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| Palestinians who have returned to Jabalia refugee camp since the Israeli withdrawal say homes and infrastructure have been destroyed |
Palestinians returning to Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza in recent days have been shocked by the extent of destruction following a three-week Israeli military operation targeting Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups. Among the more than 60,000 people who fled the intense battles and bombardment, one displaced man described witnessing “horrifying scenes.”
“Even the sand beneath our feet is scorched; it's unbearable to walk on,” he told BBC Arabic. “The streets are strewn with rubble and demolished buildings. Words fail to describe the devastation.”
This man, who asked to remain anonymous, also reported seeing injured and dead people lying on the ground, and noted the lack of essential services and goods. “There is no electricity or water. There are no clinics or medicines,” he added. “Wells have been destroyed, shops and supermarkets demolished, and there is a shortage of food.”
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| The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it received "horrific reports" from Jabalia camp |
The town of Jabalia and its decades-old urban refugee camp, the largest in Gaza with over 110,000 registered residents, experienced weeks of devastating bombardment and fighting following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that by the end of December, they had secured control over the camp after operations in which “many terrorists” were killed.
After declaring that Hamas’s local battalions had been dismantled, the IDF scaled down combat operations across northern Gaza. However, this created a power vacuum that allowed Hamas to rebuild. On May 12, the IDF stated that troops were re-entering Jabalia based on intelligence indicating that Hamas was attempting to reassemble its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area.
For the next three weeks, battles raged as tanks and troops advanced into the refugee camp under intense air and artillery strikes. One military official described the fighting as "perhaps the fiercest" they had seen over the past seven months. On Friday, the IDF announced the completion of their mission, having “eliminated hundreds of terrorists in intense combat and close-quarters encounters” and destroyed dozens of “terrorist infrastructure and combat compounds.”
Additionally, the troops located and destroyed more than 10 kilometers (six miles) of an underground tunnel network and retrieved the bodies of seven Israelis taken hostage by Hamas in October.
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| Camp residents have been searching through the rubble of their destroyed homes |
Displaced families were soon pictured walking back to the camp along streets lined by destroyed buildings, carrying what remained of their belongings.
A spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence force, Mahmoud Bassal, said on Friday that its rescue teams had found dozens of bodies across Jabalia camp - mostly women and children - including 30 members of one family.
On Sunday, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in the neighbouring town of Beit Lahia, Dr Husam Abu Safiyeh, told Al Araby TV that 120 bodies had been recovered from Jabalia and the surrounding area, and that many more were believed to be buried under rubble.
The identities of the dead were not yet clear. But the IDF’s Arabic spokesman, Lt Col Avichay Adraee, played down such reports on Friday, insisting on X that they were members of Hamas and other armed groups.
Mr Bassal also said Israeli forces had destroyed most of the homes in the camp, as well as its central market and almost all of its infrastructure.
He added that the fifth floor of al-Awda hospital in Jabalia had been destroyed along with the main electrical generators at Kamal Adwan.
The head of the municipal emergency committee for north Gaza, Naji Sarhan, declared Jabalia town, Jabalia camp, Beit Lahia and nearby Beit Hanoun as “disaster zones” on Sunday, estimating that 50,000 housing units had been destroyed there, according to a UN situation report.
He appealed to the international community for immediate shelter assistance and support in repairing water wells and other critical infrastructure.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, meanwhile said it had received “horrific reports” from Jabalia camp, where it provides services.
They included displaced people, including children, reportedly being killed and injured while sheltering in an Unrwa-run school that was besieged by Israeli tanks, according to a post on X, formerly Twitter. There were also reports of Unrwa offices being destroyed by air strikes and bulldozed by Israeli forces, it added.
Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini said thousands of people from the camp now had “no choice but to live amid the rubble and in destroyed Unrwa facilities”.
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| Some displaced families have been moving back into damaged UN-run schools |
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