Israel bombed the densely-populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza for the second time in two days Wednesday, prompting warnings of war crimes as more nations took diplomatic measures and condemned Israel’s offensive in the besieged enclave.
Israeli airstrikes also hit the vicinity of the Al Quds hospital in Gaza City where doctors say up to 14,000 displaced people are sheltering, according to the director of the hospital. The strikes that began Wednesday evening continued into Thursday morning and were “getting closer to the hospital,” Dr. Bashar Mourad told CNN.
More civilians are expected to leave Gaza on Thursday, a day after injured Palestinians and hundreds of foreign nationals crossed from Gaza into Egypt via the Rafah border crossing in the first sanctioned departure in weeks.
The massive second strike on Jabalya created further catastrophic damage, destroying several buildings in the Falluja neighborhood of the camp, with video from the site showing a deep crater and people digging through the rubble searching for bodies.
The Civil Defense in Hamas-run Gaza described the strike as a “second massacre.” The airstrike killed at least 80 people and injured hundreds more, according to Dr. Atef Al Kahlout, the director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital. He told CNN more bodies were being dug out of the rubble, and the majority of casualties were women and children.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Wednesday attack targeted a Hamas command and control complex and “eliminated” Hamas terrorists “based on precise intelligence.”
“Hamas deliberately builds its terror infrastructure under, around, and within civilian buildings, intentionally endangering Gazan civilians,” the IDF added in a statement.
The airstrike came a day after Israeli jets hit the camp in an area near Falluja on Tuesday, killing or injuring hundreds of people according to medics, and triggering fresh outcry over spiraling civilian casualties in Gaza.
Survivors and eyewitnesses spoke of apocalyptic scenes in the aftermath of Tuesday’s strike, with one eyewitness saying “It felt like the end of the world.”
“Children were carrying other injured children and running, with grey dust filling the air. Bodies were hanging on the rubble, many of them unrecognizable. Some were bleeding and others were burnt,” Mohammad Al Aswad told CNN by phone.
The IDF said the first strike killed several Hamas members, including Ibrahim Biari, whom it described as one of the Hamas commanders responsible for the October 7 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,400 people were killed and hundreds taken hostage. Hamas, however, strongly denied the presence of one of its leaders in the refugee camp.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said on social media that the attacks on Jabalya, which is Gaza’s largest refugee camp, “could amount to war crimes” given “the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction.”
Israel’s weeks-long bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 8,700 people, according to figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave. That’s an average of more than 300 people dying every day, according to CNN’s analysis. Women, children, and the elderly make up more than 70% of those killed, the ministry said on Monday.
The devastation wrought by the strikes, which are part of Israel’s expanded offensive in Gaza, appeared to be a tipping point in the war for several countries who responded with diplomatic measures in condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis.
Jordan on Wednesday became the latest country to recall its ambassador to Israel, following Chile and Colombia, due to the strikes on Gaza. Bolivia on Tuesday cut its diplomatic relations with Israel citing “crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people.”
The strikes continue amid increasingly urgent calls for a ceasefire by the UN and aid organizations and despite a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution backed by over 100 countries calling for a “sustained humanitarian truce.”