(8 Apr 2024)
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jerusalem - 8 April 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Federman, AP Mideast correspondent:
"Israel says it has wrapped up its operation in the Gaza Strip's second largest city. The Israeli army says it pulled out its final ground troops from Khan Younis on Sunday. This is a city in the southern Gaza Strip that Israel identified early on in the war as a major Hamas stronghold. Now, the Israeli military says it inflicted heavy damage on Hamas during four months of fighting. It says it killed hundreds or thousands of fighters and also caused significant damage to the group's underground tunnel network. But this operation clearly has taken a heavy toll. Thousands of Palestinians, displaced Palestinians, attempted to return home today, streaming into the city on foot.
Many of them say they don't even recognise the place. There's heavy damage across the city. Thousands of buildings were destroyed or damaged. And there was scene after scene of people going back to where their homes used to to be situated. Digging through the rubble in search of clothes and other small items.
Now, this does not mean an end to the war. But it is an end to a significant stage of the war. And the question is, what happens now? Israel is still vowing to press ahead to Rafah, the southern city on the Egyptian border. It says this is Hamas's final stronghold, and it cannot complete the war without destroying the Hamas forces there. But there is significant international opposition. Over 1 million Palestinians have huddled in Rafah after fleeing fighting in other parts of Gaza. They say there's no other place to go. At the same time, there are ceasefire talks going on in Cairo, yet another round of these ceasefire talks. So far, no signs of progress. So while we have the end to one phase of the fighting, two important issues - the future of Rafah and the future of the ceasefire - and ultimately, when this war will end, all remain in flux."
STORYLINE:
Streams of Palestinians filed into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Monday to salvage what they could from the vast destruction left in the wake of Israel’s offensive, a day after the Israeli military announced it was withdrawing troops from the area.
Those returning found their hometown, Gaza’s second largest city, unrecognizable, with thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged. Men, women and children went down streets bulldozed into stretches of dirt, searching for their homes among fields of rubble and debris that were once blocks of apartments and businesses. On other blocks, buildings still stood but were gutted shells, scorched and full of holes, with partially shattered upper floors dangling off precipitously.
The scenes of destruction in Khan Younis underscored what has been one of world’s most destructive and lethal military assaults in recent decades, which has left vast swaths of the tiny coastal territory unlivable for its 2.3 million people. It also portended what is likely to happen in Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah, where half of Gaza’s uprooted population is now crowded, if Israel goes ahead with plans to invade it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escalated his pledge to invade Rafah, declaring in a video statement Monday, “It will happen. There is a date,” without elaborating. He spoke as Israeli negotiators were in Cairo discussing international efforts to broker a cease-fire deal with Hamas.
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