The fighting is among the most intense in two months of war against Hamas. The Israeli army claims to surround the large town of Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday December 6. “We have secured many Hamas strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip, and we are now carrying out operations against its strongholds in the south”, explained the chief of staff of the Israeli army. Follow our live stream.
Israel claims to have “eliminated” five senior Hamas officials. On its Telegram channel, the Israeli army claimed to have killed “most senior commanders” Hamas brigades operating from a network of tunnels in the northern Gaza Strip, and released a photo showing five senior members of the Palestinian movement that it said had “eliminated”.
The distribution of humanitarian aid still hampered. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), the town of Rafah, a crossing point with Egypt, is now the only place in the Gaza Strip where humanitarian aid is still distributed, in limited quantity. Aid practically no longer arrives in Khan Younes, and access to areas further north has been cut off since the resumption of fighting. New scenes of chaos were repeated on Tuesday at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, where patients are treated on the floor.
Secure areas for civilians “impossible” to be implemented according to the UN. The Israeli army drops leaflets every day on Khan Younes warning of an imminent bombing, ordering residents to leave their neighborhood. But the UN, which has calculated that 28% of the territory of the Gaza Strip now falls under these evacuation orders, judges “impossible” to establish secure areas to accommodate civilians as designated by Israel. “This blatant disregard for the foundations of humanity must stop”demanded the UN emergency aid coordinator.