Latest news with #Jabalia
BBC News
3 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
Last hospital in North Gaza governorate evacuated after Israeli order
The last hospital providing health services in the North Gaza governorate is out of service after the Israeli military ordered its immediate evacuation, the hospital's director has Mohammed Salha said patients were evacuated from al-Awda hospital in Jabalia on Thursday evening. He told the BBC "we are feeling really bad about this forced evacuation" after "two weeks of siege", saying there is now "no health facility working in the north".Israel has not yet commented, but the BBC has contacted the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). "We're really sad that we evacuated the hospital, but the Israeli occupation forces threatened us that if we didn't evacuate, they would enter and kill whoever is inside," Dr Salha said in a voice note to the BBC. "Or they would bomb the hospital. We were thinking of the lives of patients and our staff."Dr Salha told the BBC the hospital faced "a lot of bombing and shooting from the tanks" from around noon local time (09:00 GMT) on Thursday. He received a call from the Israeli forces at about 13:00 to evacuate, and initially refused because there were patients in need of healthcare. He offered to stay with another 10 of his staff and evacuate the others, but the military refused, he said. After seven hours of negotiations, the evacuation occurred at about 20: carried patients more than 300 metres (984 feet) to ambulances parked far away from the hospital "because the roads are totally destroyed".A video sent by Dr Salha of the evacuation, and verified by the BBC, shows a line of ambulances with lights and sirens on driving at night."Due to impassable roads" the hospital's medical equipment could not be relocated, the World Health Organization (WHO) humanitarian agency OCHA said on Thursday "ongoing hostilities over the past two weeks have damaged the hospital, disrupted access, and created panic, deterring people from seeking care". Patients were evacuated to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza Salha told the BBC they would provide services through a primary health centre in Gaza City and said another might be established in a Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said the closure of al-Awda meant there was no remaining functioning hospital in the North Gaza governorate, "severing a critical lifeline for the people there". "WHO pleads for the hospital's protection and staff and patients' safety, and reiterates its call for the active protection of civilians and healthcare," he said. "Hospitals must never be attacked or militarized."The IDF had ordered evacuations of the areas of Al-Atatra, Jabalia Al-Balad, Shujaiya, Al-Daraj and Al-Zeitoun on Thursday evening, spokesperson Avichay Adraee said at the time on social media."Terrorist organisations continue their subversive activity in the region, and therefore the IDF will expand its offensive activity in the areas where you are present to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist organisations," he said."From this moment on, the mentioned areas will be considered dangerous combat."Al-Awda hospital was inside an evacuation zone announced last week, but had still been functioning, its director previously said.A statement from 18 charities on Thursday said the hospital was under military besiegement "for the fourth time since October 2023 and has been struck at least 28 times". The emergency room was hit, injuring four staff, and the desalination plant and storage unit also struck, leading to the loss of all medicine, supplies and equipment, the charities IDF told the BBC last week it was "operating in the area against terror targets", but that it was "not aware of any siege on the hospital itself".Apart from hospitals, some primary healthcare centres are still operating in Gaza, with 61 out of 158 partially or fully functional as of 18 May, OCHA said. Nine out of 27 UN Palestinian refugee agency health centres were also did not report how many, if any, centres were in the north Gaza governorate. Israel is continuing its bombardment of Gaza, which most Palestinians are not currently able to leave, after a brief ceasefire earlier this began to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza last week, after a nearly three-month blockade that halted the delivery of supplies including food, medicine, fuel and shelter. Security broke down and looting took place as Palestinians searched for food in Gaza City on Thursday. Scenes of chaos have also broken out at aid distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - a US-and Israeli-backed UN and many aid groups have refused to co-operate with the GHF's plans, which they say contradict humanitarian principles and appear to "weaponise aid".Israel said it imposed the blockade on Gaza to pressurise Hamas to release the remaining hostages, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive. It has also accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.A UN-backed assessment this month said Gaza's 2.1 million people were at a "critical risk" of famine. The UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC people in the territory were being subjected to "forced starvation" by launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken least 54,249 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,986 since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, according to the territory's Hamas-run health reporting by Naomi Scherbel-Ball and Alice Cuddy in Jerusalem
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Live: Israel forces new displacement in north Gaza as strikes intensify
