GAZA, Jun 1 (NNN-WAFA) – At least 70 Palestinians were found dead yesterday, in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, where Israel has just pulled out its armed forces, after nearly three weeks of carnage.
Local medical sources said that, ambulance and civil defence crews, primitively retrieved about 70 bodies, including 20 children, from the camp, while search work continued for the missing.
The sources noted that, dozens of others were reported missing under the rubble of homes, shelters, and hospitals, due to Israeli air and artillery strikes in the operation.
As the Israeli forces withdrew, hundreds of residents returned from shelters to their homes in the camp, to check on their properties. Some of them said that, the strikes had resulted in heavy damage to hundreds of residential units, as well as roads, water supply systems, and sewage infrastructure, in the camp and its surroundings.
They accused the Israeli occupation soldiers of setting fire to apartments and residential buildings, as well as tents, as a form of “collective punishment and revenge.”
The Zionist troops of the 98th Division, withdrew after completing their heinous mission in Jabalia, and began preparation for continued operations elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, after “rescuing seven bodies of hostages, and eliminating hundreds of Palestinians,” a statement said, yesterday.
On the same day, the Hamas-run media office in Gaza condemned the Israeli army for adopting a “scorched earth” policy, in its attack on the Jabalia camp, which left residential blocks destroyed and numerous Palestinians displaced.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees also said yesterday that, it has received “horrific reports” from the agency’s facilities in Jabalia, where “displaced people, including children, (were) reportedly killed and injured (when) sheltering in our school.”
It said on social media platform X that, the Zionist forces had besieged a shelter, converted from the agency-run school in Jabalia, and set tents of people sheltering there on fire.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza rises to 36,224.– NNN-WAFA
