LAST UPDATE | 31 Oct 2023
DOZENS OF PEOPLE have been killed in an Israeli bombardment of the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza, with Israel’s army confirming it had targeted a Hamas commander involved in the 7 October attacks.
Wails filled the dusty air as volunteers clawed through the concrete blocks and twisted metal at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza in a desperate search for bodies and survivors, with AFP video footage showing at least 47 bodies being recovered.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, had no immediate comment on the claim, but quickly vowed to turn Gaza into a “graveyard” for Israeli troops.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry gave an initial toll of more than 50 dead and 150 wounded, but said dozens more were likely buried under the rubble, denouncing what it called “a heinous Israeli massacre” at the camp.
Dozens of onlookers could be seen standing on the edges of two vast craters as people searched for survivors.
Israel’s military confirmed striking the refugee camp saying the operation succeeded in killing a key Hamas commander linked to the 7 October attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group.
“His elimination was carried out as part of a wide-scale strike on terrorists and terror infrastructure belonging to the Central Jabaliya Battalion, which had taken control over civilian buildings in Gaza City,” the military said, referring to the targeting of Ibrahim Biari, the commander of Hamas’ Central Jabaliya Battalion.
Egypt lashed out at Israel’s “inhumane targeting of a residential block”. Sources said Cairo would open the Rafah crossing to treat wounded Palestinians in what would be the first time it has agreed to open the border to civilians since the conflict broke out.
Qatar, a key mediator in the crisis, condemned the Israeli attack on Jabalia and warned expanded strikes on the besieged Palestinian enclave would “undermine mediation and de-escalation efforts”.
The strike came after a day of fierce battles between Israeli ground troops and militants in northern Gaza as Israel pressed its mission to “crush” Hamas after its militants went on a rampage killing 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials, in the worst attack in the country’s history.
Since then, Israel has hit back with an unstinting aerial bombardment, which the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza says has now killed more than 8,500 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children.
At Jabalia camp, hundreds of people could be seen swarming over several large craters punched into the ground, frantically searching through the rubble for survivors as night fell.
“A short while ago, IDF warplanes… assassinated Ibrahim Biari, commander of the Jabalia brigade of the Hamas terrorist organisation, who was one of those who directed the murderous terrorist attack on October 7,” an army statement said.
“After the attack, Hamas’ underground military infrastructure beneath these buildings collapsed,” it added, saying the strike had killed “many Hamas terrorists”.
Camp resident Ragheb Aqal, 41, likened the explosion to “an earthquake” and spoke of his horror at seeing “homes buried under the rubble and body parts and martyrs and wounded in huge numbers”.
Jabalia is home to 116,000 people in an area covering 1.4 square kilometres – about the size of London’s Hyde Park.
Earlier, Israel said two of its soldiers had been killed in operations inside Gaza.
The carnage came as international leaders raised the alarm over the spiralling bloodshed and mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza where several hours before the strikes, the health ministry gave a toll of 8,525 dead, among them 3,542 children and 2,187 women.
Despite the soaring death toll, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had dismissed any chance of a ceasefire late Monday, saying such appeals were “a call for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism”.
“This will not happen.”
Gaza City resident Ahmed al-Kahlout voiced something of the desperation felt by so many inside the war-torn coastal territory.
“We want to live like any other people in this world, to live quietly,” he said.
“We don’t know what to do. The least they can do is give us a truce, give us three hours, a temporary truce or a ceasefire.”
The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell has renewed calls for a pause in the conflict and condemned the most recent attacks by Israel.
After a series of calls with senior Arab officials, Borrell’s office said he had “expressed great concern over attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, which he firmly condemned”.
Lebanon has accused Israel of white phosphorus attacks that it said it would file a complaint to the UN over, with a minister alleging the incendiary weapon had burned 40,000 olive trees.
Rights groups and Lebanese officials have repeatedly accused Israel of using the weapon, which can cause serious burns if it hits people – allegations Israel had previously denied.
The humanitarian toll has sparked a global backlash, with aid groups and the United Nations warning time is running out for many of the territory’s 2.4 million people denied access to food, water, fuel and medicine.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else,” said children’s aid agency UNICEF, urging an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
“The more than one million children of Gaza also have a water crisis. Gaza’s water production capacity is a mere 5% of its usual daily output. Child deaths – particularly infants – to dehydration are a growing threat,” the spokesperson said.
They added: “And there there is the trauma. When the fighting stops, the cost to children and their communities will be borne out for generations to come.”
Surgeons are conducting amputations on hospital floors without anaesthetic, and children are forced to drink salty water, said Jean-Francois Corty, vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières, which has 20 staff on the ground.
ActionAid Ireland has warned that women in Gaza are going without urgent medical care due to minimal aid supplies and damaged infrastructure.
Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as military headquarters and civilians as “human shields”, charges the group dismisses as “baseless” propaganda.
At a funeral in southern Gaza, tearful mourners cradled the bodies of relatives wrapped in white shrouds before burying them with their bare hands.
“We ask the world to show sympathy for the children to stop these massacres,” Youssef Hijazi, the grandfather of one victim, told AFP.
As even Israel’s staunchest allies voiced concern about the humanitarian crisis in southern Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said there was not nearly enough aid to meet the “unprecedented” needs.
“When an eight-year-old tells you that she doesn’t want to die, it’s hard not to feel helpless,” said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.
Hisham Adwan, Gaza director of the Rafah crossing with Egypt where some aid has been allowed in, said 36 trucks had been waiting there since the previous day.
“I feel that it’s extremely slow and there’s disruption to UNRWA’s work, and we don’t know why,” he said.
Israel said it is inspecting cargo to make sure weapons are not being smuggled in, and monitoring to guarantee Hamas does not seize the supplies.
The incursion scored an early victory yesterday: the rescue of Private Ori Megidish, an Israeli soldier in Hamas captivity who was reunited with her family.
But there was heartbreak for relatives of another missing woman, 23-year-old German-Israeli Shani Louk, abducted from a music festival then “tortured and paraded around Gaza,” according to Israel’s foreign ministry.
Her remains were found yesterday, with her sister Adi voicing her “great sorrow” as she shared news of her death on social media.
Other families have endured an unbearable wait for news of relatives seized by Hamas militants and thought to be held in a labyrinth of tunnels in Gaza.
Hadas Kalderon walked through the scorched homes of the Nir Oz kibbutz, near Israel’s border with Gaza, where gunmen killed her mother and niece and kidnapped her 12-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter.
“I don’t have any control and knowledge about army actions, I just know my children are still there in the middle of a war,” said the 56-year-old.
“It’s a disaster. It’s really hell. There is no word to express this.”
Hamas yesterday released a video of what it said were three women hostages, seated against a tile wall. One urged Israel to agree to a Hamas-demanded prisoner swap.
Netanyahu dismissed the clip, the time and place of which could not be verified, as “cruel psychological propaganda”.
Meanwhile, in a sign that the conflict risked spiralling throughout the region, Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels fired drones and missiles towards Israel and vowed to keep up attacks.
Israel’s army also said it had intercepted a missile fired from the Red Sea region.
Israel’s military has struck targets in Syria and traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, whose caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati told AFP it was his “duty to prevent Lebanon from entering the war”.
Anis Abla, head of Lebanon’s Civil Defense Centre in Marjayoun, near the Israeli border, said they were completely unprepared for war.
“Our equipment is very primitive and there is a shortage of all tools, such as fire suits and extinguisher cylinders,” he told AFP.
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