Walking on the rubble of razed buildings, collecting the few belongings that could still be used, thousands of Palestinians returned Thursday to the center of Khan Younes to find a landscape of desolation after weeks of fighting.
On the streets of the largest city in the south of the Gaza Strip, men and women pile whatever they can on the roofs of cars, on donkey carts or on their heads or backs: bottle gas, clothing, furniture, as shown in AFP images.
Things that they will mostly bring back to where they have taken refuge since the beginning of the fighting.
Some wear surgical masks to protect themselves from the omnipresent dust. Like this teenager who was able to recover a huge stuffed toy.
After weeks of fighting, Israeli tanks this week left the center of Khan Yunis, a few kilometers north of Rafah, leaving behind immense destruction and allowing residents to return to the town.
According to witnesses, the Israeli army and Hamas, the fighting continued on Thursday in the western part of the city.
“Sadness has invaded our lives”
Jamil Agha, 49, decided to stay with his family in what remains of his house. ” What can we do ? Crying is useless. Sadness has invaded our lives,” he told AFP.
“Israeli military planes […] destroyed thousands of houses, reduced them to ruins but they were not able and will not be able to destroy our memory,” said Wajih Abou Zarifa, 55, whose home was razed.
According to a municipal official, speaking on condition of anonymity, the Israeli army “destroyed thousands of homes in Khan Younes, causing massive destruction.”
“It destroyed markets, shops, clinics, medical centers, dozens of restaurants. It destroyed hospitals, all roads, water, electricity, communications and Internet networks. It dug up all the roads and changed the landscape in the city,” he added.
Asked by AFP about the destruction in the city and its withdrawal from the center, the Israeli army did not react immediately.
The Hamas Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement that six bodies were found in the center of Khan Yunis on Thursday afternoon and that “dozens of missing people are still under the rubble.”
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked on October 7 by an attack of unprecedented scale carried out by Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip in southern Israel, which claimed the lives of at least 1 160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel launched a military operation which has so far left 30,800 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.