Jerusalem: The war between Israel and Hamas raged for a fifth day on Wednesday, as Israeli warplanes hammered neighbourhood after neighbourhood in the Gaza Strip of beleaguered Palestine, reducing buildings to rubble, killing hundreds in the process, and sending people scrambling to find safety.
Humanitarian groups pleaded for the creation of corridors that would allow them to deliver aid, saying hospitals were overwhelmed with wounded people and running out of supplies. Israel has stopped entry of food, fuel and medicines into Gaza in response to Hamas' bloody incursion into Israel on Saturday. The sole remaining access from Egypt shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing.
Here are some of the latest updates from the war:
A top opposition Israeli politician says he has reached an agreement to enter a wartime unity government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and military chief of staff, released what he said was a joint statement with Netanyahu. The statement said they would form a five-member “war-management” Cabinet. It will consist of Netanyahu, Gantz, current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and two other top officials serving as “observer” members.
It said the government would not pass any legislation or decisions that are not connected to the war as long as the fighting continues. It was not immediately clear what would happen to Netanyahu’s existing government partners, a collection of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.
- Human casualties
The war, which has claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides, is expected to escalate. New exchanges of fire over Israeli's northern borders with militants in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday pointed to the risk of an expanded regional conflict. The Israeli military said more than 1,200 people, including 155 soldiers, have died in Israel since Saturday's incursion. In Gaza, 1,050 people have been killed, including 260 children and 230 women, and 5100 others have been injured. Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are among them. The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency says 250,000 people have been displaced in Gaza.
In Israel and beyond, the families of more than 150 people kidnapped by Hamas and other militant groups feared for the lives of their loved ones. The armed wing of Hamas has warned it will kill one of the hostages every time Israel's military bombs civilian targets in Gaza without warning.
- Gaza's only power plant runs out of fuel
Gaza's only power plant has run out of fuel, forcing it to shut down after Israel cut off supplies, the Energy Ministry said on Wednesday. That will leave only generators to power the territory. The blackouts come as Israel has decided to block fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip as part of what the Israeli government has called a complete siege on the territory run by the Hamas militant group. Israel said it would cut off all electricity to the territory after Hamas’ bloody rampage over the weekend. All of Gaza’s crossings are closed, making it impossible to bring in fuel for the power plant or the generators on which residents and hospitals have long relied.
- Supplies run out in Gaza
The U.N.’s World Health Organization said that supplies it had pre-positioned for seven hospitals have already run out amid the flood of wounded. The head of the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said surgical equipment, antibiotics, fuel and other supplies were running out at two hospitals it runs in Gaza.
In one, “we consumed three weeks worth of emergency stock in three days, partly due to 50 patients coming in at once,” Matthias Kannes, the aid group’s head of mission in Gaza, said Wednesday. He said the territory's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, only has enough fuel for three days. In Gaza, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes, the U.N. said, the most since a 2014 air and ground offensive by Israel uprooted about 400,000. The vast majority are sheltering in schools run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
Turkish President Erdogan has slammed Israel for bombing Gaza while blocking its supplies and turning the already beleaguered region into a war zone. Israel's response comes after Hamas's unprecedented attack last Saturday.
- King Charles III condemns attacks on Israel
King Charles III has condemned the “barbaric acts of terrorism in Israel,” and has asked officials to keep him updated on developments in the Middle East, a palace official said Wednesday. In a briefing at Buckingham Palace on the king’s upcoming visit to Kenya, a spokesman said the king was extremely concerned about the situation.
‘’His thoughts and prayers are with all of those suffering, particularly those who have lost loved ones, but also those actively involved as we speak,’’ the spokesman said. “His Majesty is appalled by and condemns the barbaric acts of terrorism in Israel."
- Israel likely to launch ground offensive as air strikes flatten Gaza
Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists and appears increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive into Gaza, which is likely to dramatically hike casualties, with its government under intense pressure from the public to topple Hamas, which has ruled the territory since 2007. That goal was considered unachievable in the past because it would require a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, at least temporarily.
