A Hammas-run government media office came forward with information regarding the attacks on the Jabalia Refugee camp in Gaza, they are saying at least 195 Palestinians have been killed. The injured have been transported to Dar-AL-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city however they have been struggling to find space for the overwhelming number of wounded, the surgical director told BBC that there have been 400 casualties, including 120 dead majority of which were women and children. A spokesperson for the Israeli military claimed the attack was authorized by the government to assassinate a senior Hammas commander and destroy any terrorist controlled bases in the area. The military is assessing the casualties from the attack, it is mentioned that the government must determine how many Hammas fighters had been killed before assessing civilian casualties. There were found to be tunnels underneath the refugee camp, named the “metro” by locals, used by Hammas to transport weapons and other resources in war time, after the airstrike these tunnels collapsed and a 40ft crater was left afterwards.
Before the war broke out, the camp was one of the most populated areas in Gaza, it was set up in 1948 to house refugees fleeing from Israel, It also contained three schools run by UN relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The camp was also one of the biggest refugee camps in Gaza, fleeing refugees are left with little to no housing considering the amount of people left without homes due to airstrikes, while more and more Palestinians continue to be misplaced due to the war. The Israeli military was authorized to complete the attack, however this is going to be hard for the government to justify considering that although the Israeli government told the civilians of Gaza to move south in order to avoid the airstrikes, a lot of these civilians are too old or too ill to travel south or get away. This attack leaves the international community questioning the actions of the Israeli government and leaves me thinking about the human rights violations taking place during the violence in Gaza.
In connection to class, the conflict in Israel and Palestine has been ongoing for a very long time as well as the struggle for autonomy and sovereignty. At the moment, this war is one of the biggest global challenges internationally (this is why all of my blog posts have something to do with this topic) and many world leaders have spoken about the topic and the future consequences we will face due to the violence. The Israeli government is acting as an offensive realist, they declared war on Hamas after the terrorist group launched a militant attack in Israel and now has been said to have sent 6,000 bombing flights to the Gaza strip.