Hospitals are on fire as Israeli forces intensify operations in northern Gaza By Reuters
Written by Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – The Israeli army laid siege to hospitals and refugee shelters in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday as it stepped up its crackdown on Palestinian militants, residents and doctors said.
Soldiers rounded up men and ordered women out of the historic Jabalia refugee camp, they said. An Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia killed five people and injured many others, health officials said.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that Israeli authorities are preventing humanitarian missions from reaching the northern Palestinian enclave with essential goods, including medicine and food.
“People who try to escape are killed, their bodies are left on the street,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini told X.
Doctors at an Indonesian hospital told Reuters that Israeli soldiers stormed the school and arrested the men before setting it on fire. The fire reached the hospital's generator and caused a power outage, they added.
Health authorities say they have refused orders from the Israeli army, which began a new incursion into the northern area two weeks ago, to evacuate three hospitals in the area or leave patients unattended.
The soldiers remained outside the hospital but did not enter, they said. Doctors at the second hospital, Kamal Adwan, reported heavy Israeli fire near the hospital overnight.
“The soldiers are burning the schools near the hospital, and no one can go in or out of the hospital,” said one Indonesian hospital nurse who asked not to be named.
Palestinian health officials said at least 18 people were killed in Jabalia and 8 elsewhere in Gaza in Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military said in a statement that they were dealing with “terrorists and terrorist infrastructure” in the Jabalia area.
The military has helped thousands of citizens to evacuate safely through planned routes, he said. Israel has been communicating with the international community and Gaza's health care system to ensure hospitals are functioning, he said.
The previous day, the army destroyed the terrorist infrastructure and tunnels and killed the fighters in Jabalia area, the report said.
Israel has stepped up its operations in Gaza and Lebanon after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week raised hopes of a ceasefire to end more than a year of conflict.
It has vowed to eradicate the Hamas terror group that once ruled Gaza and its attack on Israel last year sparked the war, but in doing so has destroyed much of the territory and killed tens of thousands of people. More than 1.9 million people have been left homeless and in need of food.
“We are facing bombings, drought and hunger,” said Raed, a resident of Jabalia. “Jabalia is being destroyed and there are no witnesses to the crime, the world is turning a blind eye.”
CERTAIN ACCOMMODATIONS ARE MANDATORY
Hadeel Obeid, a nurse in charge of an Indonesian hospital, said they are running out of medical supplies, including sterile gauze and medicine. The water was shut off and there was no food for the fourth day in a row, he told Reuters.
The United Nations said it could not reach three hospitals in northern Gaza.
The UN Human Rights Office has accused the Israeli forces of unlawful interference in humanitarian aid and issuing orders to cause forced evictions. It says their behavior “may result in the destruction of the Palestinian people in the northern Gaza Strip through death and displacement”.
Lazzarini of UNRWA said that the wounded lay without care in the hit hospitals.
“The remaining UNRWA shelters are overcrowded, with some homeless people being forced to live in toilets,” he said.
Israel says it receives large amounts of aid from Gaza through ground deliveries and airdrops. It also says that it has assisted the discharge of patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital.
The Palestinians say that no aid has entered the northern areas of Gaza where the project is operating.
Residents and medics say the Israeli army has strengthened its siege of Jabalia by placing tanks in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and ordering residents to leave.
Israeli officials said the evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied there was a systematic plan to remove civilians. It said the soldiers operating in northern Gaza killed dozens of Hamas gunmen and destroyed infrastructure
Hamas has accused Israel of committing acts of “genocide and genocide” to force people to leave northern Gaza.
Hamas' armed wing said the militants attacked soldiers there with anti-tank rockets and live fire, and bombed soldiers inside tanks and houses.
Elsewhere in the area, Israeli strikes killed at least five people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and two separate strikes in Gaza City, health officials said.
The slain Sinwar was one of the masterminds of the October 7, 2003, cross-border attacks on Israeli communities that killed about 1,200 people, and about 253 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel's subsequent war has killed more than 42,500 Palestinians, with another 10,000 unaccounted for dead believed to be under the rubble, Gaza health authorities said.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
