Medics said that at least 33 people were killed and 85 wounded in Israeli raids on Friday on several homes in Jabalia, the largest of the eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, where residents said tanks blew up roads and homes as they penetrated the area.
Reuters quoted the government media office run by Hamas in Gaza as saying that the death toll as a result of the Israeli raids may rise due to the presence of many people under the rubble and under the buildings that were bombed.
The Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wafa) said that children were among the dead. There has been no Israeli comment yet.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that other Israeli raids killed at least 39 Palestinians across the Strip on Friday, including 20 in Jabalia.
Residents of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip said that Israeli tanks reached the heart of the camp, supported by heavy ground and air bombardment, after penetrating neighborhoods and residential areas.
They added that the Israeli army destroys dozens of homes on a daily basis, sometimes from the air and the ground and by planting bombs in buildings and then detonating them remotely.
The Israeli army said that its forces, which have been carrying out operations in Jabalia over the past two weeks, killed dozens of militants in close-range clashes yesterday, Thursday, and carried out air strikes and dismantled military infrastructure.
Israel’s escalation of its operations in Jabalia came a day after it announced that it had killed Yahya Sinwar, head of the Hamas political bureau, whom it accused of ordering the October 7, 2023 attack on it.
The Israeli army says its operation in Jabalia aims to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping to launch further attacks.
Residents reported that Israeli forces effectively isolated the towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia in the far north of the Strip from Gaza City, and prevented the movement of residents except for families who respond to evacuation orders and leave the three towns.
Later on Friday, residents in Jabalia and two nearby towns said that communications and internet services were cut off, disrupting rescue operations by ambulance teams and the ability of people affected by Israeli operations to seek help.
An appeal for urgent medical supplies
On Friday, health officials in Gaza launched an appeal to immediately send fuel, medical supplies and food to three hospitals in northern Gaza crowded with sick and injured people.
At Kamal Adwan Hospital, workers had to transfer children from intensive care units to treat adults who sustained more serious injuries as a result of Israeli air strikes on a school housing displaced people in Jabalia yesterday, Thursday, that left 28 dead.
Hossam Abu Safia, director of the hospital, said in a video clip sent to the media that the children were transferred to another section within the facility where they are receiving good care.
Israel said it sent about 30 trucks loaded with aid to northern Gaza on Friday, including food, water, medical supplies and other means of subsistence.
“We are fighting Hamas, we are not fighting the people of Gaza,” Israeli army spokesman Nadav Shoshani told reporters in an online briefing.
But Hamas and health officials say aid has not reached the most affected areas, including Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia.
Philip Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said on the X platform that the attack on the school was the third on an UNRWA facility this week, adding that the agency had now lost a total of 231 members of its team over the course of a year of fighting.
Abu Safiya said that 300 health personnel, who have been working continuously for 14 days, have become extremely exhausted, especially after the hospital was no longer able to provide them with sufficient food as all supplies ran out.
Doctors in Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda, and Indonesian hospitals refused to leave their patients despite evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army at the beginning of the incursion into Jabalia.
Israeli bombing turned northern Gaza into rubble in the first phase of the attack a year ago. More than half of the Strip’s population of 2.3 million people lived there.
Israel began its military campaign in Gaza after an attack by Hamas-led fighters on October 7, 2023, on southern towns, which Israeli statistics say resulted in the killing of 1,200 people and the taking of 250 hostages.
Health authorities in Gaza say that the Israeli attack on the Strip has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians so far.
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