At the Jabalya Camp in Northern Gaza, the IDF Has Hundreds of Terrorists Surrounded

In northern Gaza, the IDF is now ready to destroy the last major Hamas stronghold, at the Jabalya camp. Having persuaded 50,000 of the camp’s civilians to leave, in just one night the IDF managed to surround the camp, trapping hundreds of Hamas fighters inside. More on the IDF’s surprise encirclement can be found here: “‘Complete surprise’: IDF surrounds remaining terrorists in north Gaza, 60 surrender,” by Avi Ashkenazi, Jerusalem Post, October 29, 2024:

The IDF’s military operation in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip came as a surprise to the terrorists in the area, the military said on Monday.

“The surprise for Hamas was complete. We trapped hundreds of terrorists inside the camp, including senior operatives,” the IDF said, adding that the terror group had used the population as human shields for over a week and had shot at the legs of residents who attempted to escape.

According to the IDF, the remaining terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip had gathered in Jabalya, prompting the military to encircle the area, evacuate the civilian population, isolate the terrorists, and prevent them from escaping.

Within hours, in a single night, the army surrounded the area.

Three brigades surrounded the camp: the 460th, Givati, and the 401st.  The 460th Brigade, which reached schools and shelters, reported that this approach allowed them to evacuate five thousand residents. By the following day, twenty thousand more had left, and forces said that the residents’ “fear barrier was broken.”…

Hamas’ attempts to instill fear in the civilians in order to keep them from leaving the camp, so that they could continue to serve as human shields, was no longer working. Those civilians — more than 50,000 of them — managed to escape from Jabalya despite Hamas’ operatives shooting at the legs of some of those fleeing. According to the IDF, their “fear barrier was broken.”

The Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last location from which Hamas was able to operate in Jabalya, was encircled by the 460th Brigade. This prevented Hamas from regrouping before the encirclement was completed.

Some 60 terrorists surrendered in one instance, and 20 others were eliminated while attempting to flee the hospital.

Troops from Shayetet 13 entered the hospital and captured an additional 60 terrorists who were hiding in the hospital wards and were using patients as human shields.

At least one detainee posed as a staff member and was found to have participated in the October 7 massacre.

The decision to operate in the hospital came as a result of intelligence, which showed that the hospital served as a Hamas command center, housing dozens of terrorists….

Only once the IDF had intelligence that the Kamal Adwan Hospital was being used by Hamas did the IDF enter its building, where sixty terrorists promptly surrendered, and another sixty were found hiding in the hospital ward.

Jabalya had been, before the IDF surrounded the camp, full of many hundreds of Hamas combatants. Hundreds had been killed in fighting with the IDF. Sixty Hamas fighters at the Kamal Adwan Hospital surrendered, while another sixty were flushed out of the hospital wards where they had been hiding. Meanwhile, outside the hospital, the last group of Hamas fighters in Jabalya were surrounded by the IDF and waiting for its assault. They were no longer a cohesive fighting force, but according to the IDF, disorganized and desperate. The surrender of sixty Hamas fighters at one time was testimony to their low morale.

Once 50,000 civilians had left Jabalya, the IDF managed in just one night to entirely surround Jabalya camp (near the city of the same name), cutting off any possible escape by remaining Hamas fighters. Hundreds of them are now bottled up, waiting for the end. Will the IDF go further into the camp to flush them out, with the likelihood that it would then suffer some casualties, or will the IDF, more likely, establish a siege of the center of Jabalya, keeping out food and water, to force the Hamas fighters inside to surrender?