The towns, collectively home to more than 100,000 people in peacetime, are now sheltering tens of thousands more who fled other areas.

In the north of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave, Israel said its forces were still present at Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa, but gave no further details of their operations since the previous day when they entered the facility culminating a days-long siege.

Reuters was unable to verify the situation at Shifa on Thursday morning, having lost contact with doctors inside it since Wednesday.

Leaflets dropped overnight from aircraft told civilians to leave the towns of Bani Shuhaila, Khuzaa, Abassan and Qarara, on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, the main southern city. The towns, collectively home to more than 100,000 people in peacetime, are now sheltering tens of thousands more who fled other areas.

  • @CandelestineEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    That would be a little silly, because it’d look really obvious. If you’re going to do something heinous, you’re usually going to try to hide it. Even the Nazis tried to cover their tracks during WW2.

    The important part though, is he says “destroy HAMAS”. Regardless of how true/false it is, it’s the excuse he’s using. So the behaviors will be in-line with it, he picked it because it works for him.

    He’s not going to change his mind and suddenly go “y’know, some of those HAMAS guys can live, that’s okay now.” That’s just not realistic, since he has actual supporters, and they would hate that.

    So, there’s human shields in the way. Does he actually care? Of course not. He’s not a particularly good guy. But he has to stick to his guns, he’s a conservative, it’s what they do.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      4•1 year ago

      But it is obvious at this point. And Netanyahu doesn’t gaf because he’s trying to prove he’s in control of the situation to make up for his failure to stop Oct 7 from happening.

      (The IDF) released a video in which a soldier toured a hospital building, showing three bags with guns and flak jackets he said had been found stashed there, as well as several other rifles in a closet, and a laptop computer, but no tunnel complex. Officials said Hamas would have had time to clear out.

      “Israel will have to come up with a lot more than a handful of ‘grab and go’ rifles to justify shutting down northern Gaza’s hospitals with its enormous cost for a civilian population with urgent medical needs,” Kenneth Roth, a former head of Human Rights Watch who now works as a visiting professor at Princeton, said on social media platform X.

      • @DoomBot5English
        -4•1 year ago

        How about we wait until they clear more than a single tiny building in the largest hospital complex in Gaza?

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          3•1 year ago

          They’re not clearing the hospital. They’re interviewing every patient and medical personal and searching the hospital.

          And if all they’ve found so far is 15 guns and a couple of flack jackets, that hardly justifies the level of violence they’ve aimed against an institution that is strictly there to save lives.