The Israeli army announced, on Sunday, that it was “encircling” the Jabalia area in the northern Gaza Strip, which it had also bombed from the sky, estimating that the Palestinian Hamas movement was rebuilding its capabilities there, despite months of fighting and bombing.
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On Sunday, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced that at least 17 people were killed in these raids, including nine children.
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, after which Israel vowed to “annihilate” the Palestinian Islamist movement by launching a devastating offensive that is still ongoing in the besieged Palestinian territories where Hamas seized power in 2007.
In recent months, Israeli soldiers have returned to areas they previously claimed to control, saying they face reconstitution of groups of fighters.
On Sunday, the army said it was encircling the Jabalia area in light of intelligence information about “the presence of terrorists” indicating “Hamas’ efforts to rebuild its operational capabilities” in the area.
It said it carried out air strikes against “dozens of targets” “in support of ground forces,” including “weapons storage facilities.”
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP: “It was a bloody night in Gaza, as if we were returning to the first days of the war,” adding that all 17 dead belonged to one family.
According to him, the Israeli army launched a total of “more than 50 air strikes” on “different areas” of the territory, where residents were searching in vain for safety.
Jamil Al-Habibi, who fled the vicinity of the area, told Agence France-Presse, “The bombing is very violent, and we do not know where it is coming from, and we do not know where to go.”
Since the beginning of the war, the Israeli army has targeted Jabalia and its surroundings several times.
An Agence France-Presse photographer noted that families were arriving in Gaza City from Jabalia, carrying bags and cans of water.
“We are really exhausted,” says Ahmed, 50. “Where can we take our young children?”
The army said that it is expanding the scope of its operation today to the Al-Mawasi area along the coast in the south of the Gaza Strip, an area it describes as safe, and which is disputed by Gazans.
She added: “Two humanitarian evacuation routes from the northern Gaza Strip have been reopened: one on the Salah al-Din Road and the other on the Al-Rashid Coastal Road.”
It claimed in another statement that it carried out a “precise strike” on Hamas fighters from a “command center” in a mosque in the central Gaza Strip.
At least 26 people were killed in these raids on the “Ibn Rushd School and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Mosque,” which houses people displaced by the war, according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.
Eyewitnesses told Agence France-Presse reporters of Israeli bombing of other areas, most notably Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
The Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023 led to the death of 1,205 people, according to an Agence France-Presse count based on official Israeli figures, including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
The attack carried out by Israel in response has so far killed at least 41,870 Gazans, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
