At least 22 people, including women and children, have been killed in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, as Israeli forces continue their ground attack in the area.
As the death toll rose on Saturday, the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for northern Gaza, instructing residents near Jabalia to evacuate to the south of the enclave.
The Israeli army launched a deadly offensive in the Jabalia region a week ago which, according to it, aims to prevent the regrouping of the Palestinian group Hamas. The attacks have trapped thousands of Palestinian civilians, said the international charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF.
Hamas on Saturday criticized the Israeli army and declared that its “massacres are a continuation of the ongoing criminal genocide against our people, protected by American support.”
The attack that injured more than 90 people was an attempt to “punish the population for their resilience and rejection of displacement,” the group said in a statement.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported on Saturday that Israeli warplanes bombed a multi-story building in Jabalia on Friday evening, hitting four inhabited houses and killing 22 people.
At least 30 people were injured and 14 people are still missing and believed to be buried under the rubble, according to Wafa.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud said “powerful explosions were heard in the northern part of the Gaza Strip,” adding that many casualties were “reaching the hospital either in pieces or soaked in blood. “.
Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north was close to running out of fuel and staff said Israeli soldiers ordered them to leave.
Reporting from the facility, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Moath al-Kahlout called the week-long siege “suffocating.”
The situation is “dire,” he reported, as the hospital has also been ordered by the Israeli army to cease operations. But he said the hospital continues to treat patients ranging from seriously injured people to newborns.
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, said its fighters hit a group of 15 Israeli soldiers with an explosive device as they tried to storm a house west of the Jabalia camp.
In a statement posted on messaging app Telegram, the organization said some soldiers were killed and others injured, but did not provide further information.
Food shortages
The World Food Program (WFP) warned on Saturday that the escalation of violence in northern Gaza was “having a disastrous impact on the food security of thousands of Palestinian families.”
No food aid has entered since October 1, the UN agency said, noting that main crossing points to the north have been closed.
Food distribution points, kitchens and bakeries were forced to close due to airstrikes, military ground operations and evacuation orders, he added.
“The north is virtually isolated and we are not able to operate there,” said Antoine Renard, WFP country director for Palestine, adding that “safe and sustainable access is virtually impossible to reach people in the need”.
WFP said its latest supplies in the north were distributed to shelters, health facilities and kitchens in Gaza City as well as three shelters.
“If the conflict continues to escalate on its current scale, it is unclear how long these limited food supplies will last and the consequences for fleeing families will be dire. »
In Gaza City, at least three people were killed and several others injured after another strike hit a house in the Tuffah neighborhood, according to Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics.
Ibrahim Abu Rish, a member of the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, told Tel Aviv Tribune that his teams were still engaged in rescue operations and searching for a missing girl, after transporting more than 15 injured people to hospital.
New evacuation order
The Israeli military published a map of northern Gaza on the social media platform X on Saturday with instructions for residents near Jabalia to leave.
“The area should be evacuated immediately via (Salah al-Din Street) to the humanitarian zone,” the message said, referring to the so-called humanitarian security zones designated by Israel between al-Mawasi and Deir el-Balah.
The “humanitarian zone,” already populated with overcrowded tent camps housing around a million displaced Palestinians, has been attacked repeatedly by the Israeli army.
But Palestinians, especially those in the northern parts of the enclave, refuse to leave their homes, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hind Khoudary said from Deir el-Balah.
“This is not the first ground operation of the Israeli army in Jabalia. Palestinians say they prefer to die at home because they think there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip, so even if they evacuate, they risk being killed on the way,” he said. she reported.
Amid the evacuation order, Sarah Vuylsteke, MSF project coordinator, wrote on
Five MSF staff members were stuck in Jabalia, she said.
Previously, MSF criticized Israel’s efforts to “forcefully and violently push thousands of people from northern Gaza to the south.”
Meanwhile, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Gaza-based Arab correspondent, Anas al-Sharif, wrote on X in the early hours of Saturday that the condition of Tel Aviv Tribune cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi had become “seriously deteriorated”.
On Wednesday, al-Wahidi was shot in the neck with live ammunition while covering the Israeli assault on Jabalia. His colleague Ali al-Attar was also shot and injured while covering the situation of displaced Palestinians in Deir el-Balah.
Much of Gaza has been devastated since Israel launched its war on the Palestinian territory following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 42,175 people have been killed and 98,336 injured in Israeli attacks since October 2023.
The toll includes 49 deaths and 219 injured over the past 24 hours, according to the ministry.