Israeli forces storm hospital as Khan Younis hit by bloodiest fighting of 2024

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Israeli forces, advancing deep into western Khan Younis in Gaza's bloodiest fighting so far in January, stormed one hospital and put another under siege on Monday, cutting off the wounded from trauma care, Palestinian officials said.

Troops advanced for the first time into the al-Mawasi district near the Mediterranean Coast, west of Khan Younis, the main city in southern Gaza. 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. The military said later that three Israeli soldiers were killed on Monday in southern Gaza.

Qidra said at least 50 people were killed overnight in Khan Younis, while the sieges of medical facilities meant dozens of dead and wounded were beyond the reach of rescuers.

"The Israeli occupation is preventing ambulance vehicles from moving to recover bodies of martyrs and the wounded from western Khan Younis," he said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said tanks had surrounded another Khan Younis hospital, al-Amal, headquarters of the rescue agency, which had lost contact with staff there.

"We are deeply worried about what is happening around our hospital," said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Israel says Hamas fighters operate in and around hospitals, which Hamas and medical staff deny.

Elad Goren of COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry branch that coordinates with the Palestinians, added that: "A particular effort led by a dedicated team has been put on making sure civilians have access to medical care."

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Monday said Israel had a right to defend itself but added: "We expect them to do so in accordance with international law and to protect innocent people in hospitals, medical staff and patients as well, as much as possible."

Residents said the bombardment from air, land and sea was the most intense in southern Gaza since the war began in October.

Video filmed from afar showed scattered civilians wandering around a ghost city crowded with tents, abandoned laundry flapping on lines as gunfire rattled and smoke rose into the sky.

Israel launched an offensive last week to capture Khan Younis, which it now says is the principal headquarters of the Hamas militants responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

On Monday the Israeli Defense Forces said they had found weapons, explosives, rockets and a weapons facility and destroyed tunnel shafts and underground infrastructure in recent days in Khan Younis.

PENNED IN

The newest phase of the war has brought fighting deep into the last corners of the enclave packed with those fleeing bombardment. At least 25,295 Gazans have been killed since Oct. 7, Gaza health authorities said in an update on Monday.

Most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are now penned into Rafah just south of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah just north of it, crammed into public buildings and camps of tents made from plastic sheets lashed to wooden frames.

Lines of cars and donkey carts piled high with belongings pushed south as Gazans sought to flee the bombardments.

"This is the seventh time I get displaced," said Gazan Mariam Abu-Haleeb, weeping in a car surrounded by her possessions.

Ahmad Abu-Shaweesh, a boy, described sheltering in the Al-Aqsa University only to find it coming under attack.

"We hardly made it out... We didn't expect the tanks at the university's gates."

Gaza has had no communications or internet service for 10 days, hampering ambulance dispatches to areas targeted by Israel and preventing people from checking on one another and on the whereabouts of Israeli forces.

At Nasser Hospital, the only major hospital still accessible in Khan Younis and the largest still functioning in Gaza, video showed the trauma ward overwhelmed with wounded being treated on a floor splashed with blood.

Outside, men dug graves within the hospital grounds because it was not safe to venture out to the cemetery. Authorities said 40 people were buried there.

In Brussels, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told reporters the situation in Gaza was out of control and asked the European Union to call for a ceasefire.

"The health system has collapsed. There is no way for injured Palestinians to be treated in the Gaza strip and they are not able to leave Gaza for treatment outside."

Israel says it wants to annihilate Hamas. But Palestinians and some Western military experts say that may be unachievable given the group's diffuse structure and deep roots in Gaza, which it has ruled since 2007.

Though Israelis overwhelmingly support the war, a growing number say the government should do more to reach a deal to free Israeli hostages, even if that means reining in its offensive.

About 20 relatives of hostages stormed a parliamentary committee session in Jerusalem on Monday, demanding lawmakers do more to help free their loved ones.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of relatives there was no truth to reports of a deal to free hostages in a ceasefire.

Sami al-Zuhri, head of Hamas' political unit in exile, told Reuters Hamas was open to "all initiatives and proposals, but any agreement must be based on ending the aggression and the occupation's complete withdrawal" from Gaza.

At a press conference in Beirut, Hamas official Osama Hamdan echoed calls for a complete ceasefire and stressed Hamas, which has long vowed to destroy Israel, would not accept anything other than "a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital".

