Khan Younis is a wasteland one blogger wrote refering to the mass destruction of the second biggest city that lies to the south of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army in its Division 98, Friday, withdrew from the city of Khan Younis after a 22-day bloody military operation that left mass destruction in its wake.
The social media has been inundated with news about their withdrawal. However, news websites point out the Israeli army had pulled out from several parts of the cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip after “completing their mission” in these areas.
Initial reports reported that at least nine people have been recovered in different parts of Khan Younis by Palestinian civil defense and there is more expected as the search continues.
“These were originally safe areas as told to us by the Israeli army and then they told us these were combat zones and we had to leave, we left our things behind us and they destroyed it,” one woman who returned said.
Reports talk about widespread destruction, ruined infrastructure and bombed out housing and buildings that have been turned into rubble and wreckage with a sense of déjà vu of when will this destruction end but nobody knows and nobody wants to think about what is next.
Like scenes repeated over the past months, dead bodies lying and strewn on the streets dominate the wrecked city as if this the most natural thing in Gaza.
The spokesman of the Israeli army announced officially, Friday, was the end of operations in Khan Younis as being confirmed by Jewish media reports.
As the army left, they allowed the residents of the city to return back to their houses. Over the past weeks the army have been ordering these people to keep moving but to were?
Now these people have been allowed to come back. People are finding it in total destruction, even more so than they have left it. They are also wondering when will the Israeli army return.
This is their third mass invasion in less than a year.
Many point out including Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the Israeli troop withdrawal means that Israel has lost in Gaza; Other than destruction they have not been able to destroy Hamas fighters, nor get to the underground tunnels or free the 109-or so remaining hostages.
Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.
