Fierce fighting in Jabalia refugee camp

FIERCE fighting is taking place in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza as Palestinian soldiers battle Israeli troops after they launched another deadly ground incursion.

Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said: ‘One Israeli soldier was killed in close-quarter combat and immediately upon the arrival of the Israeli rescue force, its members were targeted with an anti-personnel “thunder bomb” killing and wounding them’ in the at-Twam area, northwest of Gaza City.
‘The situation is extremely difficult. The bombing and explosions haven’t stopped,’ said Mahmoud Abu Shehatah, a Jabalia resident. ‘It’s like the first days of the war.’
Dozens of bodies line the narrow allies of the Jabalia refugee camp as medical teams are unable to reach them.
A video shows a group of displaced people in Jabalia, in the north of the territory, coming under heavy gunfire by Israeli soldiers.
The video shows the group, which was in the process of evacuating Jabalia towards the western part of Gaza City, running in terror.
It also shows many wounded. One man was bleeding from the abdomen as people tried to help him walk. Another, a little girl, is shown bleeding from the neck as she is bandaged in the back of an ambulance.
The Israeli army is systematically working to empty northern Gaza and medical sources said 43 Palestinians were killed yesterday.
The Israeli army has placed Jabalia under siege for the last several days, in tandem with stepping up its attacks on North Gaza to a level not seen in months.

• Chris Gunness, former spokesman for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said yesterday: ‘In the last year, we have seen Gaza transform from the world’s largest open-air prison to the world’s largest concentration camp.

‘Today, Gaza has been transformed into an industrial-scale slaughterhouse. And I use the word “slaughter” advisedly because frankly animals in most abattoirs around the world are killed more humanely than the women and children of Gaza.
‘Shame on the UN Security Council, shame on the Israeli leaders who’ve done this, and shame on all of us because what we’ve seen in the last year is a stain on the conscience of humanity.’

The battlefield will decide – Hezbollah

Hezbollah forced Israeli forces to retreat after they crossed into Lebanon near a UNIFIL peacekeeping post yesterday.
Hezbollah fighters fired at ‘an Israeli enemy force that infiltrated from behind the international forces’ position in Labboune’, a border village, the group said, adding that it ‘forced the infiltrating enemy force to withdraw behind the border strip’.
Hezbollah capabilities are intact and its fighters are pushing back Israeli ground incursions, despite ‘painful blows’ inflicted by Israel in recent weeks, deputy leader Naim Qassem said in a televised address yesterday.
‘In any case, after the issue of a ceasefire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be taken,’ Qassem said. ‘If the enemy continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.’
In his 30-minute televised address he said solidarity with Palestinians was why Hezbollah joined the war on October 8th last year, and that Iran is steadfast in its support for the resistance.
He criticised the US role, saying if it wasn’t for the Americans backing Israel, then Israel would simply crumble, adding that the fact that 60,000 Israelis cannot go back to their homes in the north is a victory for Hezbollah.

• Qatari Minister of State for International Cooperation Lolwah bint Rashid Al-Khater said her country stands firmly by Lebanon’s side. ‘There is unity in the Arab ranks and position towards this aggression.

‘This aggression is against all international norms and laws, against international law and international humanitarian law, and against Security Council resolutions,’ she said.

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