By Dr Marwan Asmar
The Israeli army left Khan Younis in total devastation and ruin. Their withdrawal from the second largest city in the Gaza Strip begun last Thursday after completing their terror operations but nobody is quite sure if this is the end of the onslaught or whether they will be coming back for more.
The extent of destruction, demolition, wreckage and debris is enormous. Whole houses and former commercial streets have been reduced to rubble and look like ugly eyesores chopped in large and small pieces of cement.
The Israeli army has been attacking Khan Younis and the southern region of Gaza since early December, 2023. Their troops finally entered the city after a tough battle with the Palestinian resistance.
However, and since then, it was the civilians that bore the brunt of the deadly fighting. Their houses have been destroyed, their shops wrecked and looted with their streets dug up.
Khan Younis, formerly a city of over 200,000 people, has been reduced to rubble as the Israelis insists this is the hub of Hamas. But they said that about Gaza City which is slightly to the north of the strip and which they also reduced to rubble and which frequently militarily intervene in different parts of the city.
After the Israeli withdrawal from the city, the original habitants slowly begun coming back filtering to a city on ruin, built holes, bombs and craters. They came on foot, bicycles, donkey carts and very occasionally cars, almost dazed as they tried to find their original homes and places of residents.
Many thought they were coming back to their homes which they had left in a hurry despite the fact Khan Younis had been designated a safe area.
But they were in for a great shock after having seen the debris and wreckage.
“…All destroyed, nothing left, there is my house that used to be there, and here used to be the Bank of Palestine, why would anyone want to destroy such a bank,” one added.
“It’s all gone, were will we and won’t be able to find a tent,” another woman said tearfully.
The scarce media reports coming out of the city show thousands of residential units destroyed beyond repair with massive destruction and damaged, one official said on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli army with their tanks and bombing from the air destroyed the city’s markets, stores, clinics medicals centers, malls and stalls, he added. Her missiles dropped from above were supplemented by explosive-laden booby-trapped building that exploded from below-ground.
“The Israeli soldiers destroyed hospitals, destroyed all roads, water networks, electricity, communications and the internet. They dug up all the roads and changed the shape of the city.”
As with other cities, towns and villages in the north, the aim here was to make the city unlivable, so people would go away and look for somewhere else outside Gaza. The aim is to expunge any traces of identity and belonging.