Khan Yunis (, also spelled Khan Younis or Khan Yunus; translation: "Caravansary [of] Jonah") is a city in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Khan Yunis had a population of 205,125 in 2017. Khan Yunis, which lies only 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles) east of the Mediterranean Sea, has a semi-arid climate with temperature of 30 degrees Celsius maximum in summer and 10 degrees Celsius maximum in winter, with an annual rainfall of approximately .
The Constituency of Khan Yunis had five members on the Palestinian Legislative Council. Following the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, there were three Hamas members, including Yunis al-Astal; and two Fatah members, including Mohammed Dahlan. The city is now under the Hamas administration of Gaza.
History
Establishment by Mamluks
Before the 14th century, Khan Yunis was a village known as "Salqah". To protect caravans, pilgrims and travellers a vast caravan serai was constructed there by the emir Yunus al-Noorzai Khan in 1387–88, an Afghan/Pashtun of Noorzai tribe ruler in the Ottoman Empire. The growing town surrounding it was named "Khan Yunis" after him. In 1389 Yunus was killed in battle. Yunus ibn Abdallah an-Noorzai ad-Dawadar was the executive secretary, one of the high-ranking officials of the Mamluk sultan Barquq. The town became an important center for trade and its weekly Thursday market drew traders from neighboring regions.
The khan served as resting stop for couriers of the barid, the Mamluk postal network in Palestine and Syria.
Ottoman period
In late 1516 Khan Yunis was the site of a minor battle in which the Egypt-based Mamluks were defeated by Ottoman forces under the leadership of Sinan Pasha. The Ottoman sultan Selim I then arrived in the area where he led the Ottoman army across the Sinai Peninsula to conquer Egypt. During the 17th and 18th centuries the Ottomans assigned an Asappes garrison associated with the Cairo Citadel to guard the fortress at Khan Yunis.
Pierre Jacotin named the village Kan Jounes on his map from 1799, while in 1838, Robinson noted Khan Yunas as a Muslim village located in the Gaza district. In 1863 French explorer Victor Guérin visited Khan Yunis. He found it had about a thousand inhabitants, and that many fruit trees, especially apricots were planted in the vicinity.
At the end of the 19th-century the Ottomans established a municipal council to administer the affairs of Khan Yunis, which had become the second largest town in the Gaza District after Gaza itself.
British Mandate
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Khan Yunis had a population of 3890 inhabitants (3866 Muslims, 23 Christians, and one Jew), decreasing in the 1931 census to 3811 (3767 Muslims, 41 Christians, and three Jews), in 717 houses in the urban area and 3440 (3434 Muslims and 6 Christians) in 566 houses in the suburbs.
In the 1945 statistics Khan Yunis had a population of 11,220 (11,180 Muslims and 40 Christians), with 2,302 (urban) and 53,820 (rural) dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 4,172 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 23,656 used for cereals, while 1,847 dunams were built-up land.
During the Nazi occupation of the Dodecanese, many Greeks from Dodecanese islands such as Kastelorizo sought refuge in the nearby Nuseirat Camp.
1948–1967
During the night of 31 August 1955, three Israeli paratroop companies attacked the British-built Tegart fort in Khan Yunis from where attacks had been carried out against Israelis. The police station, a petrol station and several buildings in the village of Abasan were destroyed, as well as railway tracks and telegraph poles. In heavy fighting, 72 Egyptian soldiers were killed. One Israeli soldier was killed and 17 were wounded. The operation led to a ceasefire on September 4, forcing President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Egyptian government to halt Palestinian fedayeen operations against Israel. One of the mechanized companies was commanded by Rafael Eitan.
Before the Suez War, Khan Yunis was officially administered by the All-Palestine Government, seated in Gaza and later in Cairo. After a fierce firefight, the Sherman tanks of the IDF 37th Armored Brigade broke through the heavily fortified lines outside of Khan Yunis held by the 86th Palestinian Brigade. It was the only site in the Gaza strip where the Egyptian army put up any resistance to the Israeli invasion of Gaza, but it surrendered on 3 November 1956.