Israeli military strikes killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabilia in the north of the enclave on Tuesday, amid fierce battles with Hamas-led fighters.
Palestinian health officials said at least 17 people were killed by Israeli fire near Al-Falouja in Jabilia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, while 10 others were killed in Bani Suhaila in eastern Khan Younis in the south when an Israeli missile struck a house.
Earlier on Tuesday, an Israeli air strike destroyed three houses in the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, and the local civil emergency service said they recovered two bodies from the site, while the search continued for 12 other people who were believed to have been in the houses at the time.
Eight others were killed when a house was struck in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
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The Gaza health ministry said one doctor was killed when he tried to help people wounded by Israeli strikes in Al-Falouja in Jabilia. It added that several medics were wounded when their ambulance came under Israeli fire in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
Jabilia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for more than 10 days, with troops returning to areas of the north that came under heavy bombardment in the early months of the year-long war.
The operation has raised concerns among Palestinians and United Nations agencies that Israel wants to clear residents from the north of the crowded enclave, a charge it has denied. Residents said Israeli forces destroyed dozens of houses in the past 10 days.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said troops had killed dozens of fighters in the Jabilia area over the past day, including a unit that fired an anti-tank missile at them.
The United Nations human rights office said the Israeli military appeared to be “cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip”.
The Israeli military’s administrative unit, Cogat, which oversees aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, said on Tuesday that operations in Jabilia were targeting terrorist infrastructure and operatives embedded inside civilian areas. It said it was facilitating humanitarian, and in particular medical aid to residents.
Hamas denies it embeds its operatives among civilians.
The Israeli military has now encircled the Jabilia refugee camp and sent tanks into nearby Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns, with the declared aim of stamping out Hamas fighters who are trying to regroup there.
The Israeli military has told residents to leave their homes and head to safety in southern Gaza. Palestinian and UN officials say there is no safe place in Gaza.
Hamas’ armed wing said fighters were engaged in fierce battles with Israeli forces in and around Jabilia.
Gaza’s health ministry said the army ordered the three hospitals operating there to evacuate but medical staffers said they were determined to continue their services.
Cogat said in recent days it had facilitated the transfer of 33 patients, medical staff and accompanying personnel from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north to functioning facilities elsewhere in Gaza.
It said it has also provided 68,650 litres of fuel to hospitals and co-ordinated the delivery of 800 blood transfusion units.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israel was trying to give a misleading impression and that its forces had been preventing ambulance and civil emergency teams from recovering the bodies of dozens of people from the streets.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the three hospitals in northern Gaza, said they were facing serious shortages of food, medication, and fuel, that could soon impact patients in their facilities.
The northern part of Gaza is home to well over half the territory’s 2.3 million people. Around 400,000 people remain, according to United Nations estimates.
Israel launched the offensive against Hamas after the militant group’s October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage to Gaza, by Israeli tallies. More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive so far, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Meanwhile, more than 400,000 children in Lebanon have been displaced in the past three weeks, a top official with the UN children’s agency said, as he warned of a “lost generation” in the small country grappling with multiple crises and now in the middle of war.
Israel has escalated its campaign against the Lebanon-based Hizbullah militant group, including launching a ground invasion.
The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, most of them fleeing to Beirut and elsewhere in the north over the past three weeks since the escalation.
Ted Chaiban, Unicef’s deputy executive director for humanitarian actions, has visited schools that have been turned into shelters to host displaced families.
More than 2,300 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes, nearly 75 per cent of them over the last month, according to the country’s health ministry.
In the last three weeks, more than 100 children were killed and some 800 injured, Mr Chaiban said.
He said displaced children are crammed into overcrowded shelters where three or four families can live in a classroom separated by a plastic sheet, and where 1,000 people can share 12 toilets, not all of which work.
Many displaced families have set up tents along roads or on public beaches.
Then there is “evacuation orders upon evacuation orders. We’re at the beginning, and already there’s been a profound impact,” Mr Chaiban said.
The escalation has also put more than 100 primary healthcare facilities out of service, while 12 hospitals are either no longer working or partially functional. – Reuters/AP
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