TEL AVIV, ISRAEL: Israel says its forces battled Hamas militants and attacked the group’s tunnel network in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday with a flurry of airstrikes.
At least 50 deaths were reported in one strike near the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
“There was a very senior Hamas commander in that area,” Israeli army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht told CNN, confirming the strike. An Israel Defense Forces statement later identified the man as Ibrahim Biari and said he was a ringleader of the “murderous terror attack” on October 7.
Jabaliya was home to the families of refugees from wars dating back to 1948, according to Reuters. At least 50 Palestinians were killed and 150 wounded in the strike on the refugee camp, Palestinian health authorities said. A statement from Hamas said that no commanders were at the camp and put the casualties at 400 dead or wounded. The figures could not be independently verified, Reuters said.
Israel accuses Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, of using civilians as shields and having a sprawling network of tunnels underneath Gaza where it is believed to be stockpiling weapons, food and other supplies.
Earlier, Israel said it carried out an airstrike that killed another Hamas commander who orchestrated the deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel. The Hamas attack killed 1,400 people.
The IDF and Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, said Nasim Abu Ajina was the commander of the Beit Lahia Battalion of Hamas’ Northern Brigade and took part in the development of the unmanned aerial vehicles and paragliders involved in the brazen invasion.
The IDF also said its combined air and ground forces struck about 300 targets over the past 24 hours, including anti-tank missile and underground rocket launch posts as well as military compounds inside Hamas’ underground tunnels. The military said Hamas fighters were killed during the operation. The country also reported its first military deaths: two soldiers killed in northern Gaza.
With no end in sight to the current fighting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls from around the world for a cease-fire.
Humanitarian crisis
Israeli airstrikes since the October 7 attacks have led to a humanitarian crisis in the crowded Palestinian enclave. The Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry said Monday that more than 8,300 people have been killed in the airstrikes, mostly women and children. The humanitarian group Save the Children says more than 3,000 children have been killed in the conflict.
The number of aid trucks arriving in Gaza averages 14 a day, when 400 a day arrived before October 7.
“The level of humanitarian assistance that has been allowed into Gaza up to this point is completely inadequate and not commensurate with the needs of people in Gaza, compounding the humanitarian tragedy,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday, reiterating his call for a humanitarian truce.
‘Crumbling’ situation in Gaza
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that the Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza “is collective punishment” of the Palestinians as a whole.
“Basic services are crumbling” in Gaza, he said, with medicine, food, water and fuel running out and the streets overflowing with sewage.
Lazzarini said a weekend communications blackout has “aggravated the panic and distress of people” and “accelerated the breaking down of civil order.” He said thousands of desperate people stormed UNRWA warehouse and distribution centers where humanitarian shipments from Egypt are being stored.
Lazzarini told the council that 64 of his UNRWA colleagues have been killed in Gaza over the past three weeks, including the head of security and safety in the central region who was killed with his wife and eight others just hours before the Security Council meeting.
Israeli soldier rescued
The Israeli military said Monday that a female soldier held captive by Hamas militants was freed during Monday’s ground operation. The IDF said the soldier, identified as Private Ori Megidish, was doing well and had met with her family.
Hamas on Monday released a video showing three hostages whom Netanyahu identified in a written statement as Elena Trupanov, Daniel Aloni, and Rimon Kirsht.
The trio sat side by side against a bare wall as Aloni delivered an angry message to Netanyahu, criticizing Israel’s response to the hostage crisis and demanding that he release Hamas prisoners in exchange for the hostages.
Netanyahu condemned the video as “cruel psychological propaganda.”
Israel said the number of hostages abducted during the terrorist attack now stands at 240.
VOA
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