Israeli airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 20 people overnight and into Saturday in the Jabaliya area, where aid workers say thousands of people have been trapped by Israeli bombardment even as the Israeli military also presses ahead with its campaign in Lebanon.
Doctors Without Borders said in a statement late Friday that five of its staff members were trapped in Jabaliya, and that one of them had relayed that “about 20 people” were killed in an airstrike on Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital. The Palestinian health ministry said that at least 49 people had been killed across Gaza since Friday, and that 219 wounded people had arrived at hospitals in the enclave.
Israel’s military has issued evacuation warnings for the area in recent days, but aid workers said the fighting made it difficult to follow those instructions.
“Nobody is allowed to get in or out,” Sarah Vuylsteke, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said in the group’s statement. “Anyone who tries is getting shot.”
Jabaliya was once a large town with an adjoining refugee camp, composed of dense urban dwellings, that shared its name. But it has largely been destroyed by ground combat and repeated Israeli bombardments of the area since the war began last year after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
This past week, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for the area, and a new one was issued on Saturday morning. Avichay Adraee, the military’s Arabic-language spokesman, said on X that the military was “operating with great force” against Hamas and other allied groups, “and will continue to do so for a long period of time.”
“The designated area, including the shelters located there, is considered a dangerous combat zone,” he added.
Israel has routinely struck areas of Gaza that it has described as safe humanitarian zones, and buildings that house displaced civilians, including schools being used as shelters. The Israeli military has said that such strikes are targeting Hamas and other militants who operated from those areas, using the civilians as human shields — which Hamas has denied doing.
In its statements, Doctors Without Borders called on Israel to protect civilians and hospitals and to “allow desperately needed humanitarian supplies to enter the north as a matter of extreme urgency.”
“Forced evacuations of homes and bombing of neighborhoods by the Israeli forces is turning north Gaza into uninhabitable ruins,” it added.
WAFA, the official news media of the Palestinian Authority, a rival to Hamas, said in a report on Saturday that Israeli airstrikes had also caused deaths and injuries in the areas of Al-Safatay and Al-Tawam, close to Jabaliya.
The news agency said the humanitarian situation there was “deteriorating rapidly,” with the military operations blocking the entry of food, medical supplies and potable water into the area.
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