Israeli strikes targeting Hamas commanders and the militant group’s infrastructure in the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza have left catastrophic damage and killed a large number of people, according to eyewitnesses and medics in the enclave.
The devastation wrought by the strike triggered fresh outcry over spiraling civilian casualties as Gazans awoke to another communications blackout Wednesday morning. Survivors and eyewitnesses spoke of apocalyptic scenes in the aftermath of Tuesday’s strike, which tore a massive crater through the middle of the crowded camp.
The IDF claimed the Central Jabalya Battalion had taken control of civilian buildings and said collapsed tunnels were partly responsible for the scale of destruction caused by Tuesday’s strike. The Civil Defense in Hamas-run Gaza described it as the “second massacre” in two days. The airstrike killed at least 80 people and injured hundreds more, according to Dr. Atef Al Kahlout, the director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital. He told CNN more bodies were being dug out of the rubble, and the majority of casualties were women and children.
The strikes continue amid increasingly urgent calls for ceasefire by the UN and aid organizations, and despite a UN General Assembly resolution backed by over 100 countries calling for a “sustained humanitarian truce.” People in the area were hysterical, he added. “I saw women screaming and confused. They didn’t know whether to cry for losing their children or run and look for them, especially since many children were playing in the neighborhood.”
The camp is a crowded built-up area with houses, shops and apartment buildings jammed up against one another, the roads between them in many areas barely wide enough for a car to pass. Many of the injured could be seen receiving treatment on the floor because of the hospital’s overcrowded conditions. Hospital head Dr. Atef al-Kalhout estimated that scores had been killed in the blast.
Many Palestinian refugees settled in the camp in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, after fleeing villages in what became the state of Israel, according to UNRWA. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the strike as a “massacre,” referencing “chilling documented scenes” of children and women. “It has its bones, in a large-scale massacre carried out in full view of the world and under the pretext of self-defense,” the statement added.
When pressed multiple times throughout a White House briefing on the Jabalya strike and on whether Israel is doing enough to protect Palestinian civilians, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US has “indications they are trying.”
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