Since Monday, December 4, tanks have been advancing towards the town of Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. On Sunday, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of an area inhabited by almost 120,000 people and 50,000 displaced persons, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Israel considers this town, the largest in the south of the enclave, to be a Hamas stronghold. It is also symbolic. Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Palestinian movement in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, head of the organization's armed wing, both come from here. The army dropped leaflets warning that a "terrible attack is imminent." Dozens of tanks, troops and bulldozers moved in to storm the town.
Gazans have been fleeing to Rafah, in the southwest of the enclave, on the Egyptian border. This last refuge, which is shrinking by the hour, is itself being bombarded by air strikes. "People are pleading for advice on where to find safety. We have nothing to tell them," wrote Thomas White on X, the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The entire enclave is under intense fire from the Israeli army. The 24 hours from Sunday to Monday afternoon saw some of the most intense bombardment since the start of the war. The premises of the Palace of Justice, the enclave's main judicial institution, were destroyed on Monday, bringing to a hundred the number of government buildings wiped out by Israel since October 7. "Israel is deliberately and methodically destroying the civil institutions and infrastructure that will be needed to govern and stabilize post-conflict Gaza," Hugh Lovatt posted on X, Palestine specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations. The Hamas-run health ministry claimed that 349 Palestinians have been killed and 750 wounded since Sunday. Three Israeli soldiers also lost their lives, bringing to 80 the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the ground offensive, the worst toll since 2008 and the start of the wars between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
On the Palestinian side, nearly 16,000 people have died, according to the same health ministry figures. According to a senior Israeli military official who wished to remain anonymous, 5,000 of them were combatants, bringing the ratio to two civilians killed for every combatant. "I'm not saying it's good that we have a two-to-one ratio," the official said at a press briefing, adding that the use of human shields was part of Hamas's "basic strategy."
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