AT LEAST 30 Palestinians were killed, including 13 children, when Israel bombed a building housing displaced people in the Jabalia refugee camp at 6am yesterday morning.
The massacre occurred as the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned of ‘famine’ in northern Gaza after more than a month of bombardment and military siege.
The bombing of the Alloush family home, which was packed with residents and displaced people, resulted in ‘the complete destruction’ of the building. The wounded are being transferred to the Baptist Hospital, it added.
Witnesses said the multistorey building was destroyed in the attack, with many still trapped under the rubble.
According to an eyewitness, it was pretty quiet apart from the buzz of drones and quadcopters and the fighter jets that were manoeuvring in the area when, all of a sudden, without any prior warning, the house was bombed.
Five more people were killed in another Israeli strike on a house in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Hamas said in a statement that the massacre of the Alloush family in Jabalia is a confirmation of the ethnic cleansing operations being perpetrated in northern Gaza.
Hamas pointed out that the occupation committed a new massacre by dropping a heavy bomb on the home of the Alloush family in Jabalia, which was crowded with more than fifty innocent civilians, most of whom were women and children, including displaced persons forcibly evicted from the Jabalia refugee camp.
All of them were buried under the rubble, with the bodies of thirty martyrs recovered so far.
Hamas emphasised that the continued crimes and aggression of the fascist occupation army, more than 400 days into the war of extermination, and its brutal targeting of residential neighbourhoods, along with the pursuit of displaced persons to their places of refuge, constitutes a clear confirmation of prescribed ethnic cleansing operations, particularly in northern Gaza for over a month, under a severe siege, ongoing starvation, and complete destruction of all aspects of life, including hospitals.
They asserted that what is happening in northern Gaza – massacres, genocidal warfare, starvation tactics, and widespread violations of all values, laws, and norms – requires an urgent stance from the leaders of Arab and Islamic countries who are gathering in Riyadh today, urging them to take responsibility to stop these crimes.
Hamas called on the international community, the United Nations and its institutions, and the Security Council, to intervene urgently and issue clear decisions to halt the heinous massacre being committed against thousands of families in the northern areas of Gaza Strip, and to hold the Israeli war criminals accountable for their crimes against humanity.
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