On Tuesday afternoon, rescuers combed with their hands through surface layers of a tangled mass of concrete and steel, which hours earlier had been homes in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza.
They were searching for survivors, or the bodies of victims, which the immense force of an Israeli airstrike had left near the surface. Those trapped deeper may be entombed for months.
After more than three weeks of intense bombardment of Gaza, heavy machinery can no longer reach bomb sites down damaged roads, and people on the ground say fuel to operate machines is running out.
Even so, body bags piled up with horrific speed at the morgue of the nearby Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, and then outside the building. The wounded filled its beds or were raced to Dar al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where medics from the Médicins Sans Frontiers aid group struggled to find space even for badly injured children.
“Young children arrived at the hospital with deep wounds and severe burns. They came without their families,” said Mohammed Hawajreh, an MSF nurse who was quoted by the organisation in a statement condemning the attack.
“Many were screaming and asking for their parents. I stayed with them until we could find a place, as the hospital was full with patients.”
On Wednesday night, a Hamas-run government media office said at least 195 Palestinians had been killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Earlier, the surgical director of the Indonesian hospital, Mohamed el-Ron, told the BBC it received 400 casualties, including 120 dead, and the majority were women and children. Several of the most severely wounded were transferred to the Al-Shifa hospital “under fire”, he added.
The pulverising attack on Jabalia came as Israeli ground troops pushed into Gaza from at least three directions. A spokesman for the Israeli military said the attack had been authorised to assassinate a senior Hamas commander and destroy his base.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari named the target as Ibrahim Biari, commander of Central Jabaliya Battalion, who he said had been leading fighting in northern Gaza from a network of tunnels under the camp.
Hagari also claimed Biari played a key role in planning the 7 October attacks on Israel, in which more than 1,400 people were massacred, the majority civilians, and over 200 people were taken hostage.
“Scores” of Hamas fighters had been killed in the strike along with Biari, Hagari said, but declined to give an exact number or comment on civilian casualties. He said the Israeli military had to first determine how many Hamas fighters were killed, and then assess any civilian deaths.
Hagari also said some cavities seen in images of destroyed camp buildings were created by the collapse of tunnels that had been dug by Hamas, which he said chooses to put key military infrastructure below areas where many civilians gather.
The tunnels make up part of the system Israeli officials have dubbed the “metro”, used by fighters to move across Gaza without detection, store supplies, launch battles and keep hostages captive.
Hamas’s armed wing, al-Qassam brigades, said seven civilian hostages were killed in the strikes on Jabalia, including three foreign passport holders.
“He is threatening real soldiers,” Hagari said. “There are dozens of terrorists that have been killed with him, and the ‘metro’ underneath has collapsed, so it made this hole that you see in the area.
“We are dealing with terrorists that build the system of infrastructure of terror underneath the Jabalia refugee camp for a big reason. They want this picture of destruction,” he told the briefing.
Hagari declined to comment on how many munitions, or which types, were used to target the camp, or identify which craters were caused by tunnel collapses. He said Israel would provide some of these details at a later date.
But a visual analysis by the Guardian has identified at least five craters in the densely populated refugee camp, which weapons experts said were left by the use of multiple JDAMs – joint direct attack munitions – in the airstrike.
Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon chief of high value targeting during the Iraq war in 2003, told the Guardian the biggest crater at the site looked like a hit with a GBU-31. “There are other bombs it could be. That one just fits best with all the evidence. The estimated crater is around 40ft [12 metres].”
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former United Nations weapons inspector, said: “The munition is almost certainly JDAM, either a GBU 31 (Warhead Mark 84) general purpose bomb or possibly a GBU 56 (Warhead BLU 109) bunker buster. Both about 2,000lb [900kg].”
The GBU (guided bomb unit) is a precision-guided air-to-surface weapon system. It is part of the Israeli arsenal provided by the US and also manufactured by Israel under contract.
These Boeing-manufactured GBUs use a tritotal, which is an explosive mix of TNT and aluminium powder, used commonly in air-dropped bombs. The Israeli air force recently posted images of dozens of GBU-31 being loaded on planes. “This fits our analysis. You can see the size of the bomb and guidance straps, which are the signature of the GBU-31,” added Garlasco.
The first online reports of Tuesday’s attack came at about 2.30pm local time. A Reuters live stream captured the moment of impact a few minutes earlier.
The Guardian was able to combine the Reuters footage and videos that emerged in the aftermath to pinpoint the exact location of the strike to buildings at the intersection of Al Mouhawel and Al Almey streets.
Before the war, Jabalia camp had been one of the most crowded corners of Gaza, itself among the most densely populated places on Earth. It covers 1.4 sq km and the UN said it had a population of more than 110,000 people.
Set up in 1948 to house families who had fled from what is today Israeli territory, it was the largest such camp in Gaza. It also contains three schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which have been used as shelters for displaced civilians since the start of the siege.
Israel’s military has been calling for civilians to leave northern Gaza since airstrikes began. But some are too old or ill to travel. Others have weighed up dangers including attacks on convoys heading south and airstrikes in areas in the south that Israel designated “safer” zones, and decided to stay.
Experts on international humanitarian law said asking civilians to leave did not absolve Israel of the responsibility to protect those who chose to stay, when it was launching attacks.
“Civilians that that cannot leave or do not leave are still civilians. And so the same rules apply,” said Helen Duffy, professor of international humanitarian law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
“You cannot target civilians. You cannot carry out indiscriminate attacks and you cannot carry out attacks that have disproportionate impact on civilians and civilian objects.”
Tuesday’s attack damaged at least eight buildings, the Guardian’s visual investigation has found. The area had already sustained damage from four previous bombardments last month, the first of which hit a mosque and marketplace. More than 150 people were killed in those previous attacks.
Garlasco said the type of munitions he believes were used would have met stated Israeli military goals of hitting underground tunnels, but also caused extensive damage above ground.
If they are set to have a delayed detonation, which is one of three options on the bomb, they cause an earthquake-like phenomenon when they do explode.
“JDAMs will burrow through the ground, and have a delayed detonation, causing the building to collapse on itself. This explains the extent of the damage,” he said. “Buildings also collapse due to the blast wave, not just tunnels.”
The scale of the damage caused by these weapons means Israel needs to have a very strong military justification for using them in an area where so many civilians are living.
Tara Van Ho, associate professor at the Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre, said: “There are two questions here. First, is there an argument by which this can be legally justified? Yes. But, was this attack justifiable? Probably not.
“Given what we’re seeing from the news and hearing from the IDF, it would be very difficult for Israel to justify this as a proportionate attack. Not impossible, but very difficult.”
On Wednesday, explosions hit other parts of Jabalia. IDF spokesman Hagari said he could not yet comment on possible targets of those attacks.
