Death toll from overnight attacks on homes, refugee camps jumps to 22
At least 12 people have been killed, including women and children, in overnight attacks by Israeli forces on homes located in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis and Rafah cities, the Wafa news agency reports.
Three children were among 10 people killed when two homes were destroyed in Israeli attacks on a neighbourhood in the east of Khan Younis. A separate attack on the home of the Abu Khater family in Khan Younis left two people dead and many wounded, Wafa reports.
In Rafah city, an attack on the Abu Ubaid family home in the Saudi neighbourhood and the Oreiba area, to the north of the city, also resulted in casualties but the number of dead and injured was not yet known.
Earlier in the night, two Israeli attacks on homes in the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza killed 10 people, Wafa also reported.
Injured taken to Al-Aqsa Hospital after Bureij refugee camp attack
We reported earlier that six people, all women and children, were killed in an Israeli air attack on the Bureij refugee camp.
Photographs taken by the Anadolu news agency at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah after the attack show several people being treated for injuries as well as the lifeless body of a baby being carried by family members and hospital workers.
Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following an Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp, in Deir-el Balah, Gaza on Monday morning
Jabalia and Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza declared ‘disaster areas’
As we reported earlier, Palestinian municipal authorities have declared Jabalia and Beit Hanoon in the northern Gaza Strip as “disaster areas”. Here’s what Naji Sarhan, the head of the emergency committee for north Gaza, said about the disaster declaration on Sunday.
“The Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Hanoon town are now disaster areas,” Sarhan said. “The people of northern Gaza live in difficult humanitarian conditions with most residents lacking food, medicine and fuel,” Sarhan added. Sarhan pleaded for the UN and other international organisations to “intervene immediately to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip”.
According to the emergency committee, the infrastructure destroyed by Israeli forces in the north of Gaza includes:
- 50,000 housing units
- 35 water wells
- Several schools and other facilities run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA)
- Drainage networks
- Roads
Palestinians returning to Jabalia after Israeli forces withdrew have found homes and infrastructure destroyed
Palestinians are struggling to meet their basic needs, including safe drinking water, after Israeli forces destroyed dozens of wells as well as sewage systems and other basic infrastructure. Israeli forces also downed power lines in Jabalia, which has had no electricity since Israeli forces destroyed the entire Gaza Strip’s electricity supply in October last year.
Displaced Palestinians struggling to find shelter in the ruins of Gaza
A ruined school destroyed by Israeli bombs is the best shelter Palestinians can find in Jabalia in northern Gaza after Israeli forces withdrew from the refugee camp following a weeks-long ground attack.
Hamdi Abu Tabak, a displaced person taking part in efforts to clear rubble from a school, said he has returned and will stay in Jabalia despite the Israeli attacks and destruction.
“We were staying in UNRWA schools that were supposed to be safe places but the Israelis bombed us. Some people were killed and injured,” Abu Tabak told Al Jazeera. “When we returned, we found everything destroyed. But I live in Jabalia and I will die here,” he said.
