Deir al-Balah, Oct 9: A large-scale Israeli operation in northern Gaza has killed and wounded dozens of people and threatens to shut down three hospitals over a year into the war with Hamas, Palestinian officials and residents said Wednesday.
Heavy fighting is underway in Jabaliya, where Israeli forces carried out several major operations over the course of the war and then returned as militants regroup. The entire north, including Gaza City, has suffered heavy destruction and has been largely isolated by Israeli forces since late last year.
The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, offers a cautionary tale as Israel expands a week-old ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran.
Residents of Jabaliya, a refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, say heavy airstrikes and evacuation warnings have driven hundreds of people from their homes. An airstrike early Wednesday killed at least nine people, including two women and two children, according to the Al-Ahly Hospital, which received the bodies.
Strikes in central Gaza killed another nine people, including three children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that the overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza since the start of the war has surpassed 42,000, with more than 97,000 others wounded.
Hospitals are under threat
Fadel Naeem, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it has received dozens of dead and wounded people from across the northern half of the Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its air and ground operation there earlier this month.
Israel’s offensive has gutted Gaza’s health sector, forcing most of its hospitals to shut down and leaving the rest only partially functioning.
“The situation is tense,” Naeem told The Associated Press in text message. “We declared a state of emergency, suspended scheduled surgeries, and discharged patients whose conditions are stable to receive the growing numbers of wounded arriving from the north.”
He said three hospitals further north – Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian Hospital – have become almost inaccessible because of the fighting. The Gaza Health Ministry says the Israeli army has ordered all three to evacuate staff and patients. Meanwhile, no humanitarian aid has entered the north since Oct. 1, according to UN data.
2 die in rocket attack on Israel
Israeli first responders say a man and a woman were killed by a rocket fired from Lebanon.
The Magen David Adom rescue service said the two were killed Wednesday when a rocket struck the northern town of Kiryat Shmona.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel in recent days as Israel has ramped up its airstrikes in Lebanon and pushed ahead with a ground incursion.
Most of the rockets have been intercepted or landed in open areas, but the barrages have grown more intense and have reached deeper into Israel, disrupting daily life.
6 stabbed in an attack in Israel
At least six people were stabbed and wounded in northern Israel in what police say was a militant attack.
Police said the assailant stabbed people in multiple locations in the northern city of Hadera on Wednesday before fleeing on a motorbike. Police said they later shot and “neutralized” him, indicating he was killed. They did not provide the name or nationality of the assailant.
Five of the people who were attacked were in critical or severe condition, while the sixth was moderately wounded, according to the nearby Hillel Yaffe Medical Center.
Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years, and tensions have spiked over the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah step up rocket fire
Hezbollah fired another barrage of rockets into Israel on Tuesday, and the militant group’s acting leader vowed to keep up pressure that has forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes near the Lebanese border.
The Israeli military said it sent more ground troops into southern Lebanon and that a senior Hezbollah commander was killed in an airstrike.
Dozens of rockets fired by Hezbollah were aimed as far south as Haifa, and the Israeli government warned residents north of the coastal city to limit activities, prompting the closure of more schools.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah launched about 180 rockets across the border. (AP)
