Testimonies from four Israeli soldiers Monday revealed new details about the Israeli military’s October 31, 2023 genocidal campaign on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, which killed and wounded hundreds of Palestinians, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The newspaper reported on Monday that one of the soldiers said the objective of the attack was to assassinate Ibrahim Biari, a commander in the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.
The soldier said Israeli forces knew Biari was underground beneath several large buildings but did not know his precise location or which building he was beneath.
“So they selected several buildings that were still inhabited, and it was decided to bring down all the buildings above the tunnel where he was located,” the soldier said.
“We did not carry out an evacuation because it was important to kill him without giving him a chance to escape,” he added.
Another soldier said Israeli military assessments indicated that between 250 and 300 Palestinians could be killed in the attack, prompting the decision to be referred to the Israeli military chief of staff, who approved it.
“I remember being shocked when several densely populated buildings were flattened, killing and wounding hundreds, just to eliminate a battalion commander,” the soldier said.
Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli anti-occupation organization that publishes testimonies from soldiers about abuses against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, called for those responsible for the practices revealed in the testimonies to be held accountable.
“You cannot approve the possible killing of 300 civilians in order to assassinate a battalion commander and then claim that you are making efforts to avoid harming innocent people,” Weiman said.
On October 31, 2023, Israeli warplanes bombed Block 6 in the center of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, dropping bombs containing an estimated seven tons of explosives and destroying an entire residential area inhabited by thousands of Palestinians, including displaced families who had sought refuge there from Israeli bombardment.
According to figures released at the time by Gaza’s health and interior ministries, more than 400 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded in the attack, while dozens were reported missing beneath the rubble.
Entire families were wiped from the civil registry. Relatives from the Abu Nasr, Abu al-Qumsan, Hijazi, Masoud, al-Bahnasawi and Okasha families were unable to recover the bodies of their loved ones or determine their fate, illustrating the enormous human toll of the Israeli bombardment.
Since October 2023, Israel’s genocide in Gaza, carried out with US and European support, has involved mass killing, starvation, destruction, forced displacement and detention, while international appeals and orders issued by the International Court of Justice have failed to bring the devastation to an end.
The Israeli genocidal war has left more than 249,000 Palestinians killed or wounded, most of them children and women, according to Palestinian figures, with more than 11,000 others reported missing. Hundreds of thousands have also been displaced, while hunger and widespread destruction have devastated communities across the Gaza Strip.
Source:Websites
