Gaza and Jerusalem CNN –
Gaza’s humanitarian crisis deepened on Thursday as Israeli warplanes continued to bomb the densely populated enclave in response to brutal Hamas terror attacks, while the Israeli government formed an emergency war cabinet and ordered hospitals to prepare for an expected escalation of violence.
The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians entered new territory this week after Israel suffered its worst attack by Palestinian militants since its founding 75 years ago.
Israel has stepped up its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7, as armed militants poured into Israel across the heavily fortified border.
The gunmen killed more than 1,200 people and injured thousands more in a coordinated rampage through farms and communities in which they also took up to 150 hostages.
The atrocities sparked international revulsion and the Israeli government vowed to destroy Hamas, which has continued to fire rockets into Israeli cities over the past five days.
Yahya Hassouna/AFP/Getty Images
Buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 1,100 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including hundreds of women and children.
Thousands more have been injured as Israeli airstrikes continue to pound the densely populated strip, decimating buildings, reducing entire streets to rubble and trapping residents.
Israel has ordered a “full siege” of the enclave of 2 million people, including cutting off supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel.
More than 330,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, according to a statement from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) early Thursday.
Gaza’s only power plant stopped operating on Wednesday after it ran out of fuel, the head of the Gaza Energy Authority, Galal Ismail, told CNN.
The Palestinian Health Ministry warned that hospitals would run out of fuel on Thursday, leading to “catastrophic” conditions.
Videos and photos from the besieged enclave show scenes of tragedy and heartbreak.
“Body parts are scattered everywhere. People are still missing,” said a man in the northern Al-Karama neighborhood. “We are still looking for our brothers, our children. It’s like we’re living in a nightmare.”
03:32 – Source: CNN
The video shows people trying to escape to a bomb shelter in Israel during the Hamas attack
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Israel has massed around 300,000 reservists near the Gaza border in response to the Hamas attack, a huge mobilization given the country’s 9 million population.
On Thursday, the IDF said it was continuing “large-scale attacks on terrorist targets of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” as speculation grows about a possible ground attack on the Gaza Strip.
“We sent our infantry, tankmen, artillery corps and many other soldiers from the reserve. 300,000 men in various brigades,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said Wednesday.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Portal
A mourner reacts while burying a child killed in Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, Gaza, October 11, 2023.
“They are now near the Gaza Strip and are preparing to carry out the mission assigned to them,” he added.
The Israeli government also said it was preparing its hospitals and health system for “possible escalations in the security situation,” its health ministry said.
The Hamas attack has also brought some political unity in Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz jointly announced an emergency government and war management cabinet on Wednesday.
Gantz, a former defense minister, will join Netanyahu and current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a war cabinet.
“There is time for war and time for peace. “Now is the time for war,” Gantz said during a televised speech.
Abir Sultan/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz attends a cabinet meeting of the new government at Chagall State Hall in Jerusalem on May 24, 2020.
Diplomatic moves are being made to bring about some sort of mediation.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has led the Palestinian Authority for nearly two decades, is scheduled to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official said on Thursday.
Before that meeting, Abbas is expected to meet King Abdullah II of Jordan in Amman on Thursday.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) was established in 1993 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank through the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It stipulated that the PLO would abandon armed resistance against Israel and, in return, promise an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The Palestinian Authority is a rival to Hamas.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman received a call from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday in which he discussed the “military escalation in Gaza,” the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
The scale and nature of Hamas’ attacks have horrified Israelis, as each day brings new testimonies of both atrocities committed, as well as amazing stories of survival and courage amid the carnage.
Tom Hand, a resident of Be’eri, a kibbutz where Hamas gunmen left at least 120 dead, learned that his daughter Emily, 8, was among those killed.
“I knew she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t in Gaza, she wasn’t in a dark room full of God knows how many people being pushed around… scared every minute of every day, possibly for years to come. So death was a blessing,” he told CNN, his voice broken and tears streaming down his tired, ashen face.
03:49 – Source: CNN
Father describes the moment he learned his daughter had been killed
The fact that Hamas has taken an unprecedented number of hostages now complicates Israel’s response.
On Wednesday, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN that Israeli authorities believe the hostages are being held underground.
“Reason dictates that they are underground,” he said. “Reason also dictates that since Hamas planned this attack and planned to take these people hostage, it planned in advance places to hide these hostages and protect them from Israeli intelligence, as well as efforts to get them out. “”
He said that although Israel has “some experience” with hostage-taking, it has never dealt with anything like this before.
Izzat al-Risheq, a senior Hamas official, told CNN on Wednesday that it was too early to exchange Israeli hostages.
“There have been many calls from Arab and non-Arab states to the Hamas leadership abroad asking about the possibility of exchanging Israeli prisoners with Hamas prisoners,” al-Risheq said from Doha, Qatar.
“But we have told everyone that it is now too early to discuss this while Israel continues to bomb Gaza and indiscriminately kill Palestinian civilians.”
This bombardment took an increasing toll on Gaza.
More than two million Palestinians – including over a million children – live in the Gaza Strip, an area that has been under a land, sea and air blockade by Israel since 2007.
It was almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years when Hamas seized control, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a land, air and sea blockade that has continued ever since.
Baz Ratner/AP
A shot-through window at the entrance to a kindergarten in Kibbutz Be’eri on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.
On Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said hospitals in the enclave “risk turning into morgues” following Israel’s siege.
“If Gaza loses power, hospitals will also lose power, endangering newborns in incubators and elderly patients receiving oxygen,” Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC regional director for the Middle East, said in a statement.
He added that the organization was in contact with Hamas and Israeli officials to resolve the release of the dozens of hostages held by the militant Islamist group.
“As a neutral intermediary, we stand ready to carry out humanitarian visits; facilitate communication between hostages and family members; and to facilitate eventual publication,” Carboni said.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Wednesday it urgently needs $104 million for its humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by escalating violence in Gaza.
“We are extremely concerned that what is happening now is completely unprecedented,” Najla Shawa, an Oxfam worker in Gaza, told CNN. “We are talking about entire areas, not just a single area. Entire areas are wiped out and destroyed.”
Hospitals are already overwhelmed with injured patients, many of them children.
“I was sleeping and then suddenly everything started falling on us,” a little girl waiting in a hospital with blood on her face told CNN.
“Someone came and helped me, they took me straight to the hospital. But I don’t know what happened to all my sisters.”