Thousands of displaced Palestinians forced to flee again

Cairo, Aug 9—Thousands of Palestinians have again been displaced from eastern Khan Younis, only two weeks after being forced to flee another Israeli assault. 30 sites were attacked.

Israeli tanks returned to the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Friday August 9, forcing families to evacuate along congested roadways, as Palestinian fighters continued to attack Israeli troops from the ruins, residents and the military said.

Thousands of people fled eastern Khan Younis in vehicles and on foot, belongings heaped on donkey carts and motorcycle rickshaws as they made their slow escape along congested roads.

With Israel and Lebanon braced for a possible escalation in fighting, leaders from the United States, Egypt and Qatar tried to revive efforts to halt the fighting in Gaza, scheduling a new round of talks for Aug. 15. Israel has accepted the invitation to attend the proposed talks in either Cairo or Doha, while Hamas has yet to respond.

In recent weeks Israeli forces which swept into nearly the entire Gaza Strip over more than ten months of war have been returning to the ruins of areas where they said they had defeated Hamas fighters, while warning that they might regroup.

In the latest assault, the military dropped leaflets ordering residents and displaced people sheltering in eastern Khan Younis, Gaza’s main southern city, to evacuate from an area that has already seen repeated waves of fighting.

Families packed into buses and cars, many seeking shelter in Al-Mawasi, a sandy stretch of ground along the coast, though some expressed fear over attacks there even though it is designated as a safe zone by Israeli forces.

Later on Friday, an Israeli air strike killed six Palestinians in Al-Mawasi, medics said. Another strike on a house nearby killed four people, including a girl and wounded several others, they added.

Among the dead were two local journalists, Tamim Abu Muaamar and Abdallah Al-Susi, along with several of their relatives, medics and follow journalists said. Their deaths brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire to 165 since Oct 7, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.

The Israeli military said troops hit dozens of Hamas targets in Khan Younis and Rafah close to the Egyptian border, seizing arms depots, destroying infrastructure and killing dozens of fighters armed with weapons including rocket propelled grenades.

At least 39,699 people have been killed and 91,722 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.