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IDF evacuates part of Gaza safe zone used for rocket attacks

The Khan Younis site is now a source of terrorist activity and the army must act, even though warning civilians loses the element of surprise.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF warned Gazans Monday in part of a safe zone in Khan Younis to evacuate Monday so that it can go after Hamas terrorists who have turned it into a base for terrorist activity.

“The terrorist organization Hamas has located terrorist infrastructures in an area that was defined as a humanitarian area,” said an IDF spokesman, with its fighters using it to “carry out many terror activities and fir[e] [rockets] on steep aerial tracks at Israel.”

The IDF has tracked dozens of launch sites hidden in several neighborhoods in the eastern part of Khan Younis that are part of the Al-Mawasi safe camp, making them a legitimate military target.

Just over a week ago, the air force dropped five bombs on a Hamas compound set up within the safe zone, assassinating the city’s top Hamas commander along with an unknown number of terrorists.

It also believes that the strike successfully eliminated its main target, Hamas No. 2 Mohammed Deif, although the terrorist organization denies it.

In its evacuation order, the army said it “is about to act with full force against the terror organizations” and called on those living in the affected area “to evacuate temporarily to the revised humanitarian space in Mawasi.”

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It has sent the message via SMS, recorded voice messages, phone calls, media broadcasts in Arabic and announcements.

In the detailed maps the army has provided, the city is divided into hundreds of numbered sections, and it says exactly which ones have now lost their status of being part of the humanitarian zone.

The IDF has consistently given up the element of surprise before attacking Hamas in order to give civilians, whom the Iranian proxy uses as human shields, a chance to flee upcoming battle zones.

As has happened in previous times, the warning can also give Hamas time to set up booby traps and ambushes that will endanger the Israeli soldiers being sent in to eliminate the terrorists.

In another move that helps the weakest Gazans, the IDF also informed the Strip’s health authorities and international bodies that there is no need to evacuate any hospitals in the Shifuna area.

This also signals where Hamas fighter can safely escape to and use as a hiding place.

The IDF has had to return to several sites it had already cleared of Hamas forces, both in northern and central Gaza, as terrorist forces infiltrated the areas and started reviving their threat to Israeli forces.