Israel carried out airstrikes and ground operations in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, targeting what it called a Hamas “terror stronghold.” Palestinian officials said civilians were killed in the attacks, which leveled several homes in the densely built-up area on the outskirts of Gaza City.
The director of the Indonesian hospital in Gaza told Al Jazeera that at least 50 people were killed and 150 injured in the bombardment, Portal news agency reported. The figures could not be independently confirmed.
Palestinians search for victims at the site of Israeli attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, October 31, 2023. STRINGER/Portal
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said apartment blocks were destroyed and there were large numbers of casualties, but it did not immediately provide details, the Associated Press reported.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told CNN that Hamas terrorists “hide behind civilians as they do.”
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The Israeli military said Hamas had set up a terrorist infrastructure under residential buildings and claimed the operation killed a Hamas leader who was involved in the deadly rampage in southern Israel on October 7. During that surprise attack, Hamas militants entered Israeli communities, slaughtered families in their homes and young people at a music festival, killing 1,400 people and taking about 230 hostages, according to Israel.
Since then, over 8,500 people, including 3,500 children, have been killed in three weeks of Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. According to the United Nations, an estimated one million people have been displaced from the northern half of the Gaza Strip. Calls for a halt to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip are growing as military operations have increased in recent days.
The IDF said in a opinion that the operation in Jabaliya killed approximately 50 terrorists and that entrances to underground tunnels used by Hamas to store weapons and plan and carry out attacks were destroyed.
The IDF said after the attacks that “an underground Hamas military infrastructure collapsed beneath these buildings.”
The Israeli military also said Ebrahim Biari, whom it identified as a Hamas commander of the Jabaliya Central Battalion, was killed in the latest attacks – one of at least 55 Hamas leaders Israel says it has killed so far in the war.
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