Israel-Gaza war live: Gaza health system could collapse within hours, authorities say; Israel intensifies attacks on Jabaliya camp | Israel-Gaza war

Palestinian health officials on Monday said they had recovered 20 bodies of Palestinian people killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight Jabalia in northern Gaza, while dozens were reported injured.

In the sprawling Jabalia refugee camp, the largest of eight such camps in Gaza, tanks rolled into the heart of the district.

Residents said tank shells fell into the center of the camp and airstrikes destroyed groups of houses (see an earlier post on 07.56 a.m).

Thick clouds of black smoke from explosions could be seen rising over northern Gaza from the Israeli border on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Israeli tanks entered the Jabalia camp, which houses more than 100,000 people, on Sunday after heavy overnight bombardment of the area, according to reports.

The Israeli military said its goal was to eliminate “attempts from Hamas to restore its military capacity in Jabalia.

Gaza’s health ministry said the health system in the devastated enclave could collapse in “a few hours”.

“We are hours away from the collapse of the health system in the Gaza Strip as a result of the inability to get the fuel needed to run electric generators into hospitals, ambulances and transport workers,” the ministry was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying in a social media post media.

Only about a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and primary health care centers are functioning, and all are facing acute shortages of medicine, basic medical supplies, fuel and manpower.

Residents said Israeli tanks had moved further inland Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, with tank shells falling in the center of the city’s refugee camp and airstrikes destroying groups of houses.

Tanks were trying to advance into the heart of the camp, the largest of eight historic refugee camps in Gaza, according to Reuters.

Israeli troops reportedly forced hundreds of Palestinians housed in shelters to leave.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported that Israeli forces were shooting at ambulances trying to reach injured people, while Israeli airstrikes hit crowded residential areas within the refugee camp. Israeli planes bombed Block 2 and Block 4 of the camp, according to the publication.

The Israeli military issued evacuation orders to residents of the Jabalia refugee camp on Saturday, telling them to leave “immediately” as it said its forces were trying to eradicate Hamas fighters there.

“They bombed everywhere, including near schools housing people who lost their houses,” Jabalia resident Saeed, 45, told Reuters yesterday. “The war is starting again, this is what it looks like in Jabalia.”

Welcome to our latest live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and the wider crisis in the Middle East. Here’s a snapshot of the latest key developments.

Egypt announced its intention to formally support South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)who claims Israel committed genocide in the Gaza war.

On Sunday, Egypt said its move to support the case came “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip,” according to a foreign ministry statement.

It also cited Israel’s systematic “targeting of civilians and destruction of infrastructure” and “pushing Palestinians toward displacement and expulsion.”

South Africa took its case to the International Court of Justice in December, calling on the UN court to order Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza. Israel rejected South Africa’s accusations.

Hamas expressed its “gratitude” to Egypt in a statement on Sunday evening, calling on “all countries around the world to take similar steps in support of the Palestinian cause by joining the cause.”

Here’s a recap of some of the other major events:

• Israel sent tanks east Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday after a night of heavy air and ground bombardment, killing at least 19 people and wounding dozens more, Palestinian health officials said.

• Clashes were reported in southern Gaza, where there are tens of thousands fled the city of Rafah on Sunday, following a bombardment and warnings from the Israel Defense Forces to clear central and eastern neighborhoods ahead of planned offensives. Israel claims it considers Rafah Hamas the last stronghold. But his advance in the city has sparked global outrage and strained relations with the United States, his staunchest ally.

• The armed wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said its fighters attacked Israeli forces in several areas in Gaza with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, including in Rafapreviously the last refuge of the Palestinians, where more than a million people took shelter.

• The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, warned that a full-scale Israeli attack on Rafah “cannot be carried out”, saying it could not be reconciled with international law. He said a full-scale offensive could have a “catastrophic impact … including the possibility of new atrocity crimes.” The Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, David Cameronsaid it would be wrong for Israel to launch a major offensive in Rafah “without a plan to protect the people”.

• Thousands of Israelis joined the weekend protests calling for a deal to repatriate hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas, early elections and the immediate resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu.

• US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has delivered some of the Biden administration’s strongest public criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza. In interviews on SundayBlinken said the U.S. has been working with Arab countries and others for weeks to develop “credible plans for security, for governance, for reconstruction” in Gaza, but “we haven’t seen that coming from Israel.” “Israel is on a trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with a lot of Hamas gunmen left, or if it leaves, a vacuum filled with chaos, filled with anarchy and possibly filled again by Hamas,” Blinken said. He also said Israeli tactics had meant “a terrible loss of innocent civilian life” while failing to neutralize Hamas leaders and fighters and could lead to a lasting insurgency.

• All 12 of Gaza’s higher education institutions have been destroyed or damaged, leaving nearly 90,000 students stranded and more than 350 teachers and academics killed, according to Palestinian officials.