Gaza official says 300 killed in Khan Yunis as army ends assault

Displaced Palestinians leave western Khan Yunis to areas in the eastern parts of the city following reports of Israeli forces withdrawing from the area in the southern Gaza Strip on July 30, 2024. (AFP)

• “Civil defense and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said
• The Israeli military launched the assault on July 22 to halt rocket fire from the area

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Tuesday that an Israeli operation in and around the territory’s second city of Khan Yunis killed about 300 people since it began last week, while the army said it had “eliminated 150 terrorists.”
“Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, the civil defense and medical teams have recovered approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Israeli military launched the assault on July 22 to halt rocket fire from the area, which already saw heavy fighting earlier this year.
Last week, it said troops had retrieved the bodies of five Israelis from the area.
They had been killed during the Hamas attacks of October 7 and their bodies taken back to Gaza, the military said.
On Tuesday, the military said it had completed the operation in the area of Khan Yunis and had killed “over 150 terrorists.”
It said troops also “dismantled terror tunnels, weapons storage facilities, and terrorist infrastructure and located weapons.”