[News] Why the Israeli army is invading northern Gaza a second time

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/why-the-israeli-army-is-invading-northern-gaza-a-second-time/?ml_recipient=121405976713626707&ml_link=121405894225299355&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-05-15&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Why the Israeli army is invading northern Gaza a second time
Tareq S. Hajjaj
May 14, 2024
------------------------------
[image:
Screenshot-from-video-of-battles-between-the-Qassam-Brigades-and-the-Israeli-army-in-Jabalia-1536x859.png]
Screenshot from video of battles between the Qassam Brigades and the
Israeli army in Jabalia. (Photo: Social Media/X)

Families carry their belongings and everything they own in small bags and
leave in droves. In the background behind them is thick black smoke, while
the sound of shelling, artillery, and intense gunfire never stops. What
makes this scene different from all the other stages of this genocidal war
is that it is happening in the town of Jabalia and Jabalia refugee camp in
northern Gaza — the place where Israel had declared at the start of the year
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-102-israel-pulls-thousands-of-forces-from-gaza-as-hamas-announces-death-of-two-captives/>
that Hamas’s military presence had been effectively eliminated.

Five months later, the Israeli army is going back in and launching a
large-scale military operation in northern Gaza. It is proceeding in tandem
with the invasion of Rafah to the south. One crime to cover up another.

The reason for the second invasion of the north has been plastered on
computer and phone screens over the past few days: improbable videos of
fighters from the Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s military wing) launching complex
attacks on Israeli forces, including rocket and mortar attacks, traps and
ambushes of soldiers, and the targeting of tanks. The fact that it is
happening now as Israel has started its invasion of Rafah is also not a
coincidence.

Resistance factions have been able to regroup and resituate their fighting
from the south to the north. They are thus sending a message to Israel that
they still exist in the north contrary to its claims, and that a similar
invasion of Rafah would also fail to “dismantle” them.

Analysts on Al Jazeera argue <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51yX-6TGQco>
that the resistance is putting pressure on the army by forcing it to return
to northern Gaza and divert some of its forces away from Rafah. *Haaretz*
has also confirmed this
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-14/ty-article-magazine/.premium/in-gazas-jabalya-with-no-day-after-strategy-israeli-soldiers-fight-hamas-again/0000018f-77e6-df8f-a78f-ffff2f2b0000?utm_source=App_Share&utm_medium=iOS_Native>,
reporting that several Israeli army brigades that had been slated to be
part of the Rafah operation, such as the 98th Division, is now fighting in
Jabalia.

To that end, the Qassam Brigades have employed a number of diverse and
qualitative offensive tactics and released videos of their operations. They
have used drones <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9EdbjKQ2Dg> for the
first time since the end of last November, dropping explosives on top of
Merkava tanks. According to an announcement
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6asqoJve-Pw> by the Qassam Brigades on May
12, Hamas fighters targeted several tanks in the Zeitoun area east of Gaza
City and in the Mabhouh area east of Jabalia, and when soldiers fled the
tanks and barricaded themselves in nearby buildings, the fighters
reportedly blew up those houses with the soldiers inside them. As of the
time of writing, the Qassam Brigades have targeted over ten military
vehicles, fired mortar barrages
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erDsYD0zpCU> in the Zeitoun neighborhood,
carried out sniper operations
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEi1y5g0e5c&rco=1> in the same area, and
launched a salvo of rockets <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kh26INlz9A>
from Jabalia that reached Ashkelon.

What’s more, residents in northern Gaza told *Mondoweiss* that leaks have
spread in northern Gaza indicating that the various resistance factions in
the areas of Jabalia, Jabalia refugee camp, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun,
all north of Gaza City, have united all their brigades. This would appear
to correspond to the analysis that the resistance is mounting a formidable
offensive to disrupt the Rafah invasion.

