GAZA — The Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has seen heavy fighting as Israeli tanks surrounded the area.

While the focus of the Israeli ground operation seems to be in the south, hundreds of tank shells hit Jabalia refugee camp in the north.

The situation in the biggest refugee camp is terribly difficult, Israeli tanks are surrounding the densely populated area. The Hamas-run local authority said about 100,000 people are still in the camp without a functioning hospital and at risk of starvation.

Fifty-six year-old Hanan Alturok, a mother of eight, lives close to Jabalia. She told the BBC: “During the ceasefire we moved to the hospital, we thought it's safer than my house but yesterday the shells were landing inside the place and we had to flee under fire.

“My husband Maher was killed on 29 November when he was trying to buy some food from the local market, I don’t know what to do or where to go, I have no money and no food and very little drinking water.

"I’m afraid that my kids will die from hunger."

The director general of the Hamas-run Health Ministry, Dr Munir Al-Bursh, said: “Yesterday, we dug a mass grave in Jabalia market for more than 100 martyrs, whose bodies rotted in the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital.

"All of the northern hospitals are out of service, including the last functionining hospital, Kamal Adwan, which was heavily bombed by artillery shells."

No aid has reached the north since the humanitarian truce has collapsed, very little food and fuel were allowed during the truce.On Wednesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that the humanitarian system in Gaza may collapse and public order could completely break down

His comments have been criticized by Israel Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who called Guterres' tenure a "danger to world peace".

The UN has dismissed Israeli claims that it is biased over the Israel-Gaza conflict, insisting: "The only side that we are on is on the side of saving lives."

On Wednesday, Guterres wrote a letter to members of the Security Council, invoking a UN article not used in decades and urging them to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Israel said he had reached a new moral low and this was proof of his bias against them.

Speaking on the Today program on BBC Radio 4, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for Guterres, said it was very rare for a secretary-general to invoke the article, but he had been compelled to do so because of the extent of "appalling human suffering".

Dujarric said there must be a ceasefire, saying any further collapse of the order of society in Gaza "would very easily have a catastrophic impact on the region as a whole".

"I don't think anyone can look the other way," he added. "The members of the Security Council all have a responsibility to use their influence to try to end this crisis."

Hamas officials in Gaza say Israel has killed more than 16,200 people, including about 7,000 children, in its retaliatory campaign since the October 7 attack.

Israel maintains that Hamas has a stronghold in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Israeli media reported on Thursday that Israeli forces had captured a main Hamas outpost in the area, and found tunnels and weapons.

A UN report from Thursday indicated that "more than 100 people were killed, and many others injured, in heavy bombardments of multiple residential buildings in the Jabalia camp".

On 5 December, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the Israeli army was fighting "in the heart of Jabalia and in the area of Shejaiya".

"In each such stronghold, combined land and air attacks are carried out, underground infrastructures are destroyed, many terrorists are eliminated in face-to-face battles, and weapons are located," he added.

Israel has announced what it called a "minimal" increase in fuel supplies to southern Gaza.

It said the fuel supply increase was "necessary to avoid a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics".

It follows international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, although the UN says it won't be enough.

It said the ability to receive incoming loads of aid "has been significantly impaired" due to several factors, including a shortage of trucks and staff not being able to get to the Rafah crossing, where aid comes through, because of fighting in the south. — BBC