Life and death in Gaza’s ‘safe zone’ bombarded by Israel
Al Jazeera
Israeli attacks in southern Gaza and evacuation order force thousands of displaced Palestinians to flee.
An Israeli air strike slammed into a residential building next to the main medical centre in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, killing at least seven people, hospital authorities and witnesses said.
As dust from Wednesday’s strike billowed through a street near Nasser Hospital, people were running in all directions – some rushing towards the destruction and others away. Later, civil defence first responders and bystanders picked their way across chunks of cement and twisted metal, searching for people who might have been buried.
Nasser Hospital sits in the western part of the city. There have been repeated attacks on Khan Younis, Rafah and al-Mawasi in the south of the enclave, all of which had previously been designated as humanitarian “safe zones” by Israel.
The Israeli military’s evacuation order this week for Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, affected about 250,000 people, according to the United Nations.
Displaced families ordered out of eastern Khan Younis have struggled to find places to live in overcrowded shelters and open areas in the western parts of the city. Wednesday’s air strike hit an area that also includes a school-turned-shelter for displaced people, many of whom are living in makeshift tents.
