GAZA: Israeli troops battled Palestinian militants in an urban refugee camp and outside the gates of a nearby hospital on Tuesday as the army expanded operations across northern Gaza, where residents have been without electricity, water or access to humanitarian aid for weeks.
The front line of the war, now in its seventh week, has shifted to the Jabaliya camp, a dense warren of concrete buildings near Gaza City that houses refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants.
Israel has been bombarding the area for weeks, and the military said Hamas fighters have regrouped there and in other eastern districts after being pushed out of much of Gaza City.
Fighting has also intensified outside the Indonesian Hospital on the outskirts of Jabaliya, where a strike killed 12 people on Monday. Health officials said on Tuesday that hundreds of patients and displaced people are trapped inside with dwindling supplies after some 200 were evacuated the day before.
The war sparked by Hamas’ surprise October 7 attack into Israel has exacted a heavy toll on Palestinian civilians, particularly those who remain in the north after Israel repeatedly called on people to flee south.
It’s unclear how many people remain in the north, but the UN agency for Palestinian refugees estimates that some 160,000 people are still in its shelters there, even though it is no longer able to provide services. Some 1.7 million Palestinians, about three fourths of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes.