Israel bombs Gaza’s largest refugee camp

Dozens of people were killed Tuesday in Israeli bombing of Gaza’s largest refugee camp, the Hamas-run health ministry said, with Israel’s army confirming it had targeted a Hamas commander involved in the October 7 attacks.

Wails filled the dusty air as volunteers clawed through the concrete blocks and twisted metal at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza in a desperate search for bodies and survivors, with AFP video footage showing at least 47 corpses being recovered.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, had no immediate comment on the claim, but quickly vowed to turn Gaza into a “graveyard” for Israeli troops.

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry gave an initial toll of more than 50 dead and 150 wounded, but said dozens more were likely buried under the rubble, denouncing what it called “a heinous Israeli massacre” at the camp.

Egypt lashed out at Israel’s “inhumane targeting of a residential block.”

Sources said Cairo would open the Rafah crossing to treat wounded Palestinians in what would be the first time it has agreed to open the border to civilians since the conflict broke out.

Though more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, several hundred thousand remain in the north, where Israeli troops and tanks have reportedly advanced on multiple sides of Gaza City.

Several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in northern Gaza in the path of the ground assault. They have crowded into homes or are packed by the thousands into hospitals that are already overwhelmed with patients and running low on supplies.

The strike came after a day of fierce battles between Israeli ground troops and militants in northern Gaza as Israel pressed its mission to “crush” Hamas after its militants went on a rampage killing 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials, in the worst attack in the country’s history.

Since then, Israel has hit back with an unstinting aerial bombardment, which the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza says has now killed more than 8,500 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children.

Although more than half of Gaza’s population has fled, several thousands remain in the north where Israeli troops and tanks have advanced with their strikes