Israeli troops leaving Khan Younis

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military has announced it has withdrawn its forces from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, wrapping up a key phase in its offensive against Hamas and bringing its troop presence in the territory to one of the lowest levels since the war began.

Israeli defence officials said troops were merely regrouping as the army prepares to move into Rafah. ‘‘The war in Gaza continues, and we are far from stopping,’’ said the military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi.

Israeli broadcaster Channel 13 TV reported that Israel was preparing to begin evacuating Rafah within a week and the process could take several months.

Still, the withdrawal was a milestone as Israel and Hamas marked six months of fighting. Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity under army policy, said a ‘‘significant force’’ remained in Gaza to continue operations including in Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold and hometown of the group’s leader, Yehya Sinwar.

Video in Khan Younis showed some people returning to a landscape marked by shattered buildings and climbing over debris to explore crumbled remains. Cars were overturned and charred.

Israel for weeks has vowed it will start a ground offensive in Rafah but the city shelters 1.4 million people – more than half of Gaza’s population. The prospect of an offensive has raised global alarm, including from the US, which has demanded it sees a credible plan to protect civilians.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby repeated the US opposition to a Rafah offensive and told American broadcaster ABC that the US believes the partial Israeli withdrawal ‘‘is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months and not necessarily, that we can tell, indicative of some coming new operation for these troops’’.

Israel’s military quietly drew down troops in northern Gaza earlier in the war but it has continued to carry out airstrikes in areas where it says Hamas has resurfaced, including Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, leaving what the head of the World Health Organisation called ‘‘an empty shell’’.

The six-month mark has been met with growing frustration in Israel, where anti-government protests have swelled and anger is mounting over what some see as government inaction to help free about 130 remaining hostages, about a quarter of whom Israel says are dead. Hamas-led militants took about 250 captives when they crossed from Gaza into Israel on October 7 and killed 1200 people.

Several thousand protesters called for a ‘‘hostage deal now’’ at a rally outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, organised by hostages’ families. In southern Israel, relatives gathered at the site of a music festival where more than 300 people were killed on October 7.

‘‘It’s an impossible reality for us, it’s an impossible reality for the Gazans and the people of this country. We just want to live. Right now, this is about life and death and we want to live,’’ said one protester, Talia Ezrahi.

‘‘This doesn’t seem to be a war against terror,’’ chef Jose Andres told the American ABC, days after an Israeli airstrike killed seven of his World Central Kitchen colleagues. ‘‘This doesn’t seem any more to be a war about defending Israel. At this point, it seems to be a war against humanity itself.’’

Aid deliveries on a crucial new sea route to the territory were suspended.

‘‘Humanity has been all but abandoned’’ in Gaza, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

The UN and partners now warn of ‘‘imminent famine’’ for more than 1 million people in Gaza as humanitarian workers urge Israel to loosen restrictions on the delivery of aid overland, the only way to meet soaring needs as some Palestinians forage for weeds to eat. Thousands of aid trucks have been waiting to enter Gaza.

‘‘It’s a slow-motion massacre of people to subject them to the kind of deprivation of food and water that they have been subjected to for the last six months,’’ Doctors Without Borders USA executive director Avril Benoit told CBS.

Mothers who have given birth in Gaza since the war began are especially vulnerable.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said 33,175 people have been killed since the war began. It doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says two-thirds of the dead are children and women.

Israel’s military continued to suffer losses, including in Khan Younis, where the military said four soldiers were killed. More than 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, according to Israel’s government.