Israeli air strikes leave hundreds dead in north Gaza refugee camp

Palestinian health officials said hundreds of Palestinians were killed when Israeli air strikes hit a densely populated refugee camp in north Gaza on Tuesday, as Israeli ground forces battled Hamas fighters based in a sprawling tunnel network.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed international calls for a halt to the fighting to enable emergency aid deliveries to civilians suffering from critical shortages of food, medicine, drinking water and fuel.

PUBLIC HEALTH CATASTROPHE
UN and other aid officials said Gaza’s civilians were engulfed by a public health catastrophe, with hospitals struggling to treat snowballing casualties as electricity supplies peter out.
Officials at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital said more than 50 Palestinians were killed and 150 wounded when tonnes of aerial explosives struck residential dwellings in the heart of the Jabalia refugee camp in urbanised north Gaza.
Footage obtained by Reuters showed a swathe of destruction, with deep bomb craters and gutted, multi-storey cement dwellings as people dug through mounds of rubble with their hands in search of loved ones, dead or alive. Medics lay the dead swaddled in white cloth in a long line outside the hospital, located in the adjacent town of Beit Lahiya, as the injured including wailing children were rushed inside for treatment amid scenes of pandemonium.
A Hamas statement said there were 400 dead and injured in Jabalia, which lies on Gaza City’s outskirts within the main northern ground zone of combat between dug-in Hamas fighters and Israeli troops and tanks. Jabalia houses families of refugees from wars with Israel dating back to 1948.
Reuters could not independently verify the reported casualty figures.

UN CHIEF’S APPEAL TO PROTECT CIVILIANS
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed again on Tuesday for the protection of civilians caught in the conflict, stressing the need for proportional behaviour and precaution by all parties.
“International humanitarian law establishes clear rules that cannot be ignored. It is not an a la carte menu and cannot be applied selectively,” Guterres said in a statement.
The tunnels under the cramped enclave are a prime objective for Israel as it expands a four-day-old ground offensive — after three weeks of aerial bombardment — into Gaza from the north to hit Hamas in retaliation for the group’s deadly surprise attack into southern Israel in the first week of October. In an update, the Israeli military said its force had struck about 300 targets over the past day, including anti-tank missile and rocket launch posts below tunnel shafts, as well as underground Hamas military compounds. Fighters responded with anti-tank missiles and machine gun fire, it said. A number of fighters were killed, it said, without specifying a number.
Hamas said in a statement its fighters were engaged in fierce battles with Israeli ground forces, who were taking losses. “The occupation is pushing its soldiers into proud Gaza, which will always be the cemetery of invaders,” Hamas said.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in north Gaza, the military said on Tuesday, without saying when.
The Israeli military has repeatedly called for civilians to evacuate north Gaza southwards to avoid the main focus of its armoured onslaught. Hundreds of thousands have left but many have hung on, residents say, for fear of permanent displacement and deadly Israeli bombardments that have hit the south as well.

GAZA DEATH TOLL RISES TO 8,525
Gaza health authorities say that 8,525 people, including 3,542 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct 7. UN officials say more than 1.4mn of Gaza’s civilian population of about 2.3mn have been made homeless.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, said fighters clashed early on Tuesday with Israeli forces invading Gaza’s south, hitting four Israeli vehicles with rockets. Later, it said fighters ambushed Israeli armoured vehicles penetrating the central Jur al-Dik area of Gaza and destroyed three of them with Al Yassin 105mm shells, before withdrawing safely to avoid an Israeli mortar barrage.

BARE TRICKLE OF HUMANITARIAN AID
Far fewer humanitarian aid trucks than needed have reached the besieged enclave, UN officials said. Aid trucks have been trickling into Gaza from Egypt over the past week via Rafah, the main crossing that does not border Israel. But distribution of the aid within Gaza is being hampered by a lack of fuel.
Air raid sirens sounded in the area of Israel’s far southern resort city of Eilat on the Red Sea on Tuesday and the Israeli military said it downed an approaching “aerial target”.

HOUTHIS’ SUPPORT
Over 1,000 miles south of Gaza, Yemen’s Houthis said they had launched a “large number” of ballistic missiles and drones towards Israel in support of Palestinian fighters, their third operation targeting Israel, with more to come.
Their statement confirmed the widening spectre of spillover from Gaza’s conflict.