During an Israeli bombardment of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday dozens of people died. According to the neighboring Indonesia Hospital, so called because it was founded with financial help from Indonesia, at least fifty people have been killed and 150 injured. Despite Israel’s urgent advice to seek refuge in the south of the Gaza Strip, many residents remained in Jabalia. About twenty buildings were razed to the ground and in many places deep craters were left behind.
An Israeli army spokesman later said the army had killed a senior Hamas commander, Ibrahim Biari, who was in the area surrounding the camp. After fighting that, according to Israel, killed fifty Hamas fighters, Israeli ground forces also captured the western part of Jabaliya, where a Hamas unit of the same name was based.
Meanwhile, Israeli tanks and ground troops are advancing gradually towards Gaza City, where Israel believes Hamas’s military center of gravity is. The first tanks are said to have arrived after heavy fighting in residential areas on the outskirts of Gaza City. “But we also continue to attack targets in other parts of the Gaza Strip,” said army spokesman Jonathan Conricus. “We hunt the commanders, we target their infrastructure and whenever there is an important target linked to Hamas, we attack it.”
In total, Israel said it attacked three hundred targets within 24 hours. Two Israeli soldiers were killed. The Palestinians defend themselves with anti-tank missiles and machine guns, among other things. According to Hamas two Israeli armored vehicles disabled. Israel continues to heavily bomb the places where it suspects Hamas tunnels. It is precisely in those tunnels that Hamas has partly dug itself in and keeps its weapons.
Israel also announced that it had neutralized a rocket over the Red Sea that was headed for the resort of Eilat. Yemen’s Houthis declared to have fired it. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, had previously announced that they would try to hit Israel if it did not halt its offensive in the Gaza Strip. According to the Houthis, they have already fired several rockets at Israel in recent days.
The Palestinian death toll from the war, which began on October 7 with a bloody Hamas attack on Israel that killed more than 1,400 Israelis, has risen to 8,525, including 3,542 children, according to the Health Ministry.
The World Health Organization WHO has now warned for an impending “health catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip. There are hardly any medicines, water, food and fuel available, which has caused hospitals to partly come to a standstill. Experts are particularly concerned about the lack of drinking water. Unicef, the UN children’s fund, pointed out that this puts many children at risk of dehydration.
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