Khan Younis (Gaza Strip)

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      Another Israeli Hostage’s Body Recovered, the Death Angering His Family

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      Like the families of other hostages, they are outraged that the Israeli government has yet to reach a deal to halt the fighting and bring home loved ones held in Gaza.The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had recovered the body of an Israeli hostage who was abducted during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, almost six months after he was taken hostage.The man, identified as Elad Katzir, 47, was a farmer in Nir Oz, a kibbutz near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip that was one of the areas hardest hit in the attack on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 Israelis died and about 250 people were taken hostage, according to the Israeli authorities. His body was recovered by troops in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where the Israeli army has been operating since December, and returned to Israel overnight, the military said.After the announcement of the recovery and return of Mr. Katzir’s body, Mr. Katzir’s sister, Carmit, bitterly denounced the Israeli government in a social media post for failing to secure her brother’s release.“He could have been saved if there had been a deal in time,” she wrote. “But our leadership are cowards, motivated by political considerations, and thus it did not happen.“Your story shouldn’t have ended like this,” she wrote to her brother. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you. I love you forever.”Mr. Katzir was killed in mid-January, an Israeli military official told a press briefing on Saturday, while being held in Gaza by a militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Around 8 p.m. on Friday night, the official said, Israeli forces arrived in southern Khan Younis, isolated the area and excavated his body from where he was buried underground.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Doctors, Back From Gaza Hospitals, Tell Congress of Horrors Amid Cease-Fire Push

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      The memories are unforgettable. A flood of screaming families carrying their bloodied loved ones through the doors of an already inundated hospital. A small boy trying to resuscitate a child who looked not much older than himself. A 12-year-old with shrapnel wounds to his head and abdomen being intubated on the ground.That January day at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza — the aftermath of a missile strike on an aid distribution site — has haunted Dr. Zaher Sahloul, an American critical care specialist with years of experience treating patients in war zones, including in Syria and Ukraine.He and other volunteer doctors who have returned from besieged hospitals in Gaza took their firsthand accounts of the carnage to Washington this week, hoping to convey to the Biden administration and senior government officials that an immediate cease-fire was needed to provide lifesaving medical care.Among the evidence Dr. Sahloul took to show the American officials — including members of Congress and officials from the White House, State Department, Defense Department and the United States Agency for International Development — was a photo of the 12-year-old boy and his death certificate. The child never woke up from surgery after being intubated, the doctor said, and the hospital could not reach his family amid a near-total communications blackout.In the aftermath of a missile strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, in January, a stream of victims was brought to the Nasser Hospital.Courtesy of Zaher SahloulTwo other doctors in the delegation — Amber Alayyan, a Paris-based deputy program manager for Doctors Without Borders, and Nick Maynard, a British surgeon — said that robust medical advancements achieved by local doctors in Gaza had been wiped out by Israel’s war against Hamas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Are the Top Hamas Leaders in Gaza?

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      Marwan Issa, who was the target of an Israeli strike in central Gaza over the weekend, is one of three leaders of Hamas in Gaza who Israel says were the main planners of the Oct. 7 attack, which killed over 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of about 240 others, according to Israeli officials. It remained unclear on Tuesday whether the strike had hit him.Here is what to know about the most senior Hamas leaders in Gaza:Marwan IssaMr. Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, would be the highest ranking Hamas military official to be killed by Israel in recent years. Like many other senior Hamas military leaders in Gaza, Mr. Issa has kept a low profile, rarely appearing in public, in part to avoid targeted strikes like the one over the weekend that Israel’s military said hit an underground space he had used.An Israeli army spokesman described Mr. Issa as having helped plan the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. In addition to his military role, Mr. Issa served as a negotiator in talks that led to a cease-fire following a nearly two-week flare-up with Israel in 2021, as well as a deal in 2011, when one captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.Yahya SinwarYahya Sinwar at a rally in Gaza City last year.Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp, which was set up after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and has since become a permanent community, part of the wider city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. He founded a precursor to Hamas’s military wing, called Al Majd, and helped establish Hamas in 1987. At the time, he was responsible for identifying and punishing Palestinians suspected of infringing “morality” codes or collaborating with Israel.In 1988, Mr. Sinwar was arrested by Israeli forces and sentenced to four life sentences for his role in killing four Palestinians suspected of working with Israel, according to Israeli court records.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Overwhelmed by War, Another Gazan Hospital Is Declared ‘Not Functional’

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      Conditions at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip were described as desperate after Israeli forces raided it in search of Hamas militants.The largest medical facility still managing to function in wartime Gaza is now a hospital in little more than name only, the head of the World Health Organization said on Sunday.After a week of siege by the Israeli military, there are only about 20 critically ill patients left at Nasser Hospital — but even that is too many for it to handle, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O. director general.“Nasser hospital in Gaza is not functional anymore,” Dr. Tedros said on social media.Dr. Tedros said on Sunday that some 200 patients remained at the hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, and that about 20 of them urgently needed to be transferred elsewhere. “The cost of delays will be paid by patients’ lives,” he said.Israel has justified its military actions at the hospital by saying that Hamas militants have been using it and other medical centers to conceal military activities, and on Sunday it said it had found both weapons and Hamas militants at the Nasser complex.Hamas has repeatedly denied using hospitals as cover.On Thursday, after days of repeated orders for the thousands of civilians taking shelter at the hospital to leave, Israeli forces began staging a raid.Asked about the W.H.O. statement, a spokesman for the Israeli military, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, said in a briefing that “it’s in our best interest that the hospital keeps functioning.” He said that work was being done to fix a broken generator there and that a temporary generator was in use.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Palestinians Flee as Israeli Forces Raid Nasser Hospital in Gaza

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      Israel says Hamas routinely operates within — and beneath — places like Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, using them as shields, and has held Israeli hostages there. The group denies the charges.The Israeli military on Thursday raided the largest hospital still functioning in the Gaza Strip, in what it called a search for Hamas fighters and the bodies of hostages. Many people who had sought shelter there were forced to flee from combat once again. Explosions and gunfire rocked the hospital in the city of Khan Younis, the Nasser Medical Complex, before the predawn raid, killing and wounding several people including at least one doctor and a patient, according to a doctor there, as well as the charity Doctors Without Borders, which had staff members at the hospital, and Gaza health authorities. The specific casualty claims, like many assertions in the conflict, could not be immediately confirmed.Videos posted on social media on Thursday and voice messages sent by doctors during the night, both before and after Israeli forces smashed through the perimeter wall and entered the compound, depicted scenes of chaos and fear inside the damaged, smoke-filled hospital, punctuated by automatic gunfire, explosions and shouting.Health care workers shared videos of a chaotic scene at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, as Israeli troops raided the hospital and ordered people to evacuate.Obtained by ReutersOne video, verified by The New York Times, showed damage to the hospital and injured people being rushed through a smoke-filled corridor among debris amid sounds of gunfire. Witnesses said people by the hundreds — possibly thousands — later stood in long lines as Israeli troops screened them, a few at a time, for evacuation.The Israeli military said it had detained dozens of people, but did not say who or why.“We have credible intelligence from a number of sources, including from released hostages, indicating that Hamas held hostages at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser hospital facility,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a video statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hundreds Flee One of Gaza’s Last Working Hospitals, Fearing Israeli Attack

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      Hundreds of displaced Palestinians fled one of the Gaza Strip’s last functioning hospitals on Wednesday, after the Israeli military ordered them to leave and threatened further action to stop what it said was Hamas activity there.Thousands of Gazans have sheltered at the Nasser Medical Complex in the southern city of Khan Younis for weeks, and many are terrified that Israeli forces will bombard or storm the complex, said Mohammed Abu Lehya, a doctor there. Previous Israeli warnings to evacuate hospitals, including Al-Shifa, the largest in Gaza, have often preceded military raids.Hanin Abu Tiba, 27, an English teacher sheltering at the hospital, described dire conditions inside, with food running out and aid convoys all but unable to deliver supplies. In text messages overnight, she said that she had seen an Israeli military vehicle outside the hospital gate.“I’m terrified to leave the hospital and get shot,” she said. But inside the complex, she said, “the electricity is cutting out, and the water, and the canned food is almost gone. We don’t know what to do.”Dr. Abu Lehya, in a WhatsApp message on Wednesday, called conditions at the hospital “beyond imagination.”The tensions at the hospital played out as Israel carried out extensive airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in response to a deadly rocket attack on northern Israel. The rocket attack struck a military base near the city of Safed, killing a soldier and wounding eight people, the Israeli authorities said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia allied with Hamas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hundreds Flee Nasser Hospital in Gaza After Israel Orders Evacuation

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      Hundreds of displaced Palestinians were fleeing a major hospital in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to doctors and videos from the scene, after Israeli forces ordered them to leave and threatened military action to stop what it said was Hamas activity at the hospital.Thousands of Gazans have been sheltering at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis for weeks, having been forced to flee their homes and other parts of Gaza by Israel’s intense bombardment of the territory and military orders to leave their towns and cities. Hospitals have become places of refuge during the war, even as they have often become a focus of Israel’s military offensive.Inside Nasser, which is one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza, there was terror that Israeli forces would bombard or storm the complex, said Mohammed Abu Lehya, a doctor there. Previous Israeli warnings to evacuate hospitals, including Al-Shifa, the largest in Gaza, have often preceded military raids on the facilities.“The situation is very difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult,” Dr. Abu Lehya said in a WhatsApp message Wednesday morning. “It’s beyond the imagination or description.”An injured person arriving at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in December. The hospital is one of the last functioning medical facilities in the Gaza Strip.Yousef Masoud for The New York TimesA video shared on social media on Wednesday and verified by The New York Times shows crowds of people carrying belongings and bedding leaving the hospital as explosions are heard in the background. The Israeli military called for those sheltering to evacuate but said it had not called on patients and medical staff to leave the hospital.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Netanyahu Orders Military Evacuation Plan for Rafah in Gaza

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      Many civilians in Rafah are sheltering in rickety tents made of plastic and wood and say there is nowhere left in Gaza to avoid Israeli shelling.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to draw up plans to evacuate Rafah, a Gazan city packed with more than a million people, in advance of an expected ground offensive that has set off international alarm.In a statement announcing the orders on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not give any details of when the evacuations might be carried out, when the Israeli military might enter the city or where people might go. Many civilians in Rafah are sheltering in rickety tents made of plastic and wood and say there is nowhere left in Gaza to avoid Israeli shelling.Mr. Netanyahu’s office said it would be impossible to realize Israel’s goal of smashing Hamas’s rule in Gaza without destroying what it said were the group’s four battalions in Rafah, on Egypt’s border. The military’s “combined plan” would have to both “evacuate the civilian population and topple the battalions,” the statement said.“Any forceful action in Rafah would require the evacuation of the civilian population from combat zones,” it said.Mr. Netanyahu’s office announced the orders less than a day after President Biden issued some of his sharpest criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war, calling it “over the top” and saying the starvation, suffering and killing of civilians had “got to stop.” His criticism, which dominated Israeli news headlines, revealed growing frustration with Mr. Netanyahu as the death toll in Gaza has risen above 27,000, according to the territory’s health officials.After Mr. Netanyahu said this week that he had ordered troops to prepare to enter Rafah, aid agencies, the United Nations and U.S. officials said the prospect of an incursion there was particularly alarming.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More