On the morning of May 11, the Israeli army spokesperson announced that the military had begun a new operation in Jabalia, the city and adjacent refugee camp in northern Gaza.  Evacuation orders were issued to Palestinian residents of several neighborhoods, but many have been unable to leave; others have decided to stay, given the lack of any safe areas throughout the Strip.

The latest Israeli attack on the camp, involving both aircraft and ground troops, has had devastating consequences: the army has bombed and bulldozed entire residential squares, markets, and food warehouses, exacerbating the already desperate humanitarian crisis, while corpses remain scattered in the streets.

Hijazi described what is happening in Jabalia as a second Nakba, with the camp’s streets overrun with the dead and wounded, and no one able to retrieve the bodies or save the survivors. In the aftermath of a bombing or shooting, the residents have to make an impossible choice: they must either leave the wounded to die, or to risk their own lives by trying to save them.

“We are surrounded,” Abu al-Eish said. “The bombing does not stop, so we do not leave the school shelter. We are afraid that we will be killed at any moment.” That state of terror has consumed her children: “The sound of their laughter has been replaced by the sound of bombing and missiles raining down on the camp."

Abu al-Eish, the mother of two, described Jabalia as a refugee camp no longer fit for human habitation. “The army is systematically destroying all the homes in Jabalia,” she said, “to the point that the camp has become like a ghost town: devoid of its residents and full only of destroyed homes.” And for those that remain, Al-Batsh predicted, “whoever does not die of hunger will be killed by the bombs.”