Israeli strikes kill 10 Palestinians queuing for food in refugee camp
At least ten Palestinians queuing for food have been killed and dozens more injured in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp as the regime ramps up its brutality in northern Gaza.
Palestinian medics said on Monday that over 40 were also injured by Israeli tank shells that hit a food distribution centre in northern Gaza’s Jabalia.
Some media reports said an Israeli drone had opened fire where dozens of residents had gathered to receive food. Most the victims are said to be women and children.
Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for around ten days. The occupation forces completed the encirclement of the historic refugee camp and sent tanks into the nearby Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns.
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So far, very few Palestinians have heeded the latest Israeli evacuation order. They fear there’s nowhere safe to go and that they will never be allowed back. Israel has prevented those who fled earlier in the war from returning.
“We have been hit from the air and the ground, non-stop for a week, they want us to leave, they want to punish us for refusing to leave our homes,” said Marwa, 26, who left with her family to a school in Gaza City.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes.
No trucks of food, water, or medicine have entered the north since Sept. 30, according to the UN.
UN Secretary General António Guterres condemned the “large number of civilian casualties in the intensifying Israeli campaign in northern Gaza,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.
UN rights office ‘appalled’ by Israeli strikes.
Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights office said in a statement on Monday it was appalled by heavy Israeli strikes on northern Gaza where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped without food or supplies.
“In the shadow of the escalation of hostilities across the Middle East, the Israeli military appears to be cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip and conducting hostilities with absolute disregard for the lives and security of Palestinian civilians,” the rights office said.
It added that it had received reports that Israeli forces had erected sand mounds at a key juncture, effectively “sealing off North Gaza” and firing on those attempting to flee.
The northern part of Gaza, home to well over half the besieged Palestinian territory’s 2.3 million people, was heavily bombed in the first phase of Israel’s assault on the territory, which began a year ago.
This is the third time air raids and ground incursions have occurred in the area since the start of the Israeli campaign of death and destruction across the besieged Palestinian territory in October last year.
Earlier in a separate attack on Monday, at least 22 people were killed and dozens more injured after the Israeli artillery shelled a school housing the displaced near the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, has said the school was to be used as a polio vaccination site.
The Israeli military bombed tents sheltering the displaced at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, killing at least four people and injuring 40 others.
The US-Israeli genocide in Gaza which began in October last year has so far claimed the lives of nearly 42,300 people, mostly women and children. Some 98,700 Gazans have also been injured since then.
Proofreading and editing by Gift Luckson and Hafsat Aleeyu Muye, Editor and Journalist at Neptune Prime
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