‘The smell of death and blood wafts throughout Jabalia camp’
A smoke plume rises during Israeli bombardment in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, 14 May 2024
Mohammad May reports in +972 on 29 May 2024
On the morning of May 11, the Israeli army spokesperson announced that the military had begun a new operation in Jabalia, the city and adjacent refugee camp in northern Gaza. Evacuation orders were issued to Palestinian residents of several neighborhoods, but many have been unable to leave; others have decided to stay, given the lack of any safe areas throughout the Strip.
The northern half of the Strip bore the initial brunt of the Israeli army’s bombardment in the first weeks of the war, and, on Oct. 27, was the first region of Gaza to be targeted by the Israeli ground invasion. By March, the north was facing a Phase 5 famine — the highest level measured by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, designated as “catastrophe.” Nearly no humanitarian aid is reaching northern residents, and an estimated third of all children there under the age of two are suffering from acute malnutrition.
The situation is perhaps most dire in the Jabalia refugee camp, the largest in Gaza, with a prewar population of over 100,000 Palestinians living in an area of just 1.4 square kilometers. Indiscriminate Israeli attacks in such a densely populated region thus have a massive deadly impact. In October, two 2,000 pound bombs were dropped on Jabalia, killing at least one hundred people. Less than two months later, another attack had a similarly high toll. And, just in the last two weeks, Israeli bombs have destroyed homes, a kindergarten, and the emergency wing of a hospital.
The latest Israeli attack on the camp, involving both aircraft and ground troops, has had devastating consequences: the army has bombed and bulldozed entire residential squares, markets, and food warehouses, exacerbating the already desperate humanitarian crisis, while corpses remain scattered in the streets.