Israeli forces are stepping up their attacks on the Jabalia Rafah camp in the Gaza Strip

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli tanks continued to advance into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, protected from heavy fire from the air and on the ground, residents and Hamas media said, while airstrikes pounded Rafah in the south.

In Jabalia, tanks tried to advance into the heart of the camp, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps. Residents said tank shells hit the center of the camp and airstrikes destroyed groups of houses.

Israeli troops forced hundreds of Palestinians in emergency shelters to flee.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israel stepped up air and ground attacks on the city’s eastern areas, killing people in an airstrike on a house in the Brazilian neighborhood.

Residents said Israeli tanks were now stationed east of Salahuddin Street, which cuts through the eastern part of the city, as the highway was cut off by heavy fighting. Residents added that the eastern part of Rafah remained a “ghost town.”

Hamas’s armed wing said its fighters were engaged in firefights with Israeli forces on one of the streets east of Rafah and east of Jabalia.

In Israel, the military repeatedly sounded sirens in areas near Gaza to warn of possible cross-border Palestinian rocket and/or mortar attacks.

Late Saturday, the Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia would prevent Hamas, which rules Gaza, from restoring its military capabilities there.

“They bombed everywhere, including near schools that house people who have lost their homes,” Jabalia resident Saed, 45, told Reuters on Sunday via a chat app. “The war begins again, this is what it looks like in Jabalia.”

The army sent tanks back to Zeitoun and Al-Sabra, where residents also reported heavy bombardment that destroyed several homes, including high-rise apartment buildings.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Sunday that Israel risked an uprising in Gaza without a post-war plan for the enclave.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the death toll from Israel’s military operation in Gaza has now exceeded at least 35,000 Palestinians. The bombardment has devastated the coastal enclave and caused a severe humanitarian crisis.

The war was sparked by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, which Israel said killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage.

Israel said 620 soldiers were killed in the fighting, more than half of them in the first Hamas attack.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Tala Ramadan; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Stephen Coates)