Israeli offensive in northern Gaza kills and wounds dozens and threatens hospitals
A large-scale Israeli operation in northern Gaza has killed and wounded dozens of people and threatens to shut down three hospitals over a year into the war with Hamas, Palestinian officials and residents said Wednesday.
Heavy fighting is underway in Jabaliya, where Israeli forces carried out several major operations over the course of the war and then returned as militants regroup. The entire north, including Gaza City, has suffered heavy destruction and has been largely isolated by Israeli forces since late last year.
The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, offers a cautionary tale as Israel expands a week-old ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran.
Residents of Jabaliya, a refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, say heavy airstrikes and evacuation warnings have driven hundreds of people from their homes. An airstrike early Wednesday killed at least nine people, including two women and two children, according to the Al-Ahly Hospital, which received the bodies.
Strikes in central Gaza killed another nine people, including three children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that the overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza since the start of the war has surpassed 42,000, with more than 97,000 others wounded.
Hospitals are under threat
Fadel Naeem, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it has received dozens of dead and wounded people from across the northern half of the Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its air and ground operation there earlier this month.
Israel's offensive has gutted Gaza's health sector, forcing most of its hospitals to shut down and leaving the rest only partially functioning.
"The situation is tense," Naeem told The Associated Press in text message. "We declared a state of emergency, suspended scheduled surgeries, and discharged patients whose conditions are stable to receive the growing numbers of wounded arriving from the north."
He said three hospitals further north — Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian Hospital - have become almost inaccessible because of the fighting. The Gaza Health Ministry says the Israeli army has ordered all three to evacuate staff and patients. Meanwhile, no humanitarian aid has entered the north since Oct. 1, according to U.N. data.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the hospitals or the apparent suspension of aid delivery in the north.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military spokesperson, said late Tuesday that Israeli forces were operating in Jabaliya "to prevent Hamas' regrouping efforts," saying they had killed around 100 militants, without providing evidence. Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it fights in residential areas.
Israel ordered the wholesale evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, in the opening weeks of the war, but hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have remained there. Israel reiterated those instructions earlier this month, telling people to flee south to an expanded humanitarian zone along the coast where hundreds of thousands are already crammed into squalid tent camps.
Israel's offensive has killed 42,010 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, women and children make up over half of the dead. The offensive has also caused staggering destruction across the territory and displaced around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.