Israeli troops have “completed the encirclement” of the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, Israel’s military said Tuesday, as it seeks to complete its offensive operations against Hamas militants in the north of the enclave.
The camp, Gaza’s largest, has been hit by renewed Israeli strikes in recent days following the end of a week-long pause in the conflict.
In a statement, the IDF said it had “operated against Hamas strongholds in Jabalia; IDF and ISA [Security Agency] forces conducted a targeted raid on a Hamas command and control center.”
The IDF also said it “took control of key military posts from which attacks on IDF troops have been carried out.”
It said weapons and launchers had been located “in civilian compounds,” and it had “located and destroyed rockets found in the garden of a residence in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Some context: Jabalya is a densely populated refugee camp established shortly after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from territory that encompassed the newly established State of Israel, and later denied return. The camp is a crowded, built-up area, with houses, shops and apartment buildings jammed up against one another.
Israeli strikes in October targeting Hamas commanders and the militant group’s infrastructure in the camp left catastrophic damage and killed a large number of people, according to eyewitnesses and medics in the enclave.