Israel Massacres Civilians to Kill Hamas Leader

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Israel has targeted the Jabaliyah refugee camp north of Gaza City for a second day, killing in all at least 100 people and injuring 300, according to the Gaza interior minister. 

Family trapped in their destroyed building at the Jabaliyah refugee camp in Gaza on Tuesday. (Al Jazeera screenshot).

The mass murder of innocent Palestinian civilians by Israel continues, with the bombing of the Jabaliyah refugee camp north of Gaza City on Wednesday. Israel initially claimed that 50 Hamas fighters were killed in the attack though only one Hamas leader is confirmed dead. 

So far 100 people are feared dead, 300 are wounded with many hundreds more feared trapped in the rubble. Al Jazeera reports that six Israeli bombs hit the camp where more than 100,000 thousand refugees are crowded into a square kilometer. 

Jabaliyah is the largest refugee camp in Gaza, established after the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from what became Israel. The camp is seen by Israel as a Hamas stronghold. The First Intifada started there in 1987. 

It was the fourth time Israel struck the camp since Oct. 7, the date of Hamas’ attack on Israel that killed 1,400 people. On Wednesday the camp was struck for a fifth time, despite the growing international outcry over Tuesday’s attack.  Israel said it killed Ibrahim Biari, who it named as the “ringleader” of the Oct. 7 attacks. However in the process, dozens of civilians were also killed. 

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who has tended to Gaza’s wounded in previous Israeli attacks, in remarks to Al Jazeera, called it a “mass murder” and demanded to know why Joe Biden is not putting a stop to the killing.  It may be the worst massacre in Israel’s nearly one month war on Gaza.

Increasing numbers of experts are describing Israel’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,400 people as genocide. History has seen a procession of genocides. But this is being televised in a peek back from a modern audience into ancient history, an Old Testament massacre in real time.

The legal question of genocide will ultimately be decided by the International Criminal Court or a national court with universal jurisdiction, such as Spanish courts have assumed in the past. The ICC would no doubt also investigate Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7. The ICC has jurisdiction since the Observer State of Palestine is a member of the ICC  and the alleged crimes have taken part on its territory.  The prosecutor of that court has an open file on Israel and Palestine.

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Watch Al Jazeera’s live coverage of the attack. https://www.aljazeera.com/live

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