Hundreds of Palestinians flee new Israeli operation in southern Gaza

Hundreds of Palestinians fled, Sunday, August 11, the northern neighborhoods of Khan Younis, a large city in the south of the Gaza Strip where the Israeli army has issued evacuation orders in preparation for new military operations, AFP correspondents report. Early in the morning, Israeli warplanes dropped messages calling on civilians to leave the al-Jalaa area, while sending text messages all around, pushing back onto the roads families often already displaced several times by the bombings, uninterrupted on the small coastal territory since October 7.

The war was triggered that day by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos on Israeli soil, which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 111 are still being held in Gaza, of whom 39 are dead, according to the army.

Israeli reprisals in Gaza have so far left 39,790 dead, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not detail the number of civilians and fighters killed. A figure we are unable to independently verify.