His comments come after Netanyahu at the weekend rejected the creation of a future independent Palestinian state, opening a rift with Israel's U.S. ally, which said again on Monday that it believes a two-state solution is still possible.

Medical facilities battered amid Israeli assault in Khan Younis, say Palestinian officials in Gaza, as death toll rises

Medical facilities in Khan Younis in southern Gaza have been battered amid an Israeli assault in the area Monday, Palestinian health officials said, as the number of people killed in Israel’s siege on Gaza continues to rise.

Dozens of people have been killed and wounded in the latest offensive in western Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza. Medical facilities including the Nasser Medical Complex, Al Amal Hospital and the Palestine Red Crescent Society headquarters are located in the area.

“The situation here is completely catastrophic. We didn’t sleep last night. The hospital is entirely besieged,” Ahmad Al Moghrabi, a doctor at the Nasser Medical Complex said in a video shared to his Instagram page Monday.

“There is no way for us to escape the hospital and no way for evacuation. The troops are all around, and the only roads for evacuation are filled with dead bodies,” he said.

The Nasser Medical Complex is receiving more serious injuries than it can accommodate, the health ministry said, adding that intensive care units are at capacity.

Health officials also said that Israeli forces Monday stormed the Al Khair Hospital, west of Khan Younis, and detained a number of its medical staff, amid an ongoing “siege” of the area.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas outposts, infrastructure, and command and control centers in Khan Younis and the action demanded “precise operations” due to the densely populated civilian areas.

The military operation, which was launched on Sunday, is being led by Israel’s 98th Paratroopers Division and is expected to last for several days, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, without providing further details on the timeline.

“Dismantling Hamas’ military framework in western Khan Younis is the heart of the logic behind the operation,” the statement added.

The IDF said it had seen militants at “sensitive sites” such as hospitals and shelters in the tightly packed civilian areas.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its headquarters and the Al-Amal Hospital, located in the same neighborhood, are “under siege” by Israeli forces, and soldiers are “targeting anyone who tries to move in the area.”

A field ambulance point has been established outside the Al-Amal neighborhood, where the medical facilities are located, to ensure a continuity of operations.

But the organization said the situation remains “extremely dangerous” around the Al-Amal hospital and that ambulance teams are facing “significant difficulties in reaching the wounded and injured due to the continuous bombardment in the governorate.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said he is “deeply concerned” by reports of the fighting, warning that that violence near Al-Amal hospital and the raid on Al-Khair not only “put patients and people seeking safety within these facilities at risk, but they also prevent newly injured people outside the hospitals from being reached and receiving care.”

Israel’s siege in Gaza has devastated swathes of the territory, diminished food, fuel and water supplies, and crushed the enclave’s medical system. Over 1.9 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, many multiple times, according to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

There are 16 out of 36 hospitals partially functioning across the strip, including nine in southern Gaza and seven in the north, the UN’s humanitarian affairs office reported on Sunday.

In southern Gaza, three hospitals – Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir El-Balah, and Nasser and Gaza European hospitals in Khan Younis – are “at risk of closure due to the issuance of evacuation orders in adjacent areas and the ongoing conduct of hostilities nearby,” OCHA said.

The Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has been functioning to a “limited degree” since mid-January, added OCHA.

The Health Ministry said Monday that the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7 rose to 25,295, with at least 63,000 injuries recorded. At least 190 people were killed and 340 injured in the last 24 hours, the Ministry statement said.

CNN cannot independently verify casualty figures in Gaza due to limited access to the area.

Hamas’s militant wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said in a statement Monday that they were fighting in the western Khan Younis area, killing a number of Israeli soldiers with anti-personnel missiles.

Ahmed Naseem, a resident of Al-Amal neighborhood in Khan Younis, told CNN Monday that “intense” shelling of the area started in the early hours of Monday.

“There was heavy shelling in the area since the early hours of Monday. I could feel it intensely from the building I live in,” Nassem said. “We don’t even dare open the windows to see where these attacks are happening,” he said.

He said that he is “terrified of filming the scenes taking place nearby” because he fears he will be shot at, if a drone catches him in the act.

“We can’t even go to the rooftop because we cannot determine if drones will fire at us,” he said. “A few days ago water tanks were damaged, after drones fired right at them. My cousin, who was filling water at the time of the strike, was close to getting hit, but survived,” he added.

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