(Jabalia. Photo credit: Reuters)
As of today (20th October, 2024), the Israeli occupation forces’ (IOF) brutal siege of Jabalia, northern Gaza, has reached its 16th day. IOF have been massacring Palestinians in the north every day, in addition to preventing the entry of food or water. The current invasion, the 4th time occupying forces have besieged and destroyed Jabalia since October 7th 2023, seems to be an attempt to implement former Israeli general Giora Eiland’s plan to force all Palestinians out of northern Gaza. The plan includes starving any Palestinians who remain in northern Gaza, refusing to be forced south.
Israeli occupying forces have carried out mass killings of Jabalia residents looking for food, staying in their houses, getting or providing medical treatment, or leaving the area. Residents report IOF are rigging buildings with explosives and detonating them when Palestinians sleep inside. They also report IOF soldiers are going house-to-house, burning and destroying each one, or killing whoever is found inside. There are reports from Jabalia of mass executions, as well as involvement of US Marines in the killings.
A resident of Jabalia told 16th of October Media Group: “We are literally extinguishing and there is no light on what is seen in us…I don’t hide from you that the dozens of bodies are scattered in the streets and we can’t reach anyone, because any movement in the area will cause us to lose new lives.”
A journalist in northern Gaza recently said, “Without exaggeration, these are the most difficult days of the Israeli war on Gaza.”
In spite of vastly disproportionate capabilities, one year of the Israeli occupation’s genocide, and almost 20 years of siege on Gaza before that, the Palestinian resistance in northern Gaza continues to resist the advance of Israeli forces. Resistance groups have publicly reported carrying out over 40 military operations against the Israeli army invading and destroying Jabalia and its nearby refugee camp. Over the past 16 days of siege, resistance fighters from at least 5 different Palestinian political factions targeted Israeli infantry units, armored vehicles, drones, D9 bulldozers, Merkava tanks, army bases and troop gatherings.
Cut off from any form of external supply, the resistance in Gaza’s ability to continue fighting has surprised many military analysts. According to resistance groups, they are resisting Israeli occupying forces in Jabalia using mostly locally made explosives, armor piercing rocket-propelled grenades, mortar and tandem-charge shells, and sniper rifles. One surprising source of explosives have been unexploded bombs, dropped by the Israeli air force on Gaza, which “malfunction” and did not explode. On Friday October 18th, a resistance brigade in Jabalia released footage of them reportedly detonating an unexploded MK82 bomb on Israeli “special forces” in a house near Saftawi, west of Jabalia. The MK82 is a 230 kilogram American-made bomb, which the Biden administration provides the Israeli army with. In spite of the normally strict military censorship on announcing casualties, the Israeli occupation army later confirmed the reported killing of Colonel Ihsan Daqsa, the highestranking IOF officer killed in Gaza.
Palestinians in Jabalia and other parts of Palestine have called for people around the world to head to the embassies of America, Britain, France, Germany, and the Israeli occupation, to demand they end the siege of Jabalia.
Article by E. Sky
