Israel has stepped up its assault in the Gazan city of Khan Younis, with the government saying dozens were killed in heavy bombardment and urban combat, AFP reports.

The Israeli army says it has “encircled” Khan Younis, the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, accused of being the mastermind of the October 7 attacks.

The Israeli army said several militants were killed in “close-quarters combat” in the city, and that strikes also targeted militants in central and northern Gaza.

At Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting, AFPTV footage showed graves with the names of those buried scrawled on them in crayons amid debris-strewn streets and pockmarked buildings.

“Those look like graves, but they are not proper ones,” said Ahmad Abdul Salam, a resident of the city’s Al-Maghazi refugee camp. “We buried whole families, who were wiped out, inside these mass graves.”