Palestinians fleeing Jabalia say bodies are left lying on streets

[Pelican Press 0]

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Palestinians fleeing Jabalia say bodies are left lying on streets

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*******’s military said on Tuesday that tens thousands of Jabalia residents had been evacuated in the past 24 hours

Palestinians who fled from the ******** ground offensive on the Jabalia ******** camp in northern Gaza have given harrowing accounts of the situation there.

One man told the BBC that he saw streets strewn with bodies after being ordered to leave a shelter by ******** forces, while a woman said some people left in such panic that they left their children behind.

The UN agency for ************ refugees called for a temporary truce to enable safe passage for families still wishing to flee, while two local hospitals warned that they were running out of supplies.

The ******** military said its troops were continuing operations against ****** fighters while enabling the secure evacuation of civilians.

More than 400 people are reported to have been ******* and tens of thousands have been displaced since the military said it was launching a third offensive in the Jabalia area on 6 October, saying it was rooting out ****** fighters who had regrouped there.

It came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to ******* to try to revive the stalled diplomatic process for a Gaza ceasefire and ******** release deal in the wake of last week’s ******** by ******** troops of ****** leader Yahya Sinwar.

After meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he told reporters that he wanted “to make sure that this is a moment of opportunity to move forward”.

Mr Blinken also emphasized the need for ******* to take additional steps to increase and sustain the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme interviewed several displaced people who had recently fled Jabalia camp and sought refuge in the nearby Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City.

A man called Saleh said he had “endured a siege for 16 days” while sheltering with his family at Abu Hussein Primary School for Boys.

Medics and rescue workers said

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. The ******** military named on Tuesday 18 ****** and ************ Islamic ****** fighters who it said were among the *****.

“The shelling grew closer and intensified each day, with ******** forces advancing towards us. Today, we heard bombings very near… We feared for our lives,” Saleh said.

“We received messages via [********] quadcopters urging us to evacuate, so we began to move under the watch of ******** soldiers, who demanded we go towards either the south or west of Gaza… I had my grandmother with me, she was unable to move, like many others.”

Another man, Mohammed al-Danani, said he was at the same school and that he had “witnessed the bodies of martyrs on the streets” after complying with the evacuation order.

Engy Abdel Aal said she had been in the Abu Rashid Pond area when quadcopters broadcast orders directing people to move towards the town of Beit Lahia, just north of the camp.

“The situation was incredibly difficult, no-one knew where to go. It’s tragic and catastrophic in every sense,” she said. “Some people had to flee without their children, leaving them behind in the school while they escaped with others.”

The ******** military announced on Tuesday that it troops were “continuing combat in the Jabalia area, while enabling the secure evacuation of civilians from the combat zone”.

“As a result, thousands of civilians have been evacuated. Dozens of terrorists were arrested from among the civilians,” it said in a post on X that included

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.

The military also said that troops “eliminated 10 terrorists that posed a threat and operated adjacent to them” in a single strike, without giving any details.

The ************ Red Crescent meanwhile posted a video that it said showed an ambulance transporting the bodies of five people, including children, ******* by shelling in Jabalia town on Monday.

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showed paramedic Nevin al-Dawasah trying to help ***** and wounded men, women and children at a tented camp next to Jabalia Preparatory School for Boys.

After fleeing the area on Tuesday, Ms Dawasah told AFP news agency that people had been complying with an evacuation order when “suddenly there was shelling”.

“We had martyrs and wounded and there was no safe passage for the ambulances to come,” she said.

The ******** military has not yet commented on the reports.

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Wounded people are treated at Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on Monday

The head of the UN agency for ************ refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, said its staff in northern Gaza were reporting that they could not find food, water or medical care.

“The smell of ****** is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble,” he wrote on X. “People are just waiting to ****. They feel deserted, hopeless and alone.”

Mr Lazzarini called for “an immediate truce, even if for few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area and reach safer places”.

A UN spokesman said ******** authorities were continuing to deny requests from its Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to help rescue civilians trapped under the rubble and to deliver desperately needed supplies to hospitals.

The director of the Indonesian hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals near Jabalia, told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme that ******** troops were stationed outside its gates and that there was constant gunfire in the vicinity.

“This has created an atmosphere of ***** and confusion among patients and medical staff,” Dr Marwan al-Sultan said. “We are also facing a critical shortage of fuel, medical supplies, personnel, food, and water.”

“Additionally, ongoing power outages force the hospital to rely on alternative energy sources that last only eight to 10 hours. During the remaining time, the medical staff cannot operate the electric generators, which endangers patients who require oxygen.”

Dr Sultan also denied reports that there had been a ***** at the hospital on Monday, saying there had been a blaze inside an adjacent school, near several generators.

The ******** military has said it is ensuring hospitals remain operational during the offensive.

It has also said that more than 230 lorries carrying food, water, medical supplies and shelters have been transferred to northern Gaza via the Erez West crossing since last week, following a two-week ******* when the UN said there were no deliveries.

******* launched a campaign to ******** ****** in response to the group’s unprecedented ******* on southern ******* on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were ******* and 251 others were taken ********.

More than 42,710 people have been ******* in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s ******-run health ministry.

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