At least 44 people have died this Monday in the north of the Gaza Strip in several Israeli attacks, one of them against a school in the town of Jabalia where displaced people from the neighboring refugee camp – which has been one of the areas hardest hit by the Israeli Army in the past two weeks. The troops have been surrounding the northernmost area of the Palestinian enclave for 17 days, since they launched a new operation that has focused on the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanun.
According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, ten people have died and 30 have been injured in that artillery attack on the school. More than 600 have lost their lives in northern Gaza and, above all, in Jabalia, since last October 6.
The commissioner general of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has denounced in X that the Israeli authorities continue to deny access to northern Gaza to humanitarian missions that bring “vital supplies, including medicine and food for the people who are under siege.” Missions to rescue people from under the rubble are also not being authorized, he added.
In addition to the shortage of supplies, including doctors, hospitals are also being surrounded, as reported by Gazan authorities, according to whom there are more than 350 people trapped in the three main hospital centers, including pregnant women and patients who have just to undergo surgical operations. Health personnel have ignored evacuation orders from Israeli troops, because they have refused to leave and abandon patients who cannot be transferred.
From Doctors Without Borders (MSF), they have asked Israeli forces to “immediately end their attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza.” “When hospitals are attacked, their infrastructure destroyed and electricity cut, the lives of patients and medical staff are in danger,” Anna Halford, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement. “It is absolutely crucial to ensure the protection of the few health facilities that are still functioning. The population must continue to have access to medical care and life-saving treatments,” he added in the text.
The World Health Organization also denounced in X over the weekend Israeli attacks against the Al Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals, in northern Gaza. The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiyya, told Al Jazeera television that the hospital cannot cope with the number of wounded and patients. Both Kamal Adwan and Al Awda continue to operate at greatly reduced capacity on Monday due to a lack of medical supplies and personnel, according to UNRWA.
Meanwhile, doctors at the Indonesian Hospital have told the Reuters news agency that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men who were sheltering there, and set fire to the building; The flames reached the electrical generators of the hospital, which was left without power supply. Lack of fuel is one of the main problems for hospitals and medical centers, since without generators the incubators, respirators and other devices on which patients depend cannot function.
A nurse at the Indonesian Hospital, Hadeel Obeid, told Reuters that they are running out of medical supplies, including gauze for wounds; In addition, the water supply has been cut off and this Monday is the fourth day in which there is no food in the center.
The Israeli Army has asked civilians to leave the area, where it says it is attacking and dismantling Hamas’ “terrorist infrastructure.” The director of planning in Gaza for UNRWA, Sam Rose, has declared to the EFE Agency that “some 56,000 people have been displaced from the north of the Strip to Gaza City since the start of the military operations,” on the 6th.
Israeli forces say that “hundreds of residents have left the area” of Jabalia since this morning and insist that they are allowing civilians to evacuate “safely.” The UN estimates that some 400,000 people remain in northern Gaza and around 100,000 remain in the Jabalia refugee camp, which before the conflict was the largest in the Strip. Many residents refuse to leave their homes because they have nowhere to go and because they have already received numerous evacuation orders since the war began more than a year ago. In this time, 90% of the population has been displaced, most of them on several occasions.
Since Israel began its offensive against the Palestinian enclave a year and two weeks ago, almost 43,000 Gazans have died.
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