The official Palestinian News Agency (Wafa) reported that Israeli air strikes on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip and on the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip resulted in the deaths of at least 17 Palestinians on Wednesday.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment, although its Arabic spokesman had previously warned Bureij residents, in a post on the X website, to evacuate before an imminent strike against militants launching rockets from the area.
It also said overnight that it had killed Abd al-Hadi Sabah, a Hamas operative who helped lead the infiltration of Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Islamist group’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
The instructions to evacuate the Bureij camp caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected.
Wafa said that the army blew up residential complexes in Beit Lahia and in and around Jabalia, while tanks bombed parts of Gaza City and the Bureij camp.
Israel says its nearly three-month-long campaign in northern Gaza aims to prevent Hamas activists from regrouping. The army says its instructions to civilians to evacuate are aimed at keeping them out of harm’s way.
Palestinian and UN officials say there is no safe place in Gaza and that evacuations are worsening humanitarian conditions for residents.
According to the Palestinian Civil Defense, heavy rains have flooded more than 1,500 tents housing displaced people across Gaza over the past two days, leaving people exposed to the cold and damaging their property.
Hundreds of other tents were exposed to less severe flooding, leaving the displaced unable to use them.
Much of the area surrounding the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia has been depopulated and destroyed, raising speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the end of the fighting in Gaza.
No end in sight
The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the small coastal enclave has been reduced to rubble.
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 led to the deaths of 1,200 people and the taking of 251 others hostage, according to Israeli statistics.
The Israeli army says it only targets militants and holds Hamas responsible for the killing of civilians because its fighters operate in densely populated residential areas. The army says it killed 17,000 militants without providing evidence.
An Israeli raid led to the closure of a major hospital in Gaza on Friday, the World Health Organization said. Kamal Adwan Hospital was the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza, and WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris says this “essential” lifeline for local Palestinians has ended.
The war caused widespread destruction and caused the displacement of about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people, many of whom were displaced several times.
Hundreds of thousands are living in tents on the coast, where winter brings frequent rainstorms and temperatures drop to below 10 degrees Celsius at night. At least six infants and one other person died of hypothermia, according to the Ministry of Health.
American and Arab mediators spent nearly a year trying to broker a ceasefire and the release of the hostages, but these efforts repeatedly faltered.
Hamas demanded a permanent truce, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue fighting until “complete victory” over the militants was achieved.
https://i.cbc.ca/1.7421366.1735738057!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/16x9_1180/israel-palestinians-gaza.JPG?im=Resize%3D620
Source link