UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticised the evacuation order on Monday, saying there is now no safe place for Palestinians to flee.
Israeli army ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians from much of Khan Younis on Monday, a sign that troops are likely to launch a new ground assault into the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city.
The IDF order suggests the city will be the latest target of Israel’s raids into parts of Gaza it had previously invaded in the war as it pursues regrouping Hamas militants.
Much of Khan Younis was destroyed in a long assault earlier this year, but large numbers of Palestinians had moved back to escape another Israeli offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah.
Monday’s evacuation order covered the eastern half of Khan Younis and a large swath of the Gaza Strip’s southeast corner. Earlier in the day, the army said a barrage of rockets out of Gaza was fired from Khan Younis.
Israel told people to move to Muwasi, a coastal area designated by the Israeli army as a safe zone, which has become filled with crowded and unsanitary tent camps.
The order suggested a new assault on Khan Younis was imminent.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the new evacuation order “just shows yet again that no place is safe in Gaza” for Palestinian civilians.
“It’s another stop in this deadly circular movement that the population in Gaza has to undergo on a regular basis,” he said in a statement calling for a ceasefire.
Israeli army ‘making progress’, Netanyahu says
Israeli forces fought for weeks in Khan Younis earlier this year and withdrew, claiming to have destroyed Hamas battalions. But in other places where the military has made similar claims, renewed raids have underscored Hamas’ capabilities.
More fighting in the Khan Younis area could further hamper Palestinians’ access to much-needed potable water. Included in the evacuation zone is a water line that Israel installed following criticism over its cutoff of water to the strip early in the war.
Also in the zone is the area surrounding the Kerem Shalom crossing, the major aid crossing to southern Gaza, and an aid route inside the territory that Israel has said it would safeguard.
Last week, the military ordered an evacuation from the north Gaza district of Shijaiyah, and intensive fighting has followed.
Netanyahu said on Monday that the military was “making progress toward ending the phase of the destruction of Hamas’ terror army.” But he said forces will continue to “target their remains going forward.”
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes, with many displaced multiple times. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of public order have hindered the delivery of humanitarian aid, fuelling widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine.
