Israeli offensive in hard-hit northern Gaza kills dozens and threatens hospitals

A large-scale Israeli operation in northern Gaza has killed dozens of people and threatens to shut down three hospitals over a year into the war with Hamas, Palestinian officials and residents said Wednesday.

Heavy fighting is underway in Jabaliya, where Israeli forces have carried out several major operations over the course of the war and then returned as militants regroup. The entire north, including Gaza City, has suffered heavy destruction and has been largely isolated by Israeli forces since late last year.

The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, comes as Israel expands a weeklong ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran.

A rocket fired from Lebanon killed two people in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, and another six people were wounded in a series of stabbings in the city of Hadera on Wednesday, which Israeli police described as a militant attack. The police said the attacker was “neutralized,” indicating he was killed.

Residents of Jabaliya, a refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, said thousands of people have been trapped in their homes since the operation began Sunday, as Israeli jets and drones buzz overhead and troops battle militants in the streets.

“It’s like hell. We can’t get out,” said Mohamed Awda, who lives with his parents and six siblings. He said there were three bodies in the street outside his home that could not be retrieved because of the fighting.

“The quadcopters are everywhere, and they fire at anyone. You can’t even open the window,” he told The Associated Press by phone, speaking over the sound of explosions.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said it recovered 40 bodies from Jabaliya from Sunday until Tuesday, and another 14 from communities farther north. There are likely more bodies under rubble and in areas that can’t be accessed, it said.

An airstrike in Jabaliya early Wednesday killed at least nine people, including two women and two children, according to Al-Ahly Hospital, which received the bodies. Strikes in central Gaza killed another nine people, including three children, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Residents of Jabaliya fear Israel’s aim is to depopulate the north and turn it into a closed military zone or a Jewish settlement. Israel has blocked all roads except for the main highway leading from Jabaliya to the south, according to residents.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it was evacuating seven schools that were being used as shelters and that only two of eight water wells in the camp are still functioning.

“We are concerned about the displacement to the south,” Ahmed Qamar, who lives in Jabaliya with his wife, children and parents, said in a text message. “People here say clearly that they will die here in northern Gaza and and won’t go to southern Gaza.”

Fadel Naeem, the director of Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it had received dozens of wounded people and bodies from the north. “We declared a state of emergency, suspended scheduled surgeries, and discharged patients whose conditions are stable,” told AP in a text message.

Israel’s offensive has gutted Gaza’s health sector, forcing most of its hospitals to shut down and leaving the rest only partially functioning.

Naeem said three hospitals farther north — Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian Hospital – have become almost inaccessible because of the fighting. The Gaza Health Ministry says the Israeli army has ordered all three to evacuate staff and patients. Meanwhile, no humanitarian aid has entered the north since Oct. 1, according to U.N. data.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the hospitals or the apparent suspension of aid delivery in the north.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military spokesperson, said late Tuesday that Israeli forces were operating in Jabaliya to “prevent Hamas’ regrouping efforts” and had killed around 100 militants, without providing evidence. Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it fights in residential areas.

Israel ordered the wholesale evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, in the opening weeks of the war, but hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have remained there. Israel reiterated those instructions over the weekend, telling people to flee south to an expanded humanitarian zone where hundreds of thousands are already crammed into squalid tent camps.

The war began just over a year ago, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. They are still holding around 100 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters. It has said women and children make up over half of the dead. The offensive has also caused staggering destruction across the territory and displaced around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting until “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all the captives.

On Tuesday, he warned that Lebanon would meet the same fate as Gaza if its people did not rise up against Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into Israel after the initial Hamas attack. That set in motion a cycle of escalation that ignited a full-scale war last month.

“You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” Netanyahu said, addressing the Lebanese people.

An Israeli strike killed four people and wounded another 10 at a hotel sheltering displaced people in the southern Lebanese town of Wardaniyeh on Wednesday, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

An Associated Press reporter in a nearby town heard two sonic booms from Israeli jets before the strike. Plumes of smoke rose from the building after the explosion.

In recent weeks Israel has waged a heavy air campaign across large parts of Lebanon, targeting what it says are Hezbollah rocket launchers and other militant sites. A series of strikes killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders.

So far, ground operations appear to be focused on a narrow strip along the border, but Israel has warned people to evacuate dozens of cities and towns, many of them north of a buffer zone declared by the United Nations after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

Hezbollah’s acting leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in a televised statement Tuesday that the group has replaced its slain commanders and was preventing Israeli ground forces from advancing. The militants have extended their rocket fire deeper into Israel, disrupting life but causing few casualties.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that Hezbollah has fired more than 12,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel since the start of the hostilities last year.

Israel is meanwhile considering options for a strike on Iran that could potentially escalate the war on yet another front. Iran, which supports Hezbollah and Hamas, launched a wave of some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of top militants from both groups.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.