Why does Israel keep attacking Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp?

The Jabalia camp in Gaza is as old as Israel's occupation and the Palestinian resistance.

Palestinian medics on Monday said at least 10 people were killed and at least 30 injured in the fresh Israeli air strikes on a food distribution centre in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. Casualties included women and children.

The Israeli army announced on October 6 a yet another military offensive in Jabalia as it ordered residents of the camp to evacuate.

Since then, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed and dozens more have been wounded by Israeli air strikes in Jabalia.

“Nobody is allowed to get in or out of Jabalia, anyone who tries is getting shot,” says Sarah Vuylsteke, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The United Nations set up Jabalia Camp in 1948 to shelter Palestinian refugees who were displaced by the Zionist state.

Located 3 kilometres north of Jabalia, a town with the same name, in Gaza, it is the largest refugee camp in Palestinian territory, with over 200,000 residents.

In December 1987, the First Intifada began in the Jabalia refugee camp after an Israeli driver mowed down four Palestinian labourers.

In 2014, during Israel's war on Gaza, Tel Aviv bombarded a UNRWA school in Jabalia, killing at least 15 Palestinians.

'Genocide within the genocide'

In its ongoing war on Gaza that started on October 7 last year, Israel has time and again bombed the refugee camp.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, a single Israeli air strike killed more than 50 Palestinians and trapped many more beneath the wreckage on October 31.

In December, more than a hundred Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes on the camp.

The Israeli military also entered the camp, and when it withdrew in February, there was "not a single habitable house" in Jabalia.

The camp was raided again in May and more than 70 percent of the camp was destroyed.

The Gaza Civil defence recovered more than 120 dead bodies after the Israeli siege ended in early June.

In its ongoing war on Gaza, Israel has faced stiff resistance in Jabalia. Despite successive strikes, military raids and long sieges, Palestinians in Jabalia keep coming back, refusing forced evacuation and foiling the "Generals' Plan".

According to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, the "Generals' Plan" to evacuate northern Gaza has been defeated due to Palestinians in Jabalia as Palestinians refuse to comply with unlawful evacuation orders by the Israeli army.

The "Generals' Plan" was developed by retired Israeli senior commanders,

It is named after the group's leader, retired Major-General Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser. The Plan calls for Israel to apply unrelenting pressure on the whole northern Gaza population until Hamas completely surrenders.

And anyone who refuses to evacuate should be refused water and food, so the Palestinians face the alternative of surrendering or starving.

Deputy Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the UN has described the situation in northern Gaza as a 'genocide within the genocide'.

British, Member of Parliament, Adnan Hussain took to X and described the siege of Jabalia as horrific.

"The horrific siege of Jabalia Refugee Camp in Northern Gaza must be condemned in the strongest terms possible. The siege has been described by UN envoy as a 'genocide within a genocide. Allowing this to continue unchallenged is a stain on our collective moral conscience" he said.

According to AP, an Israeli official with knowledge of the "Generals' Plan" said that parts of the plan are already being implemented.