2023-11-19 07:14:15
The Hamas Health Ministry announced yesterday the death of more than eighty people in two Israeli bombings of a UN-administered refugee camp in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip, devastated by fighting between Israel and the Islamist movement. Palestinian.
The first bombing, against a school, left fifty dead, and the second hit a home, where it killed 32 people from the same family, including 19 children, according to the authorities of the Islamist movement, in power in Gaza since 2007. .
The first shelling hit the Al Fakhura school, which houses displaced people, at dawn, a ministry official said.
Images circulating on social networks, verified by the AFP agency, show bodies covered in blood or dust on the floors of the building, where mattresses had been installed under the desks.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) expressed outrage at a “horrendous” attack. These attacks must stop. A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer, the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote on the X network.
The United Nations Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (OCHA), Martin Griffiths, referred to “tragic information” and recalled that shelters were “places of safety” and schools were “places of teaching.”
In the second bombing, which hit a house in the same refugee camp, 32 members of the same family were killed, including 19 children, said the Hamas Health Ministry, which released a list of names.
The Israeli military did not confirm the bombings, but said in a statement that its troops were expanding their operations in the Gaza Strip, including some parts of Jabaliya, to “target terrorists and bomb Hamas infrastructure.”
During the night, another Israeli bombardment hit Khan Yunis, killing at least 26 people, according to the director of the Nasser hospital in that southern Gaza Strip city.
Hamas commandos killed 1,200 people on Israeli soil on October 7, most of them civilians, and kidnapped, along with other armed groups, some 240 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Since then, Israeli retaliatory bombings in the Gaza Strip have been incessant and have killed, according to a Hamas Health Ministry estimate, 12,300 Palestinian civilians, including 5,000 children. The army also confirmed that it has managed to eliminate a large part of Hamas’ military commanders in the Strip.
Hospital evacuated. Hundreds of people evacuated yesterday the Al Shifa hospital, where there were more than 2,000 patients, doctors and people displaced by the war, after being ordered by Israel to leave the place “in one hour.”
For four days, Israel has been carrying out raids on that hospital, the largest in the territory, considering that it houses a Hamas command center. The army has released images of weapons and military equipment found at the site.
Six doctors will remain at the hospital to care for 120 patients, including premature babies, who cannot be transferred, said one of them, Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, on the X network.
The patients, accompanied by medical personnel, left the hospital on foot and headed towards the Sal Highway. On the road there were at least fifteen bodies, some in an advanced state of decomposition, in a landscape of destroyed roads, destroyed shops and overturned cars or crushed.
In parallel to the bombings, Israel, which has promised to “annihilate” Hamas, has been carrying out ground operations in the Gaza Strip since October 27, a territory of 362 km2 and some 2.4 million inhabitants. Ground operations are concentrated in the north of the territory, in Gaza City, converted into a field of ruins, and around hospitals, where the army accuses Hamas of having set up bases and using the sick as “human shields.” .
On October 9, Israel cut off the supply of food, water, electricity and medicine that usually transit through Rafah, on the border with Egypt, in the south of the Strip. According to Hamas, 24 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals have stopped functioning.
According to the UN, more than two-thirds of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war. Most fled to the south with the bare minimum and are surviving the coming cold.
On Thursday, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned that civilians in Gaza “face the immediate possibility of starvation.”
At the request of the United States, Israel on Friday authorized the daily entry through Rafah of two fuel tankers. According to the authority of the Palestinian part of the border crossing, these first 17 thousand liters will allow the electrical generators of hospitals and telecommunications networks to be reactivated.
Until now, Israel had refused to let the fuel through, alleging that it could be used in military activities by Hamas, a movement considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
Tensions are also high in the West Bank, a territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, where some 200 Palestinians have been killed by settlers and Israeli soldiers since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Netanyahu, under pressure. The Israeli war cabinet, led by conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, faces strong external pressure to alleviate the suffering of Gaza’s civilians. The UN Security Council on Wednesday approved a resolution calling for “humanitarian pauses” in the war. The German head of government, Olaf Scholz, highlighted yesterday in a telephone conversation with Netanyahu the “urgent need” to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Netanyahu also faces pressure from the relatives of those kidnapped by Hamas, who are demanding an agreement that would allow them to be released. A march of thousands of people, which left Tel Aviv on Tuesday, arrived in Jerusalem yesterday with the slogan “Bring them home now”, and was heading towards Netanyahu’s office.
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