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Photos: Published by Haaretz
A strike on Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp, earlier this week. Credit: Moti Milrod

IDF soldiers in Jabalya refugee camp, earlier this week. Credit: Moti Milrod

Graffiti in Jabalya, earlier this week. Credit: Mori Milrod

Destruction in Gaza's Jabalya, earlier this week. Credit: Moti Milrod

IDF troops in a house in Jabalya, earlier this week.Credit: Moti Milrod

Israeli army forces in Jabalya, earlier this week.Credit: Moti Milrod
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The Israeli army's third operation in the refugee camp has left not a single building standing. Soldiers, who six months ago carried pictures of the hostages with them, today have only one task – the elimination of Hamas

by Bar Peleg for Haaretz
Jabalya
Jan 3, 2025 2:43 pm IST

JABALYA – The journey along Gaza Strip's northern coast offers an accurate snapshot of the war's current state: widespread destruction (so severe that even bicycle paths have been obliterated), ongoing military construction projects (including a logistics base and road signs), and, above all, mud. Lots of it. So deep that a loosely fitted shoe could sink into it, never to be found again. It's a mud so thick that even the Israeli army's Humvee struggles to navigate through it.

As you turn away from the coastline and enter the Jabalya refugee camp and the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, you encounter not a single paved road but only mud. Soldiers emerge from it. They are mere kids – some of whom have only recently enlisted, while others have been fighting in this war for nearly 15 months, having witnessed it all. Yet here they are, deep in the mud of Gaza, trapped in a war that shows no signs of ending.

Along with the soldiers, packs of starving dogs – the area's only current residents – are warming themselves near the tanks' hot engines and searching for food among the rubble.

The mud, the extent of the destruction and the cold raise the obvious humane question, namely the fate of the hostages and how the IDF's aggressive actions in Jabalya are meant to enable their release. It is clear now to everyone that applying military pressure only harms them and hasn't led to their rescue. The soldiers had no answer to this.

This is the third time the IDF has entered Jabalya, and no one can guarantee there won't be a fourth. In May 2024, during the army's second invasion of the area, forces from the 98th Division were deployed. The operation focused on dismantling terrorist underground infrastructure, and the bodies of hostages, most of whom had been murdered in the Kibbutz Mefalsim area and their bodies taken to Gaza, were discovered.

Last July, when Haaretz spoke with the paratroopers troops involved in recovering the bodies, their priorities were clear – first and foremost, bringing home the hostages. Some of the soldiers carried pictures of the hostages with them. Their deputy brigade commander clarified that the release of hostages and enablement of Israelis living in Gaza border communities to return to their homes were his priorities.

Now, in the early days of 2025, when the soldiers and officers in Jabalya are asked about their mission, the answer is destroying Hamas and its infrastructure, until the last terrorist is laid to rest.

When they are asked, "And what about the hostages?" One soldier answered, "That concerns us, like it does everyone, but it isn't a part of our operational considerations. We're exerting pressure to bring them back. That's our main vector, and it's what causes us to keep on winning. We didn't come here to inflict harm on anyone; we came here because we had to."

In Jabalya, not a single habitable building remains. Even if the residents were to return as part of an agreement between Israel and Hamas, they'd have nowhere to go. Anywhere you look, there's destruction and ruin. Most of the buildings collapsed like houses of cards, either from bombs or from the IDF's bulldozers.

The buildings that remain standing are riddled with bullet holes or their walls are scorched from fire. When the convoy of Hummers we joined entered the "protective zone," two bulldozers were demolishing another building.

The devastation was clear even to the soldiers. "Look at the extent of the destruction and annihilation here. No one has done this before," one officer told Haaretz.

"The enemy is fleeing in droves. Jabalya has fallen, we're conquering and destroying it. There'll be no Hamas presence left here in the end – it's a huge achievement," he added.

A heavy engineering equipment operator who regularly appears on the right-wing Israeli news outlet Channel 14 clarified in a video he sent to one of the station's staff members (who quickly aired it): "Jabalya is [the] Givati [Brigade]. Where the brigade was, there's nothing left."

This same thing characterizes areas where other brigades operated. The idea of a cease-fire deal enabling residents to return to the northern Gaza Strip seems imaginary. Not only does Netanyahu refuse to end the war, but the residents of Jabalya and other areas have nowhere to return.

For the soldiers, the destruction serves multiple objectives. First, there are the targeted demolitions of houses based on incriminating intelligence, or those from which fire was directed at the forces, or where ammunition was discovered. Dozens of such buildings were destroyed in Jabalya alone. This approach is also in line with the law of war.

Another objective is to preserve the lives of combatants facing booby-trapped buildings. "We paid a very high price in the entrance to Jabalya when we used to go into houses [and] we realized this couldn't go on. We learned our lesson and made adjustments," one officer told Haaretz.

But there's another objective, which is much more flexible. "Arranging the area," the officer calls it. "Arranging it in a way that suits us, to strengthen our control. I'll do everything I have to in order to remove threats."

This objective means destroying buildings from which terrorists can open fire on the forces. A soldier stationed in the Netzarim corridor told Haaretz that this is a never ending cycle.

"There'll always be another building from which they can snipe at our forces after we've taken down a building. So we'll destroy that one as well," he said.

Another officer added that the destruction isn't a goal within itself. "It's only to prevent the terrorists from attacking our rear, using these buildings for cover."

And indeed, the terrorists are attacking the soldiers' rear. During a past visit of a Haaretz correspondent to the area, a sniper shot at the region where battalion soldiers were staying.

No residents remain in Jabalya, apart from wandering packs of dogs looking for warmth and love. According to the army, the number of residents is small and amounts to a few thousands. Tens of thousands (120,000 is the highest estimate) of residents were evacuated to the southern Strip, and those who didn't flee are being transferred there by the army.

The IDF has arrested 1,800 of them since October. In most occasions, men found in the area are interrogated and some are also sent to prison.

The army has admitted recently to Israel's High Court it had mistakenly underestimated the number of residents in the area, mainly due to the issue of the humanitarian aid entering the region.

The Military Advocate General, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, sent a stern letter to the head of the army's Southern Command, warning that the military is not accurately assessing the number of civilians in operational zones in Gaza, which is impacting attacks in these areas. According to army officials, the number of terrorists in the region has decreased due to the ongoing military presence, particularly after forces took control of Beit Lahia's Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The army presented the media weapons found at the hospital – a number of rifles, grenades and an explosive charge – but officers maintain that one of the last terrorist headquarters operated in Jabalya.

After the army took a hold of the last hospital in the northern Strip, some 240 Palestinians were arrested. A day later, many armed Hamas members who were roaming in the region were killed, a relatively rare sight.

According to one of the officers, the IDF's rules of engagement state that when the soldiers see a white flag or women and children – they must not open fire. "You arrest them, you don't shoot them."

As for the men, the situation is more complicated. "Clearing the area during combat is complicated,"the officer added. "Any boy can decide to be a Hamas member."

He tells of a recent case in which he and his tank were near a structure, and from one of the windows a hand appeared holding a phone. In most cases, this is a sign for the soldiers that someone is preparing an RPG launch toward the force.

The tank drove backward, shooting shells at the structure. A drone already prepared to launch a missile at the building but was stopped. The reason was that someone waved a white flag from the building right next to a group of civilians.

"I saw about 30 people, women, children and lots of men," the officer said. "I approached them with the tank [and] didn't shoot a single bullet. I gestured them to stop and get down on their knees. We separated the men from the others [and] took them for questioning. We transferred the women and children to the south."

On one of the buildings in the area where the soldiers were stationed, graffiti read: "Mazal Tov, Trump 47." On another house, a different message declared: "Kahane was right." Nearby, a soldier had added the slogan "Shalom Achshav" (Hebrew for "Peace Now"), to which someone responded by spray-painting: "Not really."

The commander says his soldiers "are fighting like lions" and that the terrorists in Jabalya are the bravest he'd faced since the beginning of the war.