For nearly nine months, Israel’s war on Gaza has forced Palestinians to flee from one place to another in search of safe havens in the besieged strip.
Israel’s latest mass evacuation order has ordered 250,000 displaced people from Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest city, to leave, as the country carries out fresh attacks in southern Gaza.
The order comes as heavy fighting rages between Palestinians in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, and the Shujayea neighborhood in Gaza City, to the north.
Here’s everything you need to know about what’s happening in Khan Younis:
Where were Palestinians in Khan Younis asked to flee to? Is it safe?
The Israeli army first asked Palestinians to “evacuate immediately to the humanitarian zone,” without specifying where.
About 13 hours later, a message on X asked people to go to the “al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.”
While Israel calls al-Mawasi – a coastal strip that stretches to Deir el-Balah in the north – a “humanitarian zone”, it has also launched attacks against populations in the area.
At least 25 people were killed in two Israeli attacks on al-Mawasi on June 21, and about 21 people in another attack on May 28, according to Palestinian officials.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was forced to evacuate its base in the Khan Younis neighborhood of al-Mawasi on June 29 due to security concerns.
Is the European hospital also being evacuated?
The Israeli army claimed on X that its evacuation order does not apply to the European hospital, which is located in the area.
The call to head to the Al Mawasi humanitarian zone does not apply to patients at the European hospital or the medical staff working there.
There are no plans to evacuate the European hospital from the Khan Yunis region.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 2, 2024
However, the PRCS reported that patients were being transferred to nearby hospitals due to the order, in anticipation of a possible ground assault.
Staff at the European Hospital have been ordered to evacuate, Jeremy Hickey, a volunteer anesthesiologist at Fajr Scientific, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Videos verified by Sanad, Tel Aviv Tribune’s fact-checking unit, showed entire hospital wards and areas where displaced people had taken refuge were being emptied.
Forced displacement puts them all at great risk, Hickey said.
“Moving them is extremely difficult because access to transport is extremely expensive… but also because of the long-term, enduring nature of many patients’ injuries,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“Mobilizing them is almost impossible and transporting these patients by ambulance is also almost impossible,” he added.
How soon will an Israeli military operation take place in Khan Younis after the evacuation?
The evacuation order likely implies that “Israeli forces will enter the area within 24 hours,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said in their latest battlefield report.
Israeli forces withdrew from the city on April 7, claiming victory over Hamas, but Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters recently launched 20 rockets toward Israel from eastern parts of the city.
The report said “clean-up operations” are expected in the area.
Israel’s actions in Khan Younis in April, when it claimed to have “destroyed Hamas battalions,” had already left much of the city in ruins.
Has Khan Younis already been evacuated?
Residents of Khan Younis were ordered to evacuate several times during the war, as the town came under Israeli attack:
December 5, 2023: Israeli forces surrounded Khan Younis, thousands of Palestinians fled to the nearby town of Rafah.
February 14, 2024: Israel ordered the evacuation of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, as Israeli snipers fired on anyone moving on or around the hospital compound.
April 8, 2024: Israeli troops withdrew from Khan Younis in preparation for a ground invasion of the nearby town of Rafah, leaving the city in ruins.
May 6, 2024: Displacement camps in Khan Younis have swelled after Israel ordered the evacuation of 1.4 million Palestinians seeking refuge in the nearby town of Rafah.
June 23, 2024: Israeli tanks approached the al-Mawasi “security zone” between Rafah and Khan Younis, days after an Israeli attack there killed 25 people, forcing thousands more Palestinians to flee to Khan Younis.
How are Palestinians reacting to this latest Israeli order?
The fuel shortage in Gaza is forcing residents to walk miles or use animal-drawn carts to flee, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud reported in Deir el-Balah.
“These constant movements and forced displacements have had a negative impact on a population that has been traumatized and displaced for nine months,” he said.
Ahmed al-Bairam told Reuters news agency that he did not have time to collect his belongings after Israeli orders.
“God knows where we will go tomorrow.
“We came from the eastern area, then we went to the European hospital, then we went to Rafah, then we returned to Bani Suheila, then we returned to Nasser hospital and now we went to Somood camp,” al-Bairam added.
“This time we didn’t take anything with us,” he explained. “There is no transportation… I have children with me and they are all walking.”
Why is the Israeli military issuing evacuation orders for previously declared “safe areas”?
Israel’s decision shows its failure to achieve its goal of “eliminating Hamas” and its intention to exhaust the Palestinian population in Gaza, according to Luciano Zaccara, professor of Gulf politics at the Center for Gulf Studies at Qatar University.
“This shows that they cannot win the war because they wanted to eliminate Hamas physically and politically, but so far the group is still there,” Zaccara told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“This also proves that Israel wants to win this war by exhausting the people,” he added.
“This way it creates much more problems and harm for Palestinians who cannot stay more than a month or 15 days in one place.”