A barrage of Israeli airstrikes leveled apartment buildings in a refugee camp near Gaza City on Tuesday, and footage showed rescuers pulling men, women, and children out of the rubble. Israel said the strike destroyed a Hamas command center set up in civilian houses and a network of tunnels underneath. The toll from the strikes on Jabaliya camp was not immediately known. The Israeli military said a large number of Hamas militants were killed, including the commander overseeing their operations in northern Gaza. The director of the nearby hospital where casualties were taken, Dr. Atef Al-Kahlot, said hundreds were wounded or killed, but he did not provide exact figures. Neither side's account could be independently confirmed, the AP reports.
The strike underlined the anticipated surge in casualties on both sides as Israeli troops battling Hamas militants advance deeper into the northern Gaza Strip toward dense, residential neighborhoods. Israel has vowed to crush Hamas' ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel following its bloody Oct. 7 rampage, which ignited the war. Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the first military deaths it reported since the ground offensive into the tiny Mediterranean territory accelerated late last week.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp—a densely built-up area of small streets on Gaza City's outskirts—footage of the scene from Al Jazeera showed at least four large craters where buildings once stood, amid a large swath of rubble surrounded by partially collapsed structures. Dozens of rescue workers and bystanders dug through the wreckage, searching for survivors beneath the pancaked buildings. The Israeli military said it carried out a wide-scale strike in Jabaliya on Hamas infrastructure "that had taken over civilian buildings." Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari said an underground Hamas installation beneath a targeted building collapsed, toppling other nearby buildings. He said the commander killed in the strike, Ibrahim Biari, had played a role in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
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