Palestinians Return to Rubble in Khan Younis After Israeli Withdrawal

Thousands of Palestinians returned to areas of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Tuesday after Israeli forces withdrew from the city and left it in ruins.

Israel launched a new assault on eastern Khan Younis on July 22, marking at least the third time the Israeli military invaded the city. Gaza’s civil defense agency said about 300 bodies have been found in the area since the Israeli attack started.

“Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, the civil defense and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Rescue teams pulled 42 of the bodies out of Bani Suhaila, a town on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis. According to Reuters, witnesses said Israeli forces destroyed a cemetery in the neighborhood, something the Israeli military has done throughout its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Back in January, CNN reported that Israel had damaged or destroyed 16 cemeteries in Gaza. The Israeli military brought a CNN journalist to one of the cemeteries after the investigation, claiming a Hamas tunnel ran under it, but they failed to show any evidence for the claim.