Israeli forces are intensifying their operations in Jabalia, in the north of the Gaza Strip, while residents and doctors say they have blown up homes and besieged schools and shelters for internally displaced people.
They also ordered women to leave the field, according to the same sources.
Health officials at the Indonesian Hospital told Reuters thatIsraeli troops raided a school and arrested the men before setting the premises on fire. The fire hit the hospital’s generators and caused a power outage, they added.
They defied orders to leave the hospital
Health officials say they rejected Israeli military orderswhich began a new incursion into the northern part of the Palestinian enclave more than two weeks ago, leave the three hospitals in the area or leave patients alone.
Troops remained outside the hospital but did not enter, they said. Doctors at a second hospital, Kamal Antoine, reported heavy Israeli fire near the hospital overnight.
“The army is burning the schools near the hospital and no one can enter or leave the hospital,” said a nurse at Indonesian Hospital, who did not want to be named.
Palestinian health officials said that 18 people were killed in Jabalia and eight in other parts of Gaza in Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military said troops were continuing ground operations across the Gaza Strip. It said in a statement that the previous day troops destroyed military infrastructure and tunnels and killed militants in the Jabalia area. He did not comment on the immediate situation regarding hospitals and camps.
Israel stepped up its operations in Gaza and Lebanon days after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Shinuwar, raising hopes of an opportunity for ceasefire talks to end the conflict that has lasted more than a year.
Israel is committed to eliminating the Hamas militants who previously controlled Gaza, but in doing so, it leveled most of the region and killed tens of thousands of people. More than 1.9 million people have been left homeless amid a humanitarian crisis.
Supplies are running low
Handel Obeid, head of nursing at Indonesian Hospital, where 32 patients are currently being treated, said medical supplies are running low.
“The sterile gauze will run out and there is no medicine to give them,” she told Reuters via a messaging app.
Obeid said the water supply has been cut off and there is no food for the fourth day in a row. He appealed to international organizations to take measures to save the injured.
The United Nations said it was unable to reach the three hospitals in northern Gaza. They are asking for access to allow aid to be transported to areas in the northern part of the enclave.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has stated that it is “increasingly concerned that the Israeli military’s conduct of hostilities in northern Gaza, along with its unlawful interference with humanitarian aid and orders leading to forced displacement, perhaps causing the destruction of the Palestinian population in the northernmost province of Gaza through deaths and displacement.”
Israel says it is transporting large quantities of humanitarian supplies to Gaza by terrestrial distribution or aerial drops. He also says that he facilitated the removal of patients from Camal Antoine Hospital.
Palestinians say no aid has reached areas of northern Gaza where operations are underway.
Residents and doctors said Israeli forces have reinforced the cordon around Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, surrounded it by sending tanks into the neighboring towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, and are issuing evacuation orders to residents.
“Jabalya disappears and the world closes its eyes”
“We are at risk of dying from bombs, thirst and hunger,” said Raid, a resident of Jabalia camp. “Jabalia disappears and there is no witness to the crime, the world closes its eyes.”
Israeli officials said the evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied that there was a systematic plan to expel civilians from Jabalia or other areas further north. They said forces operating in northern Gaza had killed dozens of Hamas militants and destroyed infrastructure.
Hamas accused Israel of committing “genocide and ethnic cleansing” against the people of northern Gaza to force them out.
The armed wing of Hamas stated that the militants attacked forces there with anti-tank missiles and mortars and detonated bombs that had already been planted on soldiers that were inside arsenals or houses.
Elsewhere in the enclave, Israeli forces killed at least five people in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, and four in two separate attacks in Gaza City, health officials said.
Sinwar was one of the masterminds of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli communities that killed around 1,200 people, while another 253 were taken hostage and taken to Gaza, according to Israeli estimates.
Israel’s ensuing war has devastated Gaza, killing more than 42,500 Palestinians, with around 10,000 missing estimated to be buried in the rubble, according to Gaza health authorities.
Source: AMPE