli drone fire targets anyone moving around Al-Amal Hospital. PRCS ambulances are unable to reach the injured in Khan Younis governorate.#NotATarget ❌#Gaza #IHL
– PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 23, 2024
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which runs El Amal Hospital, said Tuesday that Israeli drones were targeting anyone moving through the facility.
He said his ambulances were unable to reach the wounded and that a civilian was killed by Israeli fire at the hospital entrance, noting “repeated shooting and attacks against displaced people » in messages on X.
Leo Cans, head of mission for Palestine at the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said:About 20 percent of health workers were still working at Nasser Hospital, with most having to flee for their own safety and that of their families.
“This is a strategy used by the Israeli army to scare people, to terrorize health workers so that they leave without having to close the hospital,” Cans told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The Israeli military has repeatedly claimed that Hamas fighters operate in and around hospitals, something medical staff and Palestinian health officials have denied.
Deadliest day for Israel
An Israeli army spokesman said 21 soldiers were killed Monday in an explosion in central Gaza when two buildings they had mined for demolition collapsed after Palestinian fighters fired grenades at a neighboring tank.
Three soldiers were killed in another attack in southern Gaza on Monday, bringing the total number of deaths in a single day to 24. At least 217 soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive.
“Yesterday we experienced one of our most difficult days since the start of the war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday. “In the name of our heroes, for the sake of our lives, we will not stop fighting until absolute victory.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the war would determine Israel’s future “for decades to come.” “The fall of combatants is a necessary condition for achieving the objectives of the war,” he said.
The day’s assessment comes at a time when Israel is beginning to feel feelings of discontent with Netanyahu’s war strategy.
Last week, a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, whose soldier son was killed in the Gaza ground offensive, said the campaign had not yet achieved its goal of dismantling Hamas and that there was no hope of liberating Hamas. captives held in Gaza as part of a military operation.