There are hardly any safe places left for the people in the Gaza Strip. In the south, Israel’s army moved into the city of Khan Yunis with tanks and troops. Reports of possible flooding of the Hamas tunnel system have not yet been confirmed.
Streams of refugees are once again dominating the streets in the Gaza Strip. More and more people are leaving Khan Yunis, where residents from the northern part of the coastal strip had fled a few weeks ago. This is happening on the orders of the Israeli military. This now warns that the civilian population should move to the western part of Gaza, towards the sea, and also to Rafah. So all the way to the south to the border with Egypt.
The people of the Gaza Strip resemble pieces on a chess board. They should always seek safety from the fighting. A young man who is leaving Khan Yunis expresses his frustration: “Aren’t we people who should be taken care of by others? Aren’t we Muslims? Until when will people be expelled?” In Rafah they would not find water, toilets or places to sleep for their children. “Shame on you! Fear God!”
Located in the “heart of the city”.
The people of the Gaza Strip are desperate. And they have every reason to. Because there is hardly any safe place to which they can retreat. The fighting is now becoming more intense in the south. The Israeli army moved into the city of Khan Yunis in the afternoon with tanks and ground forces.
You are in the heart of the city, said General Yaron Finkelman, the head of the southern command of the Israeli army. According to him, the army is in the midst of the most intense day of fighting since the ground operation began, judging by the number of Hamas terrorists killed, the number of fights and the amount of fire used by the forces. Finkelman literally: “We want to continue attacking.”
Report of possible flooding of tunnels
A report in the Wall Street Journal is making headlines in Israel, according to which the Israeli army is considering flooding Hamas’s extensive tunnel system in the Gaza Strip. Daphne Richemond Barak is a warfare specialist at Reichmann University in Herzliya. For them, this is a plausible option. “Without destroying this tunnel infrastructure, the war will not be over,” she said in an interview with Israeli TV Channel 12.
“We are talking about a very large amount of water that has to be flooded into the tunnels, over 100,000 liters of water per hour,” Barak continued. In addition, very high water pressure is required, which causes the walls and ceilings to collapse. “The main goal behind this is to get rid of this huge underground tunnel system that has served Hamas for over ten, almost 20 years.”
An army spokesman neither wanted to confirm nor deny the US newspaper’s reports. He said only that the military is working in different ways to dismantle Hamas’s terrorist capabilities, using various military and technological means.
Cabinet discusses further Aid deliveries
The Israeli security cabinet meets again in the evening. The focus is on the question of whether Israel will approve more aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip. A difficult balancing act, Miki Zohar, Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sports, confirmed on Israel Radio: “The humanitarian aid is not aimed at Hamas, but at the civilian population. If there is a huge humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, we cannot go to war continue because the pressure against us – worldwide – is becoming too great.”
According to Zohar, the cabinet will now ensure that the aid that comes in does not go to Hamas. “If you give too much, it can quickly go to Hamas. But if you give the minimum required, then it will be ensured that only the civilian population receives the aid,” said the minister.
Recently, significantly fewer aid supplies have arrived in the Gaza Strip. The United Nations has once again declared that the situation for the civilian population in Gaza is already unbearable.
Julio Segador, ARD Tel Aviv, tagesschau, December 5th, 2023 5:58 p.m