Palestinians who fled from the Israeli ground offensive on the Jabalia refugee 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 Israeli forces, while a woman said some people left in such panic that they left their children behind.

The UN agency for Palestinian 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 Israeli military said its troops were continuing operations against Hamas fighters while enabling the secure evacuation of civilians.

More than 400 people are reported to have been killed 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 Hamas fighters who had regrouped there.

It came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Israel to try to revive the stalled diplomatic process for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal in the wake of last week's killing by Israeli troops of Hamas 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 Israel 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 more than 20 people were killed in an Israeli air strike there last week. The Israeli military named on Tuesday 18 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters who it said were among the dead.

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

“We received messages via [Israeli] quadcopters urging us to evacuate, so we began to move under the watch of Israeli 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 Israeli 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 a video showing crowds walking through damaged streets. 

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

Another graphic video filmed on the same day showed paramedic Nevin al-Dawasah trying to help dead 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 Israeli military has not yet commented on the reports.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7818g3n3lko

 

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Israel's military has confirmed the killing of Hashem Safieddine, the man expected to succeed Hezbollah's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Earlier this month, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Safieddine had probably been "eliminated" after fighter jets bombed Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters, located underground in the heart of a civilian population in the Da'aheh area of ​​Beirut.

On Wednesday morning, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Safieddine has been killed in the attack three weeks ago which also killed 25 other Hezbollah leaders.

IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said: "We have reached Nasrallah, his successor and most of Hezbollah's top brass. We will know how to reach anyone who threatens the security of the citizens of the State of Israel"

Israel to address concerns over Gaza aid

Israel promised to address US concerns over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza as Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visited the region and told officials their efforts so far were insufficient, according to a US State Department official.

But the assurances the US official cited were absent in an Israeli statement on the meeting, which made no mention of humanitarian issues at all.

On Wednesday, the IDF posted a video on X, saying over 230 trucks of humanitarian aid had been delivered to Gaza since last week. It comes after the US government warned if humanitarian aid in Gaza was not improved in the next 30 days, American military funding to the country may be cut.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-23/israel-military-confirm-killing-hezbollah-hashem-safieddine-/104505476

 

AMERICA, LIKE ISRAHELL, IS ON THE SCHEME TO DESTROY THE PALESTINIANS DESPITE MAKING HYPOCRITICAL SOOTHING COMMENTS LIKE HANNIBAL LECTER REASSURING HIS VICTIMS THE KNIFE WON'T HURT....

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.