Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza’s Jabalya, leaving behind destruction

Images taken by Reuters news agency Thursday showed the extent of the devastation in Jabalya, as residents returned to the area for the first time in weeks.

“The entire area has disappeared,” one resident told Al Jazeera network. “People cannot find their homes. We do not even know if we will find our relatives. This is a crime.”

Israel’s operations in Jabalya were just one of a number of recent pushes its forces have made to “re-clear” areas of Hamas militants, who have regrouped after IDF initial forays into neighborhoods.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly framed the offensive on the southern city of Rafah as a final battle against Hamas, troops are returning to previous battlegrounds as Israeli operations in Gaza slow to a long battle of attrition, as The Washington Post reported earlier this month.

Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said earlier this week that destroying Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza will take “another seven months.”

Separately, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Thursday that attacks on aid workers “must stop,” after two Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedics were killed west of Rafah this week. In a statement, the federation wrote that 24 members of its staff and volunteers have been killed since the war began: 20 from the PRCS and four from the Israeli Magen David Adom.

International medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday that Israel’s offensive in Rafah forced the closure of a primary care centers in Mawasi, a tent encampment along the Gazan coast where many displaced Palestinians have fled since Israel launched operations in Rafah in early May. Earlier this week, Gazan health officials said at least 21 people were killed and 64 injured in an Israeli attack on Mawasi.

“This is the second health facility we have been forced to close this week and another step in Israel’s systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health system,” the charity wrote on social media Thursday. It added that it has been forced to leave 14 medical facilities in Gaza since October.

“More than a million people have been forced to flee the Rafah offensive,” MSF said. “As long as this offensive and the larger war continues, medical services and essential aid will diminish, and more civilians will die.”

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China said Friday that it is pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza, as it accused the United States of “double standards.” Speaking after a meeting between the U.S. and Chinese defense ministers, Chinese spokesman Wu Qian said “the increasingly grave humanitarian disaster [in the region] has caused indignation among people all around the world.” Beijing hopes that the United States “can live up to its responsibility as a major power [and] abandon double standards,” he said.

U.S. and British strikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah province killed at least 16 people and injured 35 others, the Houthi-controlled al-Masirah channel reported early Friday. The U.S. Central Command said Thursday it carried out the strikes with British forces on 13 Houthi sites that “presented a threat to U.S. and coalition forces and merchant vessels in the region.” The two countries launched a series of strikes on the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in January, after the group carried out months of attacks on Red Sea shipping in response to the war in Gaza.

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, called Thursday for an end to attacks on the agency’s employees and facilities. Lazzarini, writing in the New York Times, said that 192 employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have been killed since the start of war in Gaza. He also cited recent attacks on the agency, including in East Jerusalem, where Israeli demonstrations against UNRWA have become “increasingly dangerous.” Israeli officials, he said, are “delegitimizing UNRWA by effectively characterizing it as a terrorist organization.” A U.N. investigative body looking into allegations against 19 people has closed one case for lack of evidence, suspended four others because of “insufficient” information and is continuing to investigate 14 other cases.

A majority of Israelis support their country’s military response to Hamas in Gaza but are divided over its scope, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center published Thursday. The survey found that 39 percent of Israelis said the country’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, and 34 percent said it has not gone far enough — indicating continued support for the war.

At least 36,224 people have been killed and 81,777 injured in Gaza since the war began, said the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 293 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operations in Gaza.