Fierce fighting raged in Khan Younis on Monday as the Israeli military reported it had killed dozens of militants in Gaza’s southern city. Tanks moved for the first time on western neighbourhoods, engaging with Hamas’s fourth battalion in the city — the only one that has not been significantly weakened.
Once the western neighbourhoods fall, the central kasbah area and Khan Younis refugee camp will be surrounded. Israel believes the Hamas leadership is hiding in the city and many hostages are also believed to be held there.
The fighting in the vast Hamas tunnel network under Khan Younis is progressing at a much slower pace and will take much longer to complete.
Palestinian health officials said medical facilities in Khan Younis had been severely damaged. “The situation here is completely catastrophic,” said Ahmad Al Moghrabi, a doctor at the Nasser medical complex. “We didn’t sleep last night. The hospital is entirely besieged.”
Troops advanced for the first time into the al-Mawasi district near the Mediterranean Coast, west of Khan Younis. There, they stormed the Al-Khair hospital and were arresting medical staff, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qidra told Reuters.
There was no word from Israel on the situation at the hospital, and the military spokesperson’s office had no comment, according to Reuters.
More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. Israel claims 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped to Gaza on October 7th when gunmen stormed across the border and entered 22 communities in southern Israel.
As the fighting intensified, thousands of new refugees headed south from Khan Younis to Rafah, Gaza’s third-largest city, where more than a million displaced residents have already fled, creating an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Rafah is the last remaining area the Israeli army has not reached in Gaza and Israel will have to decide whether it wants to push further south and seize control of the strategically important Gaza-Egypt border road, 14km in length, known in Israel by its army code name, the Philidelphi route.
Israel wants a demilitarised Gaza as part of any postwar arrangement and control of the Philidelphi route is considered a key strategic goal, to stop the smuggling of militant weapons, overground or via tunnels, across the Egyptian border.
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu denied reports that a new ceasefire and hostage release agreement is on the table. “There is no real proposal from Hamas, it’s not true,” he told relatives of the 136 hostages held in Gaza in a meeting on Monday, adding that Israel has its initiative, but stressing that he couldn’t reveal details.
Angry relatives disrupted a meeting of the Knesset finance committee on Monday chanting: “You won’t sit here while the hostages are dying in Gaza.” Relatives also pitched tents outside Mr Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence, vowing to stay put until a hostage deal is clinched.
A separate demonstration was held calling for new elections.
With the cross-border fire continuing between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hizbullah in south Lebanon, Israeli media reported that Israel has given international mediators an end-of-January deadline for progress on a deal to push Hizbullah fighters away from the border before Israel will significantly escalate its military attacks.
Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant told his French counterpart on Monday: “Even if Hizbullah ceases fire unilaterally, Israel will not cease fire until it guarantees the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes, after the change in the security situation at the border.” He said Israel prefers a political solution but is preparing a military option.
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri told the Al Joumhouria newspaper that Lebanon must not be dragged into a war with Israel “according to its timetable, as it wants”.
Israeli jets hit militant targets across south Lebanon on Monday, including a building housing militants and observation points. - Additional reporting: Reuters.
