A senior Palestinian diplomat to the United Nations has raised the alarm over the ongoing Israeli siege of northern Gaza, in which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the past week and hundreds of thousands of civilian residents are trapped or displaced. ordered to flee amidst intense bombardment.
As the military siege in and around the Jabalia refugee camp entered its 10th day on Sunday, Palestinian authorities said at least 200 people have been killed since Israeli operations began earlier this month.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least 17 more people were killed on Sunday morning in central and northern Gaza, including eight members of a family in the Nuseirat refugee camp, as well as five people in the area of al -Ettesalat, west of the Jabalia refugee camp. .
“What is happening now in northern Gaza is a genocide within a genocide,” Palestinian Ambassador Majed Bamya, deputy permanent observer to the UN, wrote in X.
'Continuation of genocidal acts'
Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said that around 400,000 Palestinians are trapped in northern Gaza, and that the Israeli military is not allowing anyone to leave the area despite having issued an evacuation order.
“What is happening now is a continuation of the genocidal acts that began a year ago,” he said, adding that more than 70 bodies remain in the streets and civil defense workers are unable to recover them due to relentless Israeli attacks.
In Jabalia, desperate residents post about their horrible situation on social media, with one declaring: “We will not leave, we die and we will not leave.”
Nasser, a resident of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, said: “While the world focuses on Lebanon and a possible Israeli attack on Iran, Israel is annihilating Jabalia.
“The occupation is blowing up roads and destroying residential districts. People can't find anything to eat. “They are trapped inside their homes, afraid that bombs will fall on their heads.”
An Israeli military statement on Sunday said 40 targets were hit in Gaza in the past 24 hours, claiming the strikes destroyed weapons and killed dozens of Hamas fighters.
Among the deaths reported in Sunday's attacks was one person who died after Israeli warplanes attacked a gathering east of Deir el-Balah, Wafa reported. Israeli artillery shelling also killed three Palestinians and injured several others in the Bureij refugee camp, the report added.
Explosions were also heard during the Israeli army's demolition of dozens of homes in and around Jabalia, particularly in the neighborhoods of al-Safatay and al-Tuwam, according to Wafa.
Osama Hamdan, Hamas representative in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera that Israel has “prevented food supplies from entering the north for 10 days,” describing what is happening in Jabalia as “a crime against humanity.”
According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, intentionally starving civilians “by depriving them of items indispensable to their survival, including intentionally impeding relief supplies” is a war crime.
Meanwhile, six Palestinians, most of them children, were wounded when the Israeli army bombed a house in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, Wafa said.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, accused Israel of committing “another massacre” and added that its troops “have agreed to be willing executioners of a genocidal plan.”
“It amazes me to think that we KNOW what Israel is doing and that we can't stop it completely. Looking at where we were 100 years ago, not much progress has been made,” he said in a post on X.