Israeli forces intensified their pressure around the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, killing at least 10 people queuing for food, according to Palestinian doctors, and ordered people to evacuate as they continue their ground attack on the area.
The Israeli army launched a new ground attack in northern Gaza ten days ago, including in Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya. Supported by warplanes, the army continued to pound the ravaged area which saw multiple assaults throughout the year-long war.
More than 400,000 people remain trapped in the area. They were unable to move south after the Israeli army ordered forced evacuations for security reasons.
“We have been hit from the air and on the ground, non-stop for a week. They want us to leave, they want to punish us for refusing to leave our homes,” Marwa, 26, who fled with her family to a school in Gaza City, told the Reuters news agency.
People were afraid they would never be able to return if they headed south, she said.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said the Israeli army appeared to “completely cut off northern Gaza from the rest of the Gaza Strip.”
“The separation of northern Gaza raises new concerns that Israel does not intend to allow civilians to return home, and repeated calls for all Palestinians to leave northern Gaza raise serious concerns “concerns about the large-scale forced transfer of the civilian population”, we can read. said in a statement.
The new attack highlighted how difficult life has become for civilians in Gaza as fighting has moved between different areas of the enclave.
On Monday, Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinians queuing for food at a distribution center and injured 40 others, including women and children, according to Palestinian doctors, while eight other people were killed in another incident in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City.
The Israeli military said the incident was being investigated.
Furthermore, at least three people were killed in an Israeli attack on a school transformed into a refuge in the Jabalia camp, the Turkish news agency Anadolu reported, citing a medical source.
Later Monday, at least four people were killed in an Israeli artillery attack on a house in the same camp, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
Several other people were injured in the attack which targeted the al-Sayed family home in the Fallujah area of the camp.
The United Nations has described dire conditions affecting the population remaining in Jabalia, with more than 50,000 people displaced and water wells, bakeries, medical points and shelters closed.
“Beyond all logic”
UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned “the large number of civilian casualties in the intensification of the Israeli campaign in northern Gaza”, according to his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.
“He (Guterres) strongly urges all parties to the conflict to comply with international humanitarian law and emphasizes that civilians must be respected and protected at all times,” Dujarric told reporters.
Hamas said Israel was seeking to forcibly displace the population of northern Gaza. “The international community must act against this war crime,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said the situation in northern Gaza was dire.
“Medical sources at Kamal Adwan Hospital say they lack medical supplies and essential medical needs, including fuel to ensure operations can be conducted,” Abou Azzoum said.
He said health care providers are struggling to cope with “high casualty rates” as people are killed by Israeli drones and quadcopters.
They are targeted, whether in their homes, in evacuation centers or simply while “walking the streets of Jabalia”, he explained.
Israel continued to seal vital border crossings and prevented aid, including food, from reaching the north.
Israel said Monday it had allowed 30 trucks carrying flour and food from the UN’s main food agency to pass through the northern crossing after inspection. The UN has not confirmed this statement.
It’s unclear where the aid has gone, as the UN says trucks passing through the crossing are not heading directly north.
The Gaza government’s media office refuted the claim, saying Israel’s “lies” about allowing the trucks are completely false.
In a statement, the office said the Israeli army continued to prevent trucks from reaching northern Gaza, including Gaza City.
“A siege and complete containment of the area has been underway for 170 days,” the office said, adding that more than 342 people have been killed in the north since the latest attack began 10 days ago.
“What is happening in northern Gaza is genocide…the destruction of homes, entire neighborhoods, infrastructure, schools, hospitals, mosques” is part of a plan to cleanse the area of its inhabitants, he declared.
This cut, combined with the resumption of the offensive, has raised fears that Israel will pursue an extreme plan proposed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would besiege the northern third of the Gaza Strip in an attempt to encourage Hamas to give back.
Israel also continued bombing other parts of the besieged enclave on Monday.
Early Monday, Israeli forces struck a tent encampment housing displaced families outside Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah. At least four people were killed and dozens injured in the fire.
Videos shared on social media showed rescuers rushing to save people as they struggled to contain the blaze.
Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked medical facilities and shelters in Gaza since the attack began in October last year. In recent months, they have repeatedly struck crowded shelters and tent sites, alleging that armed groups were using them – without providing evidence.
Mohammed Tahir, a surgeon who was on his third medical mission to Gaza at Al-Aqsa Hospital, said he was in the operating room when he heard the explosions at the nearby school turned into a shelter early Monday.
Tahir told Tel Aviv Tribune the hospital was “flooded” with injured people, with women, children and men “dying before our eyes”.
While in the operating room, he said another bomb attack had occurred on the hospital grounds.
Tahir said it was “beyond logic that a hospital could be attacked in such a serious way.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, reiterated his calls for a ceasefire, saying it was “the only way to break the cycle of violence, hatred and misery” .