Residents in northern Gaza also confirm that the clashes in the area have
been fierce, and that the operations of the resistance in combat zones have
been some of the largest witnessed since the start of the war.

Other residents told *Mondoweiss* that the army is facing difficulty in
entering those areas in northern Gaza again, and its response has been to
pursue a strategy of wholesale destruction and widespread bombing of the
area before entering it, as it has since the start of the war. Some
residents told* Mondoweiss* the invasion was like the “horrors of
doomsday.”

All of this is taking place in the north while resistance in the south has
also stepped up the rate of qualitative operations. Just today, the Qassam
Brigades put out a video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7OvW3g3mX8> of a
complex tunnel ambush involving the use of EFPs and RPG rocket launchers
against soldiers and military vehicles, signaling that the fighting in Gaza
is intensifying on all fronts.
*The first exit will be the last*

As the battle rages on with the resistance, the Israeli army’s wholesale
destruction has followed a similar pattern as previous invasions — the army
surrounds shelters, cuts off communications with the outside world, and
then goes in and commits massacres
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/i-felt-like-pulling-my-heart-out-of-the-earth-testimonies-from-the-mass-grave-at-nasser-hospital/>
and carries out field executions.

On Friday morning, May 10, the Israeli army began sending messages and
phone calls in the areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahia, Jabalia refugee camp, and
the Awda refugee camp. That night, the army surrounded the school shelters
housing the displaced in the Jabalia area and completely demolished entire
residential blocks, including over 20 buildings. These lands were also
razed, according to on-the-ground testimonies collected by *Mondoweiss*.
Three days later, the Israeli army cut off communications from the Jabalia
area.

In the coming days and weeks, news might begin to surface of new atrocities
and the unearthing of new mass graves in northern Gaza.

Dozens of people have so far been reported killed in those areas, the
majority of whom have not yet been recovered from the rubble and their
bombed homes. In the coming days and weeks, news might begin to surface of
new atrocities and the unearthing of new mass graves in northern Gaza.

Although residents in these areas were warned at the beginning of the war
to leave their homes, most refused and remained where they were.

This time is different. After witnessing countless bloody massacres in the
north, most infamously the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/come-out-you-animals-how-the-massacre-at-al-shifa-hospital-happened/>
in March, many are now thinking twice about staying put.

Rania Moussa, 36, a mother of four children, remained in Jabalia refugee
camp since the start of the war. She decided early on not to obey the
Israeli army’s orders to leave her neighborhood, defying the harrowing
conditions to which the Jabalia region has been subjected, including
bombings, arrests, demolitions, and extrajudicial killings.

But this time, the massacre at al-Shifa is weighing heavily on Rania’s
mind. She believes that what happened at al-Shifa is already repeating
itself in Jabalia, which is why she and her family decided to leave and go
to Gaza City when the army first gave the evacuation order.

Then she found out that the army had also invaded al-Zeitoun east of Gaza
City.

“We did not know that the occupation would return to Jabalia camp after all
these months,” she told *Mondoweiss*. “We’ve been experiencing shelling and
artillery on a daily basis since the start, but now everything is
different. The presence of the army up close and next to us is different.”

“I do not want my children to be buried and cut up and left out in the open
for dogs to maul them.”
Rania Moussa

When the army is that close to the civilian population, Rania said,
“killing becomes easier than drinking water for soldiers.”

“What happened at al-Shifa made us flee our homes for fear that we would be
one of the victims buried in the sand and garbage, and with time, no one
would recognize us,” Rania explained. “I do not want my children to be
buried and cut up and left out in the open for dogs to maul them. I did not
want this for my family, so I fled to the al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza
City.”

Not everyone is leaving, however, even as residents tell *Mondoweiss* that
the second invasion of northern Gaza appears to be more violent and
destructive than the last. They expect that this time the scale of the
destruction will be total and will not leave a single building standing,
but some are still insisting on remaining — because the first exit from the
north will be the last, and there will be no return.
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