Israel summons additional forces to northern Gaza, where it has killed 450 Palestinians in past 14 days

Israel summoned an additional military unit to the north of the Gaza Strip on Friday to continue the intense operations it has conducted for 14 consecutive days against Palestinians still residing in the area who have called it the most intense offensive campaign since Israel launched its aggression on the strip in October of last year.

The military campaign continued as Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said that the group would continue its resistance operations against invading Israeli forces, speaking in a public address in which he mourned the martyrdom of Yahya Sinwar.

The Israeli military claimed on Thursday to have killed Sinwar, whom it has described as the architect of the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood operation, which saw fighters from Hamas’s military wing break out of the strip and take over 200 Israeli captives. 

In its 12-months retaliation against Palestinians in the strip, Israel has killed at least 42,500 people, most of whom are civilians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel has killed at least 450 Palestinians in northern Gaza in the past 14 days alone, the director of northern Gaza's civil defense agency told Al Jazeera. 

An Israeli military spokesperson claimed on Friday that operations in the northern part of the coastal enclave were against “terrorists.”

Israel sent troops and tanks into northern Gaza 14 days ago as part of a ground invasion that has gradually isolated the northeasternmost parts of the strip, such as Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and other areas from Gaza City. 

Residents still in the north, of whom the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East has said there are around 400,000, are in constant danger due to incessant Israeli fire as already scarce resources dwindle.

Mahmoud Bassal, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, told Mada Masr that the Israeli military targeted the Khalifa School, which was sheltering displaced civilians in northern Gaza, on Thursday.

The Abu Hussein School in Jabalia, which was also sheltering displaced Palestinians, was also targeted on Thursday by Israeli tanks that had advanced around the Six Martyrs junction, according to a Mada Masr correspondent in Gaza who said that the operation killed 28 people, mostly children and women. 

Israeli forces that moved into the vicinity of the school launched airstrikes at civilian tents without pause on Thursday afternoon, Gaza Government Media Office spokesperson Ismail al-Thawabta said.

Thawabta added that the Israeli military “falsely claimed” that Hamas fighters were using the school for its operations, stressing that this argument has often been used by the Israeli government to “justify its crimes.” 

Elsewhere in the north, Israeli forces also targeted civilians near the Tayeb Hall in Bir al-Naja area, al-Faluja area, and the Abu Rashid Pond in Jabalia, where a family home was also targeted with an airstrike on Thursday, according to Bassal.

The urban landscape of Faluja in particular has been largely destroyed by Israeli explosive robots on Wednesday and Thursday, Bassal said.

Civilians still in the strip’s north remain largely without food and medicine for the second consecutive week amid the near-complete siege Israel’s military has imposed on the area, though Israeli officials have reportedly denied starving Palestinians.

Reports emerged on Wednesday that the United States has given Israel 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation  in Gaza or risk US military aid restrictions. 

Israeli military agencies have claimed that food and other supplies have entered the strip in recent days, yet little of this aid appears to be reaching families and individuals in desperate need. 

Georgios Petropoulos, the head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, told the media that even when aid does pass through Israeli checkpoints, aid groups are often unable to distribute it on the other side. 

Mouin Hamouda, an eyewitness in northern Gaza, told Mada Masr that the Israeli military targeted a number of civilians in Faluja on Thursday when they went out in the streets to look for food for their families.

Bassal added that constant fire by the Israeli military “at all times and in all places” makes the movement of civilians inside Jabalia to look for food a threat to their lives. He added that residents of the Jabalia camp are currently experiencing “a real famine,” saying that he himself cannot find food for his children.

Meanwhile the Committee to Protect Journalists, Free Press Unlimited and Reporters Without Borders have launched a campaign calling for Al Jazeera journalist Fadi al-Wahidi, who was shot in the neck by Israeli forces last week and suffered paralysis from the neck down, to be allowed out of Gaza with his colleague Ahmed al-Attar, who was injured by Israeli fire in Deir al-Balah. 

“Wahidi urgently needs to be safely transferred to a facility outside of Gaza to receive appropriate medical care; the hospital where he is currently being treated has indicated that they cannot provide the necessary treatment due to the current conditions,” said a statement from the organizations, who petitioned the Israeli military logistics agency, COGAT, to facilitate the evacuations.