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A boy watches a smoke plume rise while standing in the balcony of the Rafei school, being used as a displacement shelter, in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. AFP
Israeli military strikes killed at least 34 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Friday, with nearly half of the fatalities occurring in Jabalia, the northern district which is the largest of Gaza’s historic refugee camps.
“Nobody is allowed to get in or out; anyone who tries is getting shot,” MSF project coordinator Sarah Vuylsteke said on X.
Five MSF staff were trapped in Jabalia, she said.
“I don’t know what to do; at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave,” she quoted Haydar, an MSF driver, as saying.
At least 15 of the fatalities in Jabalia since dawn were due to Israeli strikes targeting various areas, including a school sheltering displaced individuals, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said, citing medical sources.
Gaza’s Civil Defence said dozens were wounded by Israeli quadcopter fire at the same school.
The Israeli military has sent troops into the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya as well as Jabalia.
Palestinian health officials have reported at least 130 deaths in the operation so far, while the military has told residents to evacuate areas where the UN estimates over 400,000 people are trapped.
United Nations officials expressed concern that the ongoing Israeli offensive and evacuation orders in northern Gaza could disrupt the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign set to begin next week.
Healthcare officials have reported that dozens of facilities in Gaza are under evacuation orders from the Israeli military, complicating humanitarian efforts amid the ongoing conflict.
Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
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