Already, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza smashed entire city blocks to rubble in the tiny coastal enclave and left unknown numbers of bodies beneath mounds of debris.
“We will not allow a reality in which Israeli children are murdered,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a meeting with soldiers near the southern border on Tuesday. “I have removed every restriction — we will eliminate anyone who fights us, and use every measure at our disposal.” Gaza’s power authority says its sole power plant will run out of fuel within hours, leaving the territory without electricity after Israel cut off supplies. Palestinians there have long relied on generators to power homes, offices and hospitals, but have no way of importing fuel for those either.
- US rushes war equipment to Israel but warns other countries against entering the conflict
U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday warned other countries and armed groups against entering the conflict. The U.S. is already rushing munitions and military equipment to Israel and has deployed a carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean as deterrence.
The video footage and images released by Israel's Ministry of Defence showed the landing of a cargo plane that delivered the initial shipment of equipment procured and brought to the country through a joint operation. The Ministry of Defence's Directorate of Production and Procurement, the US Procurement Mission, and the International Transportation Unit within the Israel Defence Ministry in the operation oversaw the mobilisation of the cargo plane, ensuring the direct transport of armaments from the US, Mayan Lazarovich from the Ministry of Defence Spokesperson's Office, said in a statement.
- 9 UN staffers killed in airstrikes in Gaza
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on Wednesday said that nine of its staffers have been killed in airstrikes since the the start of the Israeli bombardment on Gaza on Saturday, with several killed late Tuesday. The protection of civilians is paramount, including in times of conflict, said Juliette Touma, director of communications of the agency, known as UNRWA. They should be protected in accordance with the laws of war.
Touma said the strikes killed the UN staffers at their homes across the territory. She also said that 18 UNRWA schools-turned-shelters were damaged in the bombing, and that its headquarters in Gaza City was also damaged, without causing casualties.
- Pope Francis calls on Hamas to release hostages immediately
Vatican City Pope Francis on Wednesday called for the immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas fighters in the most serious assault on Israel in half a century. Francis said during a weekly audience that he is following events in Israel and the occupied territories with pain and apprehension, with many dead and injured,' and said he is praying for those who saw a day of celebration transformed into a day of mourning. The pope said that whoever is attacked has the right to defend himself. But I am very worried about the total siege under which the Palestinians in Gaza are living, where there are also many innocent victims.
- Israeli airstrikes killed family members of leader Mohammad Deif, says Hamas
Hamas officials say Israeli airstrikes late Tuesday struck the family house of Mohammad Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’s military wing. The attack killed his father, brother and at least two other relatives in the southern town of Khan Younis, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim confirmed to The Associated Press. The whereabouts of Deif himself have long been unknown.
- What prompted Hamas' attack on Israel
Hamas, which seeks Israel's destruction, says it is defending Palestinians' right to freedom and self-determination. But the devastation following Hamas' surprise attack on Saturday has sharpened questions about its strategy and objectives. Hamas officials have said they planned for all possibilities, including a punishing Israeli escalation.
Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending Israeli control and increasing settlements in the West Bank, a 16-year-long blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world's apathy. On Tuesday, the militant group rejected U.S. President Joe Biden's latest condemnation of its attack on Israel, calling it a cover-up for what they view as criminal acts by Israel in Gaza and other occupied territories.
"We, in the Hamas movement, call on the American administration to review its biased position, and to move away from the policy of double standards when it comes to the Zionist occupation, and we affirm the right of our Palestinian people to defend themselves, their land, and their Islamic and Christian sanctities ... until their legitimate aspirations ... are achieved to establish a Palestinian state with its capital (in) Jerusalem," the Hamas said in a statement. In addition to citing long-simmering tensions, Hamas officials cite a long-running dispute over the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque that is sacred to Muslims. (With AP inputs)
