STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have an assessment this morning of Israel's operations in northern Gaza. Israeli forces have cut off food, water, and medicine for about 20 days. The military says it is thwarting efforts by Hamas militants to rebuild. Palestinian doctors and aid workers are among the hundreds killed in recent days.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy, who has been reporting on Gaza from Dubai, is with us now. Aya, good morning.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So Aya, the Israeli military has conducted raids in Gaza over the past year of war. You've been talking to people in the north who say this operation feels different. What can you tell us about that?
BATRAWY: Sure. So people in the north are telling me this feels like an attempt to permanently occupy the north of Gaza and ensure Palestinians can never return. Now, this area of Jabalia, where the siege is most intense, has been raided before, and people were able to return in the past. Now, the military says it has detained hundreds of militants in this operation, found rifles and rocket launchers, and that they've allowed some 20,000 people - already civilians - to evacuate Jabalia for Gaza City about two miles away.
But civil defense crews - those rescuing people on the ground - say they've been fired at by Israeli drones. They fear some other team members are now missing among the hundreds killed in the past three weeks in the north. Their one working fire truck was bombed yesterday. They say they're completely unable to work now in the north and reach people that are still calling them from under the rubble. Also, hospitals are running out of supplies. Have a listen to this voice memo from a nurse besieged in the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia, where patients are dying and food is running out. We're not using his name for his own safety.
UNIDENTIFIED NURSE: We are so, so tired. We are so tired. We don't have water. And we don't know what will happen tomorrow.
BATRAWY: Now, there's another hospital in the north treating 160 wounded people at the moment. They also say they have about 30 patients dead in the hospital. There are videos there showing children that are burnt from head to toe, Michel, wrapped in gauze, barely able to blink. And a World Health Organization team that reached the hospital this week says they were blocked by Israel from bringing blood bags, medical supplies, fuel and even food to that hospital.
MARTIN: To that end, Aya, last week the Biden administration warned it might have to stop arms shipments if Israel does not send more aid into Gaza. Has anything changed since then?
BATRAWY: Well, for the first two weeks of October, Israel had blocked all food and basically all fuel supplies to some 400,000 people across all of north Gaza, not just Jabalia. And Israel denies it was intentionally starving people there, and they say more than 200 aid trucks have now gotten into north Gaza. But the World Food Programme says it's not enough, and they say they're often denied Israeli permission to pick up the aid that's left just across the border. So it's not just about what comes into Gaza. It's whether aid workers are able to reach that aid and then get it into where people need it. And look, the backdrop to all of this is there are growing calls in Israel from prominent members of this current right-wing government to permanently expel Palestinians and build Jewish settlements in their place.
MARTIN: Yesterday, we learned that the Israeli military named six Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza as militants. Now, we know that journalists there have been killed doing their job, and independent access for reporters has been denied. What has been the response?
BATRAWY: Well, yes, Israeli military says it produced what it calls intelligence information in documents found in Gaza proving that these six Al Jazeera reporters had ties with militant groups like Hamas, but Al Jazeera denies this. And one of the reporters there says it's an attempt to silence their work in north Gaza and preemptively justify their murder.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Aya Batrawy reporting from Dubai. Aya, thank you.
BATRAWY: Thanks, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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