The most controversial edition of the Eurovision Song Contest had recently ended, marked by the presence of Israel in the middle of the war with Gaza, when that country’s army launched an attack on Jabalia in the early hours of Sunday morning. In this way, these occupation troops face the second battle for control of the largest refugee camp in Gaza. It also occurs on the day in which the number of deaths in that territory due to Israeli attacks during the current war has exceeded 35,000.
Hamas has managed to reorganize itself in an enclave located north of Gaza City that the Israeli authorities already considered subdued at the end of 2023 and where, supposedly, the armed wing of the fundamentalist group had been dismantled. Something similar happens with the Zeitun neighborhood of the capital of the Strip, where the soldiers have had to return in a new raid due to the appearance of a resistance that they had considered liquidated.
After ordering the expulsion of the residents of Jabalia, “the army undertook an operation during the night (from Saturday to Sunday) on intelligence information regarding Hamas’ attempts to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure and its operations in the area,” he explained. an army statement published on the social network X (formerly Twitter). “Prior to the entry of troops, Israeli Air Force fighter jets and additional aircraft attacked some 30 terrorist targets in the area and eliminated several Hamas terrorists,” the text added. Similar movements continue in Zeitun, according to the same source, referring to “hand-to-hand combat” as well as air attacks in that neighborhood.
“I am deeply shocked by the rapid deterioration of the situation in Gaza as Israeli forces intensify airstrikes in Jabalia and Beit Lahia, in the north, and in areas of central Gaza,” he denounced in a video published through on social networks the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, who has also censored the launch of rockets into Israeli territory.
On Friday, Israel issued orders for the forced evacuation of the population of Jabalia and the neighboring towns of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanun, also in the north of the Strip. They join those also issued against the population living in Rafah, in the far south, where they are also carrying out a ground incursion. There, the army reported that they are continuing with what the army calls “precision operations” to defeat Hamas and bring back the hostages. It is estimated that around 130 of the 250 captured on October 7 are still there, although around thirty are already dead.
Join Morning Express to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
The promised entry of the military into Rafah with blood and fire, advised against by the international community and humanitarian organizations, has not occurred, although they do maintain air attacks on the civilian population contrary to what the army claims. These operations, the military statement adds, are focused on achieving “tactical advances” but “avoiding densely populated areas.”
“Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Rafah after the Israeli army ordered new evacuations in the southern part of the city, causing a new mass displacement of an already deeply traumatized population,” laments Volker Türk. These orders for the expulsion of citizens “affect close to a million people in Rafah. Where are they supposed to go? There is no safe place in Gaza,” reiterates the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, while insisting that a large-scale invasion of Israeli troops in that town “cannot occur.”
The official list of deaths in Gaza during the Israeli attacks in the current conflict reached the figure of 35,034 this Sunday, of which some 15,000 are minors, according to data from the Ministry of Health, in the hands of Hamas.
Yabalia is the largest of the eight refugee camps that the UN organized in the Strip to accommodate people displaced from different Palestinian towns by the Israelis during the War of Independence in 1948. In a space of 1.4 square kilometers, there lived just over 100,000 people until the war began on October 7. The number of those who remain there today after repeated expulsion orders, more than seven months of bombings, raids and destruction is uncertain.
After 76 years since it was established, the Jabalia camp has become, with houses replacing tents, a neighborhood north of Gaza City where a large part of the population already needed help before the current conflict. . In total, just over 89,000 of their neighbors benefited from the food aid program of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Follow all the international information onFacebook andxor inour weekly newsletter.
.
.
_