Author: Nidal Mugrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli troops battled Hamas militants on Friday in narrow alleys in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, in the fiercest fighting since their return to the area a week ago, while in the south, militants The elements attacked tanks gathered around Rafah.
Residents said Israeli armored forces pushed as far as the market in the center of Jabaliya, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, and bulldozers were demolishing houses and shops in their path.
“Tanks and planes are destroying residential areas, markets, shops, restaurants, everything. This all happened before the one-eyed world,” Ayman Rajab, a resident of western Jabaliya, said via a chat app.
Israel has said its troops cleared Jabaliya months ago in the Gaza war, which was sparked by a deadly Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, but last week It said Israeli troops would return to Jabaliya to prevent Islamist militants from regrouping there.
Thick smoke rose over Rafah in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt, one of the few remaining refuges as hundreds of thousands fled escalating Israeli attacks.
“People are scared and they are trying to flee,” U.N. humanitarian office spokesman Jens Laerke said in Geneva, adding that most followed orders to move north toward the coast but had no safe route or destination.
As fighting intensifies, the U.S. military said trucks began bringing aid ashore from makeshift docks, the first trucks to reach the besieged enclave by sea in weeks.
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The World Food Program, which expects food, water, shelter and medical supplies to arrive via the floating docks, said aid had been delivered to a warehouse in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and told partners it was ready for distribution.
The United Nations earlier reiterated that overland truck convoys, disrupted by the Rafah attack this month, remained the most efficient way to deliver aid.
“To avoid the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious routes to reach the people of Gaza, and to do that we now need access by land,” said UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.
Washington said U.S. aid supplies had arrived in Cyprus and were being shipped to Gaza through the new terminal.
Hamas demands that Israel end the siege and accuses Washington of being complicit in Israel’s policy of “hunger and blockade”.
The White House said U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan will visit Israel on Sunday and stress the need for a targeted offensive against Hamas militants rather than a full-scale attack on Rafah.
The White House said a group of U.S. medical workers left the Gaza corridor after becoming trapped at a hospital providing care.
Humane fear
The Israel Defense Forces said its troops had killed more than 60 militants in Jabaliya in recent days and had found a weapons depot as part of a “divisional offensive.”
Division-level operations typically involve several brigades, each with thousands of soldiers, making them one of the largest operations of the war.
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“The 7th Brigade Fire Control Center directed dozens of air strikes, neutralizing terrorists and destroying their infrastructure,” the IDF said.
At least 35,303 Palestinians have been killed, according to the enclave’s health ministry, while aid agencies have repeatedly warned of widespread hunger and severe shortages of fuel and medical supplies.
Israel says Rafah must be captured to destroy Hamas and ensure national security. According to Israeli statistics, 1,200 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas attack on October 7, and 253 people were taken hostage. About 128 hostages are still being held in Gaza.
Israel said on Friday that its forces had recovered the bodies of three people killed at the Israel Nova music festival on October 7 and brought them into Gaza.
Hamas responded that negotiations were Israel’s only way to free the hostages: “The enemies will not get their prisoners except as lifeless bodies or through an honorable exchange agreement with our people and our resistance.” .
Ceasefire negotiations have reached a deadlock.
“Tragic War”
Israeli tanks and warplanes bombed parts of Rafah on Friday, while armed factions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they fired anti-tank missiles at troops gathered in the east, southeast and at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and mortars.
UNRWA, the main U.N. aid agency for the Palestinians, said more than 630,000 people have fled Rafah since the offensive began on May 6.
“They are moving to areas where there is no water and we have to truck the water in and people are not getting enough food,” UNRWA planning director Sam Ross told Reuters by phone from Rafah on Friday. Said it was eerily quiet there.
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At the International Court of Justice in The Hague, South Africa accused Israel of violating the Genocide Convention, and Israeli Justice Ministry official Gilad Noem defended the action.
The South African legal team had proposed new emergency measures the day before, treating Israel’s military operations as part of a genocidal plan aimed at destroying the Palestinian people.
