KHAN YUNIS: “It smells like death,” said Maha Thaer, a mother of four, as she returned to the devastated southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Sunday, after Israeli troops withdrew.
“We don’t have a city anymore — only rubble. There is absolutely nothing left. I could not stop myself crying as I walked through the streets,” the 38-year-old told AFP.
“All the streets have been bulldozed. And the smell... I watched people digging and bringing out the bodies,” said Thaer, whose home was partially destroyed.
Soon after the Israeli army said its troops were pulling out, people began to emerge into the devastated landscape — the residents of Khan Yunis returning to find what remained of their homes.
Nearly 400,000 people lived in Khan Yunis and its environs before October 7. Much of the area is now in ruins after months of bombardment and heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.
A straggle of men and boys riding donkey carts, bicycles and the odd pickup truck headed north out of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, where more than 1.5 million Palestinians had taken refuge from the relentless Israeli ground invasion and bombardment.
They passed the burned-out shell of the Al-Salam hospital, with almost all of the buildings around it razed to the ground.
Thaer, from the upmarket Hamad City district in the west of Khan Yunis, said she was “very shocked and sad.”
“There were no walls or windows. Most of the towers were completely blown up,” she said.
Thaer said she would move back into her badly damaged apartment, “even though it is not suitable for living, but it is better than tents.”
Her neighbors suffered a greater misfortune. “They found their homes destroyed and they don’t know where they will go,” she said.
Other Gazans carried a mattress on their heads in the hope they would still have four walls to put it in.
One of those who left Rafah on Sunday climbed on the top of a heap of rubble in Khan Yunis which once had been a home.
With everything around him in ruins, AFP photographs showed the man standing among smashed concrete and corrugated iron roofing.
Not a single structure within sight appeared untouched by the war.
Other images showed large swathes of the city flattened.
The Israeli army told AFP that it had pulled its 98th division of ground troops out of the southern city on Sunday to “recuperate,” with one official telling the Israeli media it had killed thousands of Hamas fighters there.
“There’s no need for us to remain... We did everything we could there,” an army official told Haaretz newspaper.
The Gaza war broke out on October 7 with an attack by Hamas militants that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,175 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
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‘It smells like death’: Gazans return to devastated Khan Yunis
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‘It smells like death’: Gazans return to devastated Khan Yunis
- “We don’t have a city anymore — only rubble," Palestinian mother says
US bringing seized tanker to port as Venezuela war fears build
- Washington took control of the tanker in a dramatic raid that saw US forces rope down from a helicopter onto the vessel
- Trump told Politico that Maduro’s ‘days are numbered’ and declined to rule out a US ground invasion of Venezuela
WASHINGTON: An oil tanker seized by American forces off the Venezuelan coast will be brought to a port in the United States, the White House said Thursday, as fears mount of open conflict between the two countries.
Washington took control of the tanker in a dramatic raid that saw US forces rope down from a helicopter onto the vessel in an operation that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said was aimed at leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s “regime.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has been piling pressure on Venezuela for months with a major naval build-up in the region that has been accompanied by strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that have killed close to 90 people.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed support during a phone call with his ally Maduro, but with Moscow’s forces tied down in a grinding war in Ukraine, its capacity to provide aid is limited.
“The vessel will go to a US port and the United States does intend to seize the oil,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists of the tanker.
“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black-market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narco-terrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world.”
Earlier on Thursday, Noem told a congressional hearing that the tanker operation was “pushing back on a regime that is systematically covering and flooding our country with deadly drugs” — a reference to US allegations of narcotics smuggling by Maduro’s government.
A video released Wednesday by US Attorney General Pam Bondi showed American forces descending from a helicopter onto the tanker’s deck, then entering the ship’s bridge with weapons raised.
Bondi said the ship was part of an “illicit oil shipping network” that was used to carry sanctioned oil.
Blatant theft
Venezuela’s foreign ministry said it “strongly denounces and condemns what constitutes blatant theft and an act of international piracy.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed concern over the escalating tensions and urged restraint.
“We are calling on all actors to refrain from action that could further escalate bilateral tensions and destabilize Venezuela and the region,” his spokesperson said.
US media reported that the tanker had been heading for Cuba — another American rival — and that the ship was stopped by the US Coast Guard.
Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday he questioned the legality of the tanker seizure and that “any president, before he engages in an act of war, has to have the authorization of the American people through Congress.”
“This president is preparing for an invasion of Venezuela, simply said. And if the American people are in favor of that, I’d be surprised,” Durbin told CNN.
Washington has accused Maduro of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns,” which it declared a “narco-terrorist” organization last month, and has offered a $50 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The US Treausury also imposed new sanctions Thursday targeting three of Maduro’s relatives as well as six companies shipping the South American country’s oil.
Trump told Politico on Monday that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and declined to rule out a US ground invasion of Venezuela.
The Trump administration alleges that Maduro’s hold on power is illegitimate and that he stole Venezuela’s July 2024 election.
Maduro — the political heir to leftist leader Hugo Chavez — says the United States is bent on regime change and wants to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Washington took control of the tanker in a dramatic raid that saw US forces rope down from a helicopter onto the vessel in an operation that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said was aimed at leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s “regime.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has been piling pressure on Venezuela for months with a major naval build-up in the region that has been accompanied by strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that have killed close to 90 people.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed support during a phone call with his ally Maduro, but with Moscow’s forces tied down in a grinding war in Ukraine, its capacity to provide aid is limited.
“The vessel will go to a US port and the United States does intend to seize the oil,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists of the tanker.
“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black-market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narco-terrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world.”
Earlier on Thursday, Noem told a congressional hearing that the tanker operation was “pushing back on a regime that is systematically covering and flooding our country with deadly drugs” — a reference to US allegations of narcotics smuggling by Maduro’s government.
A video released Wednesday by US Attorney General Pam Bondi showed American forces descending from a helicopter onto the tanker’s deck, then entering the ship’s bridge with weapons raised.
Bondi said the ship was part of an “illicit oil shipping network” that was used to carry sanctioned oil.
Blatant theft
Venezuela’s foreign ministry said it “strongly denounces and condemns what constitutes blatant theft and an act of international piracy.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed concern over the escalating tensions and urged restraint.
“We are calling on all actors to refrain from action that could further escalate bilateral tensions and destabilize Venezuela and the region,” his spokesperson said.
US media reported that the tanker had been heading for Cuba — another American rival — and that the ship was stopped by the US Coast Guard.
Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday he questioned the legality of the tanker seizure and that “any president, before he engages in an act of war, has to have the authorization of the American people through Congress.”
“This president is preparing for an invasion of Venezuela, simply said. And if the American people are in favor of that, I’d be surprised,” Durbin told CNN.
Washington has accused Maduro of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns,” which it declared a “narco-terrorist” organization last month, and has offered a $50 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The US Treausury also imposed new sanctions Thursday targeting three of Maduro’s relatives as well as six companies shipping the South American country’s oil.
Trump told Politico on Monday that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and declined to rule out a US ground invasion of Venezuela.
The Trump administration alleges that Maduro’s hold on power is illegitimate and that he stole Venezuela’s July 2024 election.
Maduro — the political heir to leftist leader Hugo Chavez — says the United States is bent on regime change and wants to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves.
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