The Israeli army launched a long-awaited major offensive on a major city called Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. The result was an untold number of helpless unarmed Palestinian civilians killed and an enormous number injured. The hospitals were filled with wounded people and corpses.
The attack was the biggest since the ceasefire broke down last week. Residents said Israeli tanks entered the eastern areas of Khan Younis for the first time, crossing the Israeli border fence and heading west.
Some are located in the town of Bani Suhaila on the eastern edge of Khan Younis and while others have gone further and positioned themselves on the edge of a Qatari-funded housing project called Hamad City.
Days after ordering the Gaza residents to flee the area, Israeli forces dropped a new leaflet on the 5 November with instructions to stay in shelters during the attack.
“In the next few hours, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will launch a heavy attack on your area of residence to destroy the terrorist outfit of Hamas” the Israeli army said in leaflets addressed to residents of six eastern and northern districts that cover one-fourth of Khan Younis.
“Do not go out, stay in your shelters and hospitals for your own safety you have been warned, it is dangerous to go out,” the leaflets added.
The Israeli army, which captured the northern half of the Gaza Strip before a week-long ceasefire last month, now says it is expanding its ground operations to the rest of the territory with the aim of wiping out heads of Hamas.
“We are now moving forward with the second phase. The second phase will be militarily difficult,” Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy told Reuters.
He said Israel was open to “constructive feedback” on minimizing civilian casualties as long as it complied with the instructions given to civilians in the move aimed at destroying Hamas.
Child corpses are spread in the ground
The main hospital in Khan Younis is the Nazar Hospital. Many injured people bleeding blood from injuries are brought to the hospital from ambulances, cars, trucks and on donkeys. People who survived said this happened to them because of the Israeli strikes launched at a school meant for displaced people.
Reuters reported how injured people lying closely in every inch of the hospital floor. The entire hospitals was full of loud laments of relatives.
Among the doctors rushing from patient to patient, one doctor carried the corpse of a small boy in a track kit and placed it in a corner, his hands spread across the blood-stained tiles. Surrounded by discarded bandages and rubber gloves lay an injured boy and girl, their limbs are broken.
Two children who were covered with fumes of dust due to the destruction of buildings were getting treatment. Their families were covered under the rubble.
One child shouted “My mother and father are inside the rubble, I want my mother, I want my mother, I want my family” she cried, Reuters reported this with immense grief.
People outside the hospital took the corpses wrapped with white clothes stained with blood. Many corpses are piled up in the floor. Reuters stated how five to six dead bodies were taken for burials in a motorbike cart.
A 70 year old mother cried loud and said she saw her sons hands with blood stains in the piles of bodies. “This is my son’s blood, this is his sacred blood, let Allah show sympathy to his soul. My son I need your smell, I need your smell . .. ” lamented the old grieving mother.
Health Ministry spokesperson of Gaza Ashra AL Qidra said at least 43 dead bodies of civilians were brought to the Nazar Hospital that morning,
The situation of the hospitals
All hospitals in the southern Gaza are completely destroying, the hospitals cannot cope up with the amounts of wounded people and their conditions. said Ashra al Qidra
Wafa (Palestinian News and Information Agency) reported that many air strikes exploded in the vicinity of the Adwan hospital in Jabaliya Camp. The news agency said 108 dead bodies and hundreds of wounded were taken to the Kamal Adwan Hospital. He said there are around 7000 people displaced due to today’s attack. Electricity has been disconnected, due to this there is no life saving surgeries done at the Kamal Adwan Hospital. There are no facilities for the doctors to perform life saving surgeries.
According to the Palestinian News and Information Agency, the medical departments have warned that there may be a mass death due to the situation in and around Kamal Adwan Hospital.
According to official Palestinian information there are only four hospitals functioned in the North of Gaza stripe. 55 Ambulances are gone out of service. There are no medical facilities inside the hospital.
Destruction until now (Gaza death toll)
Due to the Israeli strikes, out of 2.3 million of people 80% residents has been evicted from their houses. Many people have fled to the south. Southern areas has accommodated people, three times more than normal population.
According to the Gaza health officials considered trustworthy by the United Nations about 15800 people in Gaza has been died until 5 December. Many thousands have been disappeared and buried under the rubble. This is the worst peak of that disaster.
From the day the ceasefire broke out, Israel has informed online about the areas from where the people of Gaza should leave.
Eastern part of Khan Younis was marked on 4 Monday. Thousands of poor people leaving their inhabitant land walking only expecting to live.
“If all the civilians wish to be safe have to listen to the advice from our website on our Twitter accounts and look at the leaflets that dropped in their areas” Israeli military spokesman Richerd Hecht said.
Everywhere is the terrible darkness of death. No one is responsible for security. Gazans say they have no safe place left to go.
Adnan Abu Hasna, representative of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), notes that more than a million residents of Khan Younis, who are being driven from the south, are expected to arrive near the border town of Rafa.
Tens of thousands of families are on the roads. With the torrential rains that are currently falling, the sheds made of polythene and wood pieces are not enough. Adnan Abu Hasna says that the 50 to 60 aid trucks that enter Gaza every day through the Rafa border are not enough to meet the needs of the displaced.
“The situation is getting worse by every hour” Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in Gaza, told the world from southern Gaza.
While children, women, and unarmed civilians are being killed in plain sight like cats and dogs, the western countries including the United States remain silent.
It must be understood that the moment is approaching when the crying pain will explore in the frozen silence of the world that has emerged through this great human lamentation. Let’s just believe that the moment when this barbaric carnage of civilization goes backwards, the world will be the most destructive moment.
Writer : Azgar Nuhman – Freelance Journalist and Sufi author
