At least 25 Palestinians were killed on Saturday after Israeli warplanes bombed multiple residential blocks in Mashrou’ Beit Lahia, north of Jabaliya. Gaza’s Civil Defence reported that a large number of people from the Abu Samra, Al-Najjar, and Hanouna families were killed and dozens injured after Israeli war planes bombed 11 residential buildings in Block 7 of the Al-Hawaja area in Jabaliya Refugee Camp. A few hours later, Israel bombed three residential buildings in the Al-Khazan area in Beit Lahia, north of Jabaliya. Local sources said more than 30 people were killed and dozens were injured in the attack. Residents of the area have appealed to Civil Defence and rescue teams for help.

A statement published by the Civil Defence in Gaza last week said they have completely shut down rescue services in northern Gaza after Israeli forces arrested five workers and targeted three others, disrupting their ability to carry out their duties. Civil Defence officials also said the situation in northern Gaza is catastrophic, with rescue teams unable to reach the dead, the wounded, and those who are still trapped under the rubble there, saying access is too complicated and dangerous.

“A hundred thousand Palestinians in Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip are besieged and exposed to continuous Israeli bombardment as of 6 October,” a Civil Defence source said. The statement stressed that Israel is deliberately putting pressure on residents in the northern Gaza Strip by committing massacres to force them to vacate their homes and head south.

Israel has ramped up its attacks in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp in recent weeks, claiming there was evidence that Hamas fighters were regrouping in the area. Eye witnesses reported dozens of men were detained, and people were gathered and ordered to go south. Intensive Israeli aerial and ground attacks have forced many thousands of residents out of Jabaliya and into the adjacent Gaza City and the southern Gaza Strip in search of safety following an Israeli evacuation order, but the Israeli bombings still chased them wherever they went.

Elderly people, women, youth and children were seen carrying their luggage, walking on foot, or riding animal-pulled carts through destroyed streets filled with rubble, injured people and charred body parts. According to heartbreaking testimonies of displaced Palestinians recounting their ordeal of displacement from the north to the south to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), the Israeli army told displaced Palestinians to evacuate hospitals and shelter schools in Beit Lahia and northern Gaza, and ordered them to head to the Indonesian Hospital, where the soldiers had already erected a security checkpoint.

There, the soldiers separated the men from women and children under 13 years old. Only those who passed security screening were allowed to head to the southern Gaza Strip through the Salaheddine road holding yellow lighting devices to avoid being targeted by Israeli war planes.

Despite hunger and probable death, the majority of Jabaliya’s population have refused to leave their homes even as the Israeli forces intensified their military operations in Jabaliya and the other parts of northern Gaza amid a communications blackout. A 33-year-old Palestinian mother speaking anonymously to Al-Ahram Weekly over the phone said that the journey from Jabaliya to Al-Zawaida in central Gaza was tortuous with all the trappings of doomsday.

“Thank God, I can hardly believe my kids and I are alive and safe. It was hellish in Jabaliya. I left my home in Jabaliya. We were surrounded by tanks, gun fire, missiles, and quad copters. We have experienced all kinds of Israeli weaponry. We are experts now. I know we won’t be 100 per cent safe here. I pray for Gaza all the time. May God protect us all,” she said.

Even hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip were not spared the barbaric Israeli attacks. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza called for immediate intervention from international humanitarian associations to ensure the safety of the patients and the remaining medical staff. A statement published by the Health Ministry on 25 October said that the situation at Kamal Adwan Hospital was rapidly deteriorating. According to the statement, 600 people including patients, wounded people, and medical staff were trapped inside the hospital.

Medical sources confirmed that at least 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in northern Gaza as of 6 October. Of those, two children lost their lives in the intensive care unit after the hospital’s generators failed and the oxygen station was targeted. A total of 195 patients and 70 medical workers were wounded as Israeli forces actively searched and opened fire in different departments of the hospital, spreading fear and panic among the trapped Palestinians, while three ambulances and a transport vehicle were destroyed.

Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip that have been under suffocating Israeli siege for three weeks now. They have received little to no aid, medicine, food or fuel since the start of the Israeli attack on northern Gaza. The Israeli authorities have intentionally prevented the entry of food, medicine, and water into northern Gaza, which worsened the humanitarian situation there so much that thousands could die of hunger even if they survive the missiles.

According to OCHA, between 1 and 21 October, only six per cent of coordinated aid movements that aimed to provide humanitarian assistance in northern Gaza via Al-Rashid checkpoint were approved by the Israeli authorities. Meanwhile, access conditions have especially worsened following the onset of the Israeli military operation in Jabaliya on 6 October. Between 6 and 21 October, 29 coordination requests requiring coordination with the Israeli military for critical aid missions to Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahya were denied, six were impeded and 13 were facilitated.

Denied movements included a critical mission to rescue about 40 people trapped under the rubble in the Falouja area of Jabaliya, which has been repeatedly denied since 18 October.  The Indonesian Hospital and the Al-Awda Hospital have stopped operations in the last few days due to ongoing Israeli operations.

The director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital Hossam Abu Safiyah condemned the Israeli army’s heinous procedures against civilians and hospitals in northern Gaza. “Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks which shell the hospital.” He made these remarks in a televised interview from within the Intensive Care Unit, where the injured and medical staff were sheltering after the Israeli army stormed the hospital on Friday.  “Where is the law? What law in the world allows a hospital to be directly targeted?” Abu Safiya said.

Health officials have repeatedly accused the Israeli forces of preventing ambulances from moving around freely, deliberately attacking them, and obstructing their movement by blocking roads. Raghad Al-Bassiouni was transferred in an ambulance with her newborn and one companion out of the Kamal Adwan Hospital after Israeli forces ordered the immediate evacuation of the medical compound, forcing medical crews and patients including those receiving treatment in the Intensive Care Unit out. Yet the Israeli forces still struck the ambulance carrying Raghad outside the hospital, instantly killing everyone inside it except her baby boy, who was transferred to his father, displaced in Gaza City.

Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan described the situation in northern Gaza as a “genocide committed by Israel against civilians.” Hamdan added in press statements that Israel aims to implement the so-called Generals Plan, which aims at emptying northern Gaza of its residents and relocating them in the southern strip. The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA estimates that about 400,000 people remain in Gaza’s northern governorates, including Gaza City.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday that at least 42,924 including 182 journalists, 1047 medical workers and 85 Civil Defence workers were killed, while more than one hundred thousand have been injured during the year-long war between Israel and the Palestinian resistance as of 7 October last year.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly