After a bloody 3-week invasion, the Israeli army finally withdrew from central parts of the Jabalia refugee camp, remaining in central locations on the outskirts of Jabalia and Beit Lahia. It left devastation in its wake.
This is the second time that the army has launched a ground invasion of the camp and its neighboring town. At the start of the year, Israel had declared the end of the “intensive” phase of fighting in northern Gaza, withdrawing from Jabalia and other parts of the north after having supposedly “dismantled” Hamas’s military presence there. Almost five months later, the resistance had already regrouped in the north. By early May, the second invasion of Jabalia, the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, and the Tuffah area commenced, but three days in, the Israeli army withdrew from al-Tuffah and al-Zaytoun, east of Gaza City. Jabalia, however, was different. ….more