Ghost Town: 70% of Jabalia Homes Reduced to Rubble

Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has become a “ghost town” due to Israel’s relentless attacks, with 70 percent of the camp’s buildings completely destroyed, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Haaretz, which briefly had access to the camp in besieged northern Gaza, said in a report on Sunday that the number is an estimate by the Israeli army.

None of the army’s other operations in Lebanon and other parts of Gaza “can compare, in the scale of the destruction, to what has happened over the last two and a half months” in the camps.

“As far as the eye can see lie miles and miles of destroyed homes. It’s hard to look away from the devastated remains of Jabalia’s refugee camp in northern Gaza,” Amos Harel, a military affairs analyst, wrote in Haaretz.

“I could see that even the few buildings that are still standing were badly damaged,” Harel said.

“The IDF (army) operated here twice before, in December 2023 and May 2024. But this time, the camp was taken apart,” Amos said.

“Jabalia has become a ghost town. Outside, you mainly see pack after pack of stray dogs roaming around and hunting for scraps of food.”

According to the army’s data, quoted by Haaretz, some 96,000 Palestinian civilians were forcibly displaced from the densely populated camp during the military’s operation.

Haaretz added, citing the army, that more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and roughly 1,500 have been arrested in the camp over the same period.

The army claims most of the people killed in the camp were armed, the report also said according to the Quds News Network.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Related Posts

Gaza in Starvation Mode Thanks to Israel

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) sounded the alarm on Saturday over a rapidly escalating humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.

“All basic supplies are running out in Gaza. It means babies, children are going to bed hungry,” Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, said in a statement.

“Six weeks into the Israeli-imposed siege blocking the entry of aid and commercial supplies, food stocks are nearly gone, bakeries closed, and hunger is spreading,” the agency also noted.

The UNRWA emphasized that “immediate action is needed to prevent a deepening humanitarian crisis.”

The Israeli army renewed a deadly assault on Gaza on March 18, shattering the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.

More than 50,900 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

Continue reading

You Missed

Iran-US Talks in Muscat: Winners and Losers

Iran-US Talks in Muscat: Winners and Losers

Palestine in 1944

Palestine in 1944

Israel’s Right is to Pack up and Go

Israel’s Right is to Pack up and Go

How The West Came to Control Arabism

How The West Came to Control Arabism