{"id":21457,"date":"2024-04-08T17:10:23","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T17:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/08\/palestinians-return-to-an-unrecognizable-city-after-israelis-withdraw\/"},"modified":"2024-04-08T17:10:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T17:10:23","slug":"palestinians-return-to-an-unrecognizable-city-after-israelis-withdraw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/08\/palestinians-return-to-an-unrecognizable-city-after-israelis-withdraw\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinians Return to an Unrecognizable City After Israelis Withdraw"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/08\/multimedia\/08mideast-crisis-khan-younis-voices2-cqth\/08mideast-crisis-khan-younis-voices2-cqth-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Palestinians Return to an Unrecognizable City After Israelis Withdraw\" title=\"Palestinians Return to an Unrecognizable City After Israelis Withdraw\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The withdrawal of Israeli ground troops from southern Gaza over the weekend allowed some Palestinians to return to the city of Khan Younis and check on their homes. But in the aftermath of a fierce, monthslong battle and Israeli bombings, some found only destruction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen I saw the scene I couldn\u2019t handle it,\u201d said Dr. Ahmad al-Farra, who went back on Sunday to find his family\u2019s three-story villa reduced to a pile of rubble, surrounded by the few trees that were left standing in what was once a lush garden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI completely collapsed and nearly fainted,\u201d he said in a phone call on Monday, adding that his wife and two teenage daughters burst into tears when they saw what was left of their home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI worked for 20 years to build this house,\u201d said Dr. al-Farra, 54, who ran the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital before the family fled south to Rafah in January. \u201cYou build a home corner by corner, stone by stone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAnd in the end,\u201d he added, \u201cwith a press of a button, it is reduced to rubble.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The rest of Khan Younis was \u201cunrecognizable,\u201d Dr. al-Farra said. Most buildings and homes were completely demolished, partially destroyed or burned, and the streets had been bulldozed. \u201cKhan Younis was annihilated like it\u2019s World War II or even worse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. al-Farra said \u201cmany, many people\u201d had returned to Khan Younis on Sunday. He soon realized that staying at his home was not a possibility. But like many other Gazans sheltering in Rafah, he said that he soon planned to move his family\u2019s tent to somewhere in Khan Younis. He and others fear Israel\u2019s pledge to send ground troops into Rafah in pursuit of Hamas\u2019s leaders and fighters, an invasion that many believe will come after the end of the holy month of Ramadan this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe dreams of an entire family have disappeared into the air,\u201d said Dr. al-Farra. \u201cWhere will we go now? Will we spend the rest of our lives living in tents?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nima Abu Azoum, 45, said her family planned to return to Khan Younis from Rafah this week \u2014 a journey of about six miles that people are making on foot, on donkey carts or, in rare cases, by car. But she said that the long-awaited homecoming would not be what they had dreamed of since evacuating to Rafah early in the war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her nephews went to Khan Younis on Monday to ready the family\u2019s homes for the return. But instead, she said, they found the homes destroyed and the body of their 21-year-old brother Nader buried under the rubble. He had refused to evacuate with them to Rafah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t have a home anymore \u2014 it\u2019s gone,\u201d Ms. Abu Azoum said in a phone call on Monday. \u201cAnd nothing is left of our neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Akram al-Satri, 47, who traveled from Rafah to check on his home on Monday, said very few houses were still intact in Khan Younis. Walking around the city was \u201cextremely challenging,\u201d because the streets were bulldozed and rubble was everywhere, he said in a phone call.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. al-Satri added that some people had been able to pull the remains of loved ones out of collapsed homes, but could only recognize them from their clothes, as their bodies had decomposed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/08\/world\/middleeast\/gaza-khan-younis-return.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The withdrawal of Israeli ground troops from southern Gaza over the weekend allowed some Palestinians to return to the city of Khan Younis and check on their homes. But in the aftermath of a fierce, monthslong battle and Israeli bombings, some found only destruction. \u201cWhen I saw the scene I couldn\u2019t handle it,\u201d said Dr. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/08\/multimedia\/08mideast-crisis-khan-younis-voices2-cqth\/08mideast-crisis-khan-younis-voices2-cqth-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[122,24513,8527,3950,27013,20984],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21459,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21457\/revisions\/21459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}