Khan Yunis witnesses one of its bloodiest days yet as Israel’s crime of genocide continues to unfold
Smoke billows while Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Yunis as the IDF renewed fighting in the area, 22 July 2024
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports on 23 July 2024:
The Israeli army has killed 70 Palestinians and wounded 200 others, mostly children and women, in less than 12 hours in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of civilians have received new evacuation orders in the area.
These latest crimes come as part of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, ongoing since 7 October 2023.
The atrocities committed by the Israeli army against civilians in the Strip over the past nine months are well-documented and carried out consistently. These crimes include killing, mass murder, starvation, blocking the entry of humanitarian aid, forced evacuation, destruction of civilian objects, and the denial of any kind of stability, as has been the case in Khan Yunis since this morning (22 July 2024). Such actions indicate that the occupation army is essentially destroying the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip in every way that it can.
Every time there is talk of returning to the negotiating table to reach a truce and an exchange agreement, the Israeli army purposefully increases the number of massacres and mass killings of Palestinian civilians. This raises concerns that Israel is engaging in political blackmail by using the killing and displacement of civilians as a tool of pressure, as it has done repeatedly in recent weeks.
After carrying out a premeditated mass murder this morning, the Israeli army launched dozens of raids, fire belts, and artillery shelling on homes, streets, and gatherings of displaced people. Thousands of these people fled into the streets in a panic, looking for a safe place that did not exist.
Residents and displaced people sheltering in the following towns were given evacuation orders from the Israeli army: Bani Suhaila and its surroundings; Abasan al-Kabira and al-Jadidah and its surroundings; al-Qarara and its surroundings; al-Fukhari and its surroundings; Khuza’a and its surroundings; al-Qurain; al-Manara; al-Salam; Jurat al-Lot; Qizan al-Najjar; Sheikh Nasser; al-Mahatta; al-Satar; and al-Katiba. This coincided with the Israeli army’s declaration that the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Al-Mawasi would be reduced.