On Friday, day 238 of Israel’s onslaught on the tiny coastal territory known as the Gaza Strip, a place that is home to 2.4 million Palestinians, Israeli forces continued their assault on the civilian population of Gaza by land, sea and air, killing and maiming a number of Palestinians.
The Israeli military withdrew their ground troops from Jabalia Camp, in central Gaza, lafter 20 days of attacking the people in the camp, leaving behind a trail of bodies, gore and massive devastation of infrastructure.
On Friday evening in central Gaza, a number of Palestinian civilians, including a female journalist, were killed, and others were injured, when Israeli occupation aircraft bombed a house near Al-Ghafri Junction on Al-Jalaa Street, in the center of Gaza City.
A correspondent with the Palestinian Wafa news agency said that the occupation aircraft bombed a house near Al-Ghafri Junction on Al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City, which led to the death of a number of citizens, including journalist Ola Al-Dahdouh, and the wounding of other citizens.
The occupation aircraft also carried out a raid on the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, with an unknown number of casualties.
Earlier on Friday, after Israeli forces withdrew from Jabalia camp, ambulance and civil defense teams recovered the bodies of more than 70 Palestinians, including 20 children. Dozens of people are missing, who were known to be in the camp, and relatives and rescue crews are frantically searching for survivors among the rubble of homes, shelters, schools, and hospitals, none of which were spared from the Israeli military’s assault. Even the centers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) were not spared the atrocities and crimes committed by the Israeli occupation. The extent of the massive destruction and vandalism it inflicted on citizens’ homes, service facilities and public facilities, were revealed after the retreat of military vehicles from the town of Jabalia and its camp, and the neighboring town of Beit Lahia to the north.
“The Israelis came here to take revenge, and to take revenge only.”
Journalist Yousef Fares describes the total destruction, which has been left by the Israeli army in Jabalia refugee camp after 20 days of incursion. pic.twitter.com/mLLTHZ7nbz
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 31, 2024
Over the course of 20 days, the occupation army wreaked sabotage and destruction in Jabalia camp, using a scorched earth policy, causing the death and injury of hundreds, the forced displacement of about 200,000 citizens, the destruction of entire residential squares, and the burning and bombing of public and service facilities. From its horror, the scene appeared as if the area I suffered a devastating earthquake .
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, said that it had received horrific reports from Jabalia camp regarding the death and injury of children who were taking shelter in an UNRWA school, which had been surrounded by Israeli tanks during the past 3 weeks.
UNRWA also highlighted the Israeli occupation forces’ setting fire to the tents of displaced persons in its school, adding, “More than 170 UNRWA facilities were destroyed or damaged throughout the Gaza Strip. Our facilities are not a target.”
The head of the Palestinian National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, said that the pictures that came out of Jabalia camp on Friday are “horrible, showing the ugliness and bloodiness of the crimes committed by the occupation forces, and revealing once again the fascism, racism, and terrorism of this occupation, and showing it is violating the most basic principles of humanity, moral values, and international and humanitarian law, as well as engaging in violations of international resolutions and rulings, especially those issued by the International Court of Justice.”
He added in a statement, on Friday evening, “For the second time, and over the course of 20 days of killing and siege, the Israeli occupation army committed genocidal operations, executing and wounding hundreds, most of them women and children, including the bombing of shelters for displaced Palestinians, killing dozens, and the forced displacement of about 200,000 citizens, and the destruction of residential blocks and entire residential squares, and the burning and bombing of homes, in violation of the will of the international community, the decisions of the International Court, humanitarian principles, and the rules of international humanitarian law.”
Fattouh continued, “It has become clear to everyone, in light of these crimes, that the occupation has turned the Gaza Strip into a disaster area unfit for life, in order to force people into forced migration alongside the crime of ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
Fattouh condemned the continued unjustified international inability to stop the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Fattouh called for accelerating the legal procedures of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to hold the leaders of the Israeli occupation government accountable as war criminals and perpetrators of crimes against humanity, and called on the international community to strengthen the political, economic, cultural, media and academic boycott of the Israeli occupation, and to impose sanctions on it.
