On Sunday, April 7, the Israeli military announced that it was pulling troops from southern Gaza’s Khan Younis “to recuperate and prepare for future operations.” Upon return to Khan Younis, Palestinians found their homes destroyed, an exemplification of the estimated $18.5bn of damages brought on by Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Regional sources report on the development:
The Jerusalem Post detailed that “the IDF has withdrawn all of Division 98 from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza while maintaining one plus brigades – the Nahal brigade and portions of Brigade 401 – in northern and central Gaza.” While IDF officials denied that this transition responded to pressure from the U.S. government, “the timing was unmistakable in coming right after the IDF’s disastrous mistaken killing of seven humanitarian aid workers last week.”
The National referenced local media reporting: “Nahal troops will remain in Gaza to prevent Palestinians displaced to southern Gaza from returning to their homes in the north.” The newspaper mentioned that “Israel has rotated soldiers in and out of combat since the ground invasion, pausing operations for some units to rest or train. The government has been under pressure to minimise the number of reservists sent to fight, amid mounting economic challenges.”
“Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said troops had been pulled out of Gaza… to prepare for future missions, including in the enclave’s southern city of Rafah,” Sky News reported. An Israeli government spokesperson echoed this intention, telling “reporters that Netanyahu would ‘absolutely’ continue with a ground invasion of Rafah.”
Netanyahu, on Monday, “did not say when the incursion would incur into Rafah but said, ‘It will happen — there is a date.’” Al Ahram highlighted the Biden administration’s repeated calls for Israel “to present a plan to protect civilians in Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians have taken shelter from Israel’s six-month-old war on Gaza.”
As “residents of the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis began returning to the city,” they “[found] a devastated landscape of bombed-out homes and rubble-strewn streets,” The Times of Israel explained. In AFP photographs, “not a single structure within sight appeared untouched by the war.” The Israeli Defense Forces maintain that Hamas “situated military assets within residential areas and is therefore to blame for the high level of destruction in the crowded enclave.”
Arab News shed light on the firsthand perspectives of those returning to Khan Younis, quoting Maha Thaer, a mother of four: “It smells like death… We don’t have a city anymore — only rubble. There is absolutely nothing left… All the streets have been bulldozed. And the smell… I watched people digging and bringing out the bodies.”
A World Bank and United Nations report quantified the damage to Gaza’s infrastructure. Citing this information, Al Jazeera asserted that Israeli operations have “damaged or destroyed approximately 62 percent of all homes in Gaza, equivalent to 290,820 housing units, and more than a million people are without homes. Housing accounts for 72 percent of the total damage costs, at an estimated value of $13.3bn.” The total damage to critical infrastructure from the first four months of the Gaza war is estimated at $18.5bn.
(Banner Image: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)