Israel has issued forced displacement orders for five more areas in north Gaza, as it continues to squeeze the Strip's population into smaller areas of the is currently reviewing a new ceasefire proposal the United States says has been signed off on by Israel, but that in its current form will only result in more killings in Health Ministry says Israel's ordering al-Awda Hospital to close is a 'crime', as Palestinians struggle to find care in a health system decimated by Israeli war on Gaza has killed at least 54,249 Palestinians and wounded 123,492, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive. Update: Date: 1m ago (06:07 GMT) Title: At least 6 killed in Israeli attack on Jabalia Content: Al Jazeera's correspondent reports that six Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack that targeted a house in Jabalia's an-Nazla area, northern Gaza. The areas surrounding an-Nazla are currently under forced evacuation orders from the Israeli military. Update: Date: 3m ago (06:05 GMT) Title: Israel continues to clear out north Gaza with new evacuation orders Content: The army's Arabic language spokesperson has said on X that Palestinians in the 'Atatra, Jabalia Al-Balad, Shujaiya, Daraj and Zeitoun' areas must immediately leave and move west. Israel has been systematically clearing out parts of the Gaza Strip with orders such as these, pushing the Palestinian population into smaller and smaller areas of the enclave. The stated goal of its new offensive, Gideon's Chariot, is to expand its control of the Gaza Strip's territory, concentrating the people there into tiny sections of the enclave. Update: Date: 5m ago (06:03 GMT) Title: A recap of recent developments Content: Here's what you need to know: Update: Date: 8m ago (06:00 GMT) Title: Welcome to our live coverage Content: Hello, and thank you for joining our live coverage of Israel's war on Gaza, as well as its attacks on the occupied West Bank and the wider region. Follow this page for round-the-clock updates and analyses of the latest developments. You can read about key events from Thursday, May 29, here.
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
Live: Israel bombs Gaza kindergarten sheltering displaced people, killing 7
Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 13 people so far today, including seven who were sheltering at a kindergarten in Jabalia in the is growing over the killings of 10 Gaza aid seekers by Israeli troops in southern Gaza, with authorities in the Strip saying soldiers opened fire on hungry war on Gaza has killed at least 54,084 Palestinians and wounded 123,308, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive. Update: Date: 55s ago (06:05 GMT) Title: At least 13 people killed in Gaza today Content: Israeli attacks have taken 13 lives since the early hours of this morning, medical sources tell our colleagues on the ground. In today's most significant attack, at least seven people sheltering inside a kindergarten were killed by Israeli bombs in Jabalia, north Gaza. Update: Date: 2m ago (06:03 GMT) Title: A recap of recent developments Content: Here's what you need to know: Update: Date: 5m ago (06:00 GMT) Title: Welcome to our live coverage Content: Hello, and thank you for joining our live coverage of Israel's war on Gaza, as well as its attacks on the occupied West Bank and the wider region. Follow this page for round-the-clock updates and analyses of the latest developments. You can read about key events from Wednesday, May 28, here.
Arab News
5 days ago
- Health
- Arab News
Why Western nations are threatening ‘concrete actions' against Israel for its Gaza offensive
LONDON: On Friday, pediatrician Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, one of a dwindling number of doctors still working in Gaza, left home as usual for another distressing shift in the war-battered Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis. As she cared for babies and children who had been wounded in air attacks over the previous days, a missile struck her home, killing nine of her own ten children. Their father, also a doctor, was badly injured in the attack. The couple's only surviving child, an 11-year-old boy, was brought to his mother's hospital, where his life was saved on the operating table. That same day, more than 50 people, including many young members of a single family, were killed in Jabalia in the north of Gaza. The poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, who earlier this month won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of essays in The New Yorker magazine, portraying the 'physical and emotional carnage in Gaza,' happened to be near the scene. His harrowing photograph of a dead girl, perhaps only two years old, with most of her head missing, has been viewed tens of thousands of times on X. The eyes of the medic tenderly carrying her body from the rubble of her home told their own story. Incidents such as these, and the wider humanitarian emergency resulting from renewed violence and a weeks-long aid embargo, appear to have pushed many in the international community to consider the imposition of sanctions on Israel. Last week, the EU, Israel's biggest trading partner, announced it was reviewing the EU-Israel Association Agreement, in particular Article 2, which states that the relationship 'shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.' Also last week, the UK, France and Canada issued a joint statement condemning the situations in Gaza and the West Bank, denouncing 'the level of human suffering in Gaza' as 'intolerable.' Warning that Israel was risking 'breaching international humanitarian law,' it added: 'We will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions.' Then came the unprecedented threat: 'If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.' In response to these calls for 'concrete actions,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a blistering attack on the leaders of the UK, France and Canada, saying that