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Thousands of people are trapped in Gaza’s Jabaliya camp as Israeli forces attack the area, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) said yesterday, a week after Israel launched an offensive there which it says is aimed at stopping Hamas regrouping.
At least 13 Palestinians were killed late yesterday by Israeli strikes on a home in Jabaliya, damaging several homes in its vicinity, medics told Reuters.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 54 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip yesterday, the medics added. Nearly half of the fatalities, including the 13 killed at the home, occurred in Jabaliya, the northern district which is the largest of Gaza’s historic refugee camps.
The Israeli military says it has killed dozens of fighters in Jabaliya, though it remains unclear how many of the dead were civilians rather than fighters.
“Nobody is allowed to get in or out; anyone who tries is getting shot,” MSF project co-ordinator Sarah Vuylsteke said on X.
Five MSF staff were trapped in Jabaliya, she said.
“I don’t know what to do; at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave,” she quoted Haydar, an MSF driver, as saying.
At least 15 of the fatalities in Jabaliya since dawn were due to Israeli strikes targeting various areas, including a school sheltering displaced individuals, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said, citing medical sources.
Gaza’s Civil Defence said dozens were wounded by Israeli quadcopter drone fire at the same school.
The Israeli military has sent troops into the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya as well as Jabaliya. Hamas has said it will keep fighting Israeli forces.
Palestinian health officials have reported at least 130 deaths in the operation so far, while the military has told residents to evacuate areas where the UN estimates more than 400,000 people are trapped.
United Nations officials expressed concern that the ongoing Israeli offensive and evacuation orders in northern Gaza could disrupt the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign set to begin next week.
Healthcare officials have reported that dozens of facilities in Gaza are under evacuation orders from the Israeli military, complicating humanitarian efforts amid the conflict.
Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
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