A senior Palestinian diplomat at the United Nations has sounded the alarm on Israel’s continued siege of northern Gaza. The siege has killed hundreds of Palestinians over the past week and left hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped or forced to evacuate under heavy shelling.
The military siege in and around Jabalia refugee camp entered its 10th day on Sunday, with Palestinian authorities saying at least 200 people have been killed since Israel began the operation earlier this month.
At least 17 more people were killed in central and northern Gaza on Sunday morning, including eight members of a family in Nuseyrat refugee camp and five in Al-Ettesalat district west of Jabalia camp, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. It was reported that .
“What is happening now in northern Gaza is a genocide of a genocide,” Majid Bamya, the Palestinian ambassador and acting UN permanent observer, wrote in X.
“Continuation of acts of genocide”
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Deir El Bala in central Gaza that around 400,000 Palestinians are trapped in northern Gaza, with no one left despite the Israeli military ordering them to evacuate. He said he was not allowed to leave the area.
“What is happening now is a continuation of the genocide that began a year ago,” he said, adding that more than 70 bodies were still left on the streets and that civil defense personnel were being killed by Israel’s relentless attacks. added that the body had not been recovered.
In Jabalia, desperate residents posted their dire situation on social media, with some declaring: “We will not leave, we will die and we will not leave.”
“While the world is focused on Lebanon and Israel potentially attacking Iran, Israel is clearing out Jabalia,” said Nasser, a resident of Beit Rahiya in northern Gaza.
“The occupation forces are bombing roads and destroying residential areas. People can’t find anything to eat. They are locked in their homes because they fear a bomb will fall on their heads. ”
The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that it had attacked 40 targets in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, claiming that the attacks destroyed weapons and killed dozens of Hamas fighters.
The deaths reported in Sunday’s airstrikes included those who died after Israeli military planes attacked a rally east of Deir El Bala, Wafa reported. Israeli shelling also killed three Palestinians and injured several others in the Braei refugee camp, the report added.
Wafa said explosions were also heard as Israeli forces destroyed dozens of houses in and around Jabalia, particularly in al-Safatai and al-Twam districts.
Osama Hamdan, head of Hamas in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera that Israel had “blocked food supplies to the north for 10 days” and called what was happening in Jabalia a “crime against humanity.”
According to the Statute of the International Criminal Court in Rome, it is a war crime to intentionally starve civilians by “depriving them of items essential to their survival, including deliberately interfering with relief supplies.”
Meanwhile, Israeli forces bombed a house in Gaza City’s Tufa district, injuring six Palestinians, most of them children, Wafa announced.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, accused Israel of committing “another genocide” and said the Israeli military had “willingly accepted to be the perpetrators of a genocidal plan”. ” he added.
“It’s shocking to think that even though we know what Israel is doing, we can’t stop it completely. Considering the situation we were in 100 years ago, great progress has been achieved.” Not done,” she said in a post to X.