they had 'effectively said they want Hamas to remain in power.' He also accused them of siding with 'mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers.' Israel began military operations in Gaza in retaliation for the unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which resulted in some 1,200 deaths, the majority of them civilians, and about 250 people being taken hostage. Eighteen months on, at least 54,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials, while all but a handful of the hostages have been released or killed in the crossfire. On Monday, at a summit in Madrid of European and Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Spain's foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares called for an arms embargo on Israel and sanctions against individuals 'who want to ruin the two-state solution forever.' Speaking before the meeting, Albares said that humanitarian aid must enter Gaza 'massively, without conditions and without limits, and not controlled by Israel,' describing the Strip as humanity's 'open wound.' 'Silence in these moments is complicity in this massacre,' he added. Saudi Arabia has long called on the US and other Western nations to freeze arms shipments to Israel in response to its restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid into the embattled enclave. Also on Monday, more than 800 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges in the UK signed an open letter expressing 'our deep concern over the worsening catastrophe in the occupied Palestinian territory.' They urged the British government to meet its 'fundamental international legal obligations … to take all reasonable steps within (its) power to prevent and punish genocide (and) to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.' Israel's attacks 'are quite clearly and blatantly in disregard of international law, and are just becoming unacceptable,' Guy Goodwin-Gill, emeritus professor of international refugee law at the University of Oxford and one of the letter's signatories, told Arab News. What happens next, he said, 'depends to a certain extent upon the willingness of other states to come to the party.' The US seems unlikely to single out Israeli leaders for sanctions and would almost certainly veto any proposed action by the UN Security Council. 'But I think the UK could impose financial and immigration sanctions, not only on Israeli ministers and officials suspected of involvement in the unlawful conduct but, in my personal view, it should consider imposing visas on all Israelis,' Goodwin-Gill said. 'Given the extent of conscription in the country, all Israelis have been potentially involved in the actions of the military on the ground — the tank commanders, the soldiers, and the air force pilots in particular. 'I think they should be subject to a visa requirement, subject to inquiries about what they were doing during the war.' The Israeli government's standard response to any criticism is to accuse its critics of antisemitism. The signatories nevertheless decided to speak out. 'I think there was an apprehension about being labeled antisemitic,' Goodwin-Gill said. 'But I think that is disappearing with the continuing violations of international humanitarian law that are going on and on, and in the face of evident desire on the part of some in the Israeli government to bring about the destruction of Gaza, the destruction of the aim of a two-state solution, and the end of the prospect of any self-determination for Palestinians.' In addition to the events in Gaza, 'the extent to which settlers are invading the West Bank and assaulting Palestinians, not only with the passive support of the Israel Defense Forces, but also being armed by them, is beginning to put people on notice that the label of 'antisemitism' is not going to stick this time.' It isn't just the UK's legal community that is breaking cover to openly criticize Israel's actions. On Wednesday, 380 writers, musicians and organizations signed a letter accusing the Israeli government of genocide and calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 'The government of Israel has renewed its assault on Gaza with unrestrained brutality,' the letter read. 'Public statements by Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir openly express genocidal intentions. The use of the words 'genocide' or 'acts of genocide' to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations.' On May 7, a statement signed by more than 30 UN human rights special rapporteurs and independent experts condemned what is happening in Gaza as 'one of the most ostentatious and merciless manifestations of the desecration of human life and dignity.' They added: 'While states debate terminology — is it or is it not genocide? — Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza, through attacks by land, air and sea, displacing and massacring the surviving population with impunity. 'No one is spared — not the children, persons with disabilities, nursing mothers, journalists, health professionals, aid workers, or hostages. Since breaking the ceasefire, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians, many daily — peaking on March 18, 2025, with 600 casualties in 24 hours, 400 of whom were children.' The signatories of Wednesday's letter wrote: 'We refuse to be a public of bystander-approvers. This is not only about our common humanity and all human rights; this is about our moral fitness as the writers of our time, which diminishes with every day we refuse to speak out and denounce this crime.' The British government has not yet spelled out what 'concrete actions' it might take against the Israeli government. So far it has imposed sanctions only on several settler leaders, accused of 'engaging in, facilitating, inciting or providing support for activity which amounts to a serious abuse of the right of individuals not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment' and who have 'threatened and perpetrated acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian individuals in the West Bank.' Several organizations 'involved in facilitating, inciting, promoting and providing logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts and forced displacement of Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,' have also been sanctioned. In all cases the named individuals and organizations have been subjected to 'asset freeze, director disqualification sanction, and travel bans.' In reality, said Michael O'Kane, senior partner at UK law firm Peters & Peters and co-founder of legal guidance website Global Sanctions, it is 'very unlikely' that any of those sanctioned so far actually have any assets in the UK, and 'that is true of the vast majority of people who are sanctioned by the UK government. 'If you take Russia as an example, there are over 2,000 people on the sanctions list, and I suspect only a very small percentage of them have any assets in the UK.' Such sanctioning is, however, more than merely tokenistic. 'This is what's called 'signaling,'' O'Kane told Arab News. 'The government is saying: 'By sanctioning you, we are signaling to you and to the wider world that we consider your conduct to be unacceptable, a breach of international norms.'' However, there have been increasing calls for targeted financial sanctions to be imposed on members of Netanyahu's government, in particular national security minister Ben-Givr and finance minister Smotrich. 'If things continue to go in the same direction in Gaza, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of that happening,' O'Kane said. There is also the possibility that the UK government could tighten restrictions on the export of arms to Israel. In September last year the government suspended about 30 export licenses 'for items used in the current conflict in Gaza … following a review of Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law.' However, more than 300 arms licenses remain unaffected. A case brought by the Palestinian rights organization Al-Haq, challenging the government's decision to allow the export of components for F-35 fighter aircraft to continue, is under review in the UK's High Court. The government's lawyers told the court this week that 'no evidence has been seen that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian women or children.' At the start of the case on May 13, Raza Husain KC, the lawyer acting for Al-Haq, told the court that, on the contrary, 'acts of annihilation have been accompanied by persistent genocidal, dehumanizing and even celebratory statements made at all levels of the Israeli military and political structure, including such figures, I regret to say, as the prime minister, president, minister of defense, minister of national security, and minister of finance.' Even if nothing comes of the threats by the EU, the UK and Canada to directly target Israeli ministers, the combined outrage at Israel's behavior is creating political momentum behind a joint French-Saudi international conference that will open on June 17 at the UN in New York. Anne-Claire Legendre, the French president's adviser, told a preparatory meeting at the UN on May 23 that 'faced with facts on the ground, the prospect of a Palestinian state must be maintained. 'Irreversible steps and concrete measures for its implementation are necessary. This is the purpose of the international conference to be held in June.'
Al Jazeera
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Israeli strikes kill more than 50 as school and housing hit
Israeli attacks on northern Gaza are reported to have killed more than 50 people since dawn. The death toll from the overnight attacks was being tallied on Monday morning. Among the targets hit was a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City and a family home in Jabalia, according to Palestinian Civil Defence officials. At least 33 people were killed in an attack in the middle of the night on the Fahmi al-Jarjawi school in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told the AFP news agency. The school had been sheltering 'hundreds' of people, Bassal said, adding that those killed were mostly children and women. Dozens were injured, he added. The Israeli military claimed on Monday that the target of the attack had been a Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad control centre housing 'key terrorists'. 'Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,' it added. Video footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed fires in classrooms where forcibly displaced people had been sleeping, a child wandering alone among the flames, and people on the outside desperately trying to break windows. In a separate attack on a residence in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, 19 members of the Abd Rabbo family were killed, according to Bassal. A nearby tent camp in Gaza City was also targeted, according to unconfirmed reports, killing six people. Despite mounting international pressure, which has pushed Israel to lift a blockade on aid supplies in the face of warnings of looming famine, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated last week that Israel would carry out an intensified military campaign until it controls the whole of Gaza. International humanitarian law forbids attacks on civilian infrastructure, including schools. But Israel has repeatedly bombed schools, mostly being used as shelter by displaced people, throughout its 19-month war in Gaza. At least 50 people were killed by bombs and artillery attacks in November 2023 at al-Buraq School in Gaza City At the nearby al-Tabin School, more than 100 people were killed as they gathered for morning prayers in August last year.
