what we know about the situation in Khan Younes, a town in the Gaza Strip surrounded and shelled

The fighting is concentrated in this town in the south of the Palestinian enclave, where Hamas terrorists are holed up, according to the Jewish state.

It has become the epicenter of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The town of Khan Younes, located in the southern part of the Palestinian territory, once again came under heavy bombardment on Wednesday January 24, while seeing ground fighting intensify. According to the Israeli army, the city was surrounded during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, with the aim of flushing out Hamas terrorists, possibly holed up in this urban area which hosts more than 400,000 Gazan refugees according to the UN.

On his account X, the Israeli army claims to have discovered weapons caches and networks of tunnels there, which it attributes to Hamas. On Wednesday afternoon, his soldiers were still surrounding three hospitals in the area with “dozens of tanks” according to the Palestinian terrorist organization. While the strikes continue on Khan Younès, franceinfo takes stock of the situation in this overpopulated and besieged city.

Deadly bombings intensify

After several days of air strikes ordered by the Israeli army on Khan Younes, military helicopter fire on the city was reported at dawn on Wednesday. In a press release, the UN deplored the same day a “intensification” strikes on this urban area. For their part, the staff of the World Health Organization (WHO) describes on its site a situation “catastrophic and indescribable” in hospitals in the main city in southern Gaza, we can read on the agency’s website.

In his last update, published on Wednesday morning, the Israeli army claims to have “eliminated many terrorist cells” employing “snipers, tanks and air force”and said to have put out of harm’s way “a cell planning to carry out anti-tank fire against our forces”.

According to press photographers and videos posted on social networks, the city’s health services are overloaded and fill up a little more after each bombardment. Hamas and the Qatari channel Al Jazeera claim that several dozen people were killed by these strikes on Tuesday alone, without this toll being able to be independently verified. Among the health establishments affected by the war, the Nasser hospital has been the target of fire since Tuesday, which considerably complicates the work of the medical staff on site.

Fighting in the streets increasingly violent

Snipers are stationed in numerous locations in Khan Yunis, according to the IDF, which recorded its heaviest daily loss on Monday after the death of 21 soldiers. These reservists were all killed in the collapse of a building they were trapping, possibly due to enemy rocket launcher fire, according to the army spokesperson quoted by the Israeli daily. Haaretz.

On Wednesday, tanks opened fire on a UN training center that had become a refuge for displaced people, causing “nine dead and 75 injured”said on Thomas White, director in Gaza of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). James McGoldrick, United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, lamented “another incident in which a building used for humanitarian purposes is damaged or hit“.

The same building has “was hit during military operations” which left six dead on Monday, adds Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of UNRWA. Israeli forces assured that they had no knowledge of such damage.

Fear of a new mass exodus

The violence of the fighting and the extremely difficult living conditions in Khan Younes have already pushed many Palestinians to flee the city, where they are currently “88,000 inhabitants and around 425,000 displaced people”, according to the UN. After leaving their homes in the north and center of Gaza, shelled during the months of October and November by the Israeli army, Gazan refugees may now want to go even further south of the enclave.

Hamas sees this as a deliberate plan by the Israeli government, accused of wanting to forcibly displace “tens of thousands of people” from Khan Younes to Rafah, on the border with Egypt. MDespite humanitarian corridors, this flight of civilians often takes place in panic, and under the threat of bombs. Once arrived in Rafah, without the possibility of going further, Gazans remain exposed to great precariousness. Poor in water and food, as RFI reports, the city has, for example, only one maternity ward for around two million inhabitants.