Israel destroyed Khan Younis yet these Palestinians came back home
Al Jazeera
Gaza’s Khan Younis is devastated, but its people have come back because it is also their home.
Fatmeh Abu Mustafa’s voice strains as she leans heavily on the walking stick in her left hand.
“We fled [Khan Younis] to al-Mawasi and stayed there,” the elderly woman says, seated on a pile of rubble, the black khimar framing her face fluttering lightly in the wind. Behind her, sunlight bounces off a cacophony of destroyed concrete pillars and metal.
“When the [Israeli] army pulled back, we came back to our homes but they were all destroyed. There’s nothing left at all.”
“We sleep on dirt,” Fatmeh says, exasperation dripping from every word. “What are we supposed to do now? Tell us. What do we do?”
Shortly after a Hamas-led operation in Israel on October 7 killed 1,139 people and took more than 200 captive, Israel launched an assault on Gaza.
