(5 Dec 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip - 5 December 2023
1. Various of ambulances and other vehicles arriving at Nasser Hospital with injured patients, people gathered
STORYLINE:
A large crowd of Palestinians gathered outside Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday, seeking safety from Israeli bombardment in the region.
Ambulances and other vehicles were also seen bringing injured patients to the facility in Khan Younis.
Earlier in the day, Israel intensified its bombardment in and around Khan Younis, Gaza's second-largest city, in a bloody new phase of the war.
Under U.S. pressure to prevent further mass casualties, Israel has said it is being more precise as it widens its offensive into southern Gaza after obliterating much of the north — but Palestinians say there are no areas where they feel safe, and many fear that if they leave their homes they will never be allowed to return.
Aerial bombardment and the ground offensive have already driven three quarters of the territory's 2.3 million people from their homes — and new orders to evacuate areas around Khan Younis are squeezing people into ever-smaller areas of the already tiny coastal strip.
Residents said troops had advanced following heavy airstrikes to Bani Suheila, a town just east of Khan Younis.
Satellite photos from Sunday showed around 150 Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles just under 6 kilometers (4 miles) north of the heart of Khan Younis.
Israel ordered the full-scale evacuation of northern Gaza in the early days of the war and has barred people who left from returning.
In the south, it has ordered people out of nearly two dozen neighborhoods in and around Khan Younis.
That further reduced the area where civilians can seek refuge in central and southern Gaza by more than a quarter.
Israel has said it must dismantle Hamas' extensive military infrastructure and remove it from power in order to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war.
The surprise assault through the border fence saw Hamas and other Palestinian militants kill about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capture some 240 men, women and children.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the territory since Oct. 7 has surpassed 15,890 people — 70% of them women and children — with more than 42,000 wounded.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
It says hundreds have been killed or wounded since the cease-fire’s end, and many still are trapped under rubble.
An Israeli army official provided a similar figure for the death toll in Gaza on Monday, after weeks in which Israeli officials had cast doubt on the ministry's count.
The official said at least 15,000 people have been killed, including 5,000 militants, without saying how the military arrived at its figures.
The military says 86 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive.
AP video shot by Mohammad Jahjouh and Nabil Jobain
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