JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a leading opposition figure formed a war cabinet Wednesday to oversee the fight against Hamas militants after their stunning attack over the weekend. In the isolated Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas, Palestinians struggled to find safety as Israeli bombings destroyed entire neighborhoods and the territory’s only power plant ran out of fuel.
The new wartime cabinet will consist of Netanyahu, Benny Gantz – a senior opposition politician and former defense minister – and current defense minister Yoav Gallant, according to a statement released by Gantz. The Cabinet will focus only on war issues. It appeared as if Netanyahu’s remaining existing government partners, a collection of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, would remain in office and focus on other issues.
The unusual agreement restores some unity after years of bitter political division, with the military increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive in Gaza. The government is under intense public pressure to topple Hamas after its militants stormed the border fence on Saturday and shot hundreds of Israelis in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor music festival.
Israel’s top opposition leader Yair Lapid was invited to join the new cabinet but did not immediately respond to the offer.
The war has already claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides, and a ground offensive in Gaza is likely to dramatically increase the toll.
Already, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have reduced entire city blocks in the tiny coastal enclave to rubble, leaving an unknown number of bodies beneath piles of rubble.
Militants in Gaza are holding an estimated 150 people kidnapped from Israel – soldiers, men, women, children and older adults. They continued to fire rockets into Israel on Wednesday, including a heavy barrage into the southern city of Ashkelon.
Israel stopped imports of food, water, fuel and medicine into the Gaza Strip – a 40-kilometer-long strip of land between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. The only remaining entrance from Egypt was closed on Tuesday after airstrikes broke out near the border crossing.
As Palestinians crowded into U.N. schools and increasingly unsafe neighborhoods, humanitarian groups advocated for the creation of corridors to receive aid and warned that hospitals overwhelmed with the wounded were running out of supplies.
“There is no safe place in Gaza at the moment,” journalist Hasan Jabar said after three Palestinian journalists were killed in the bombing of a downtown district containing government ministries, media offices and hotels. “I’m really scared for my life.”
Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel on Wednesday afternoon and had to shut down after Israel cut off supplies, the Energy Ministry said. This leaves only generators to supply the area with electricity – but these too run on scarce fuel.
The United Nations World Health Organization said supplies it had provided to seven hospitals were already running low amid the surge in wounded. Doctors Without Borders said two hospitals it runs in Gaza were running low on surgical equipment, antibiotics, fuel and other supplies.
In one case, “we used three weeks’ worth of emergency supplies in three days, partly due to 50 patients arriving at once,” Matthias Kannes, the aid group’s head of operations in Gaza, said on Wednesday. He said the region’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, only had enough fuel for three days.
Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists and appears increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive in Gaza as its government faces intense public pressure to topple Hamas, which has ruled the territory since 2007 and was firmly in control in four previous wars.
This would likely require a prolonged ground assault and at least a temporary reoccupation of Gaza. Even then, Hamas had a long history of operating as an underground insurgent in Israeli-controlled areas.
“We will not allow Israeli children to be murdered,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday in a meeting with soldiers near the southern border. “I have lifted every restriction – we will eliminate anyone who fights against us and take all measures at our disposal.”
Israeli airstrikes hit the family home of Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’s military wing, late Tuesday, killing his father, brother and at least two other relatives in the southern town of Khan Younis, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told The Associated Press.
Deif has never been seen in public and his whereabouts are unknown.
Meanwhile, exchanges of fire across Israel’s northern border with militants in Lebanon and Syria signaled the risk of the regional conflict expanding.
US President Joe Biden warned other countries and armed groups against entering war on Tuesday. The US is already supplying ammunition and military equipment to Israel and has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean as a deterrent.
On Wednesday, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military position, saying it killed and wounded troops. The Israeli military confirmed the attack but did not comment on possible casualties. The Israeli army shelled the area in southern Lebanon where the attack took place.
In a new tactic, Israel is warning civilians to evacuate entire neighborhoods – not just individual buildings – causing devastation that could be the prelude to a ground offensive.
“The goal is for this war to end very differently than all previous rounds. There has to be a clear victory,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel. “Whatever needs to be done to fundamentally change the situation must be done.”
Hamas officials said they had considered all options, including punishing Israeli escalation. Desperation has grown among Palestinians. Many of them see nothing to lose in the face of the endless Israeli military occupation and expanding settlements in the West Bank, a 16-year blockade in the Gaza Strip and what they see as global apathy.
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said Israeli airstrikes destroyed the entire al-Karama neighborhood in Gaza City and killed or wounded a “large number” of people. It said medical teams were unable to reach the area as all roads leading there were destroyed. Rescuers say they also found it difficult to reach other areas.
In another neighborhood, Palestinian civil defense forces on Tuesday pulled Abdullah Musleh out of his basement along with 30 others after their home was leveled.
“I sell toys, not rockets,” said the 46-year-old, crying. “I want to leave Gaza. Why do I have to stay here? I lost my home and my job.”
On Wednesday, an AP reporter witnessed waves of rockets falling on Ashkelon, shrapnel hitting the street and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepting at least one of them. Residents screamed and cried when they heard the explosions.
According to the military, a group of militants entered an industrial area in Ashkelon on Tuesday evening and sparked a shootout with Israeli troops. Three militants were killed and troops searched the area for more.
According to the Israeli military, more than 1,200 people, including 155 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, a staggering toll not seen since the weeks-long war with Egypt and Syria in 1973. According to the authorities there, 1,055 people were killed in Gaza; Israel says there are hundreds of Hamas fighters among them. Thousands were injured on both sides.
The bodies of around 1,500 Hamas fighters were found on Israeli territory, the military said. It was not clear whether those numbers overlapped with deaths reported by Palestinian authorities.
Days of clashes between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli forces in the West Bank have left 15 Palestinians dead. The violence also spread to East Jerusalem, where Israeli police said late Tuesday they killed two Palestinians who were hurling stones at police.
In Gaza, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes, according to the United Nations, the highest number since an Israeli air and ground offensive in 2014 that displaced about 400,000 people. The vast majority are housed in schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Damage to three water and sanitation facilities has disrupted services for 400,000 people, the United Nations said.
Tens of thousands of people in southern Israel have been evacuated since Sunday.
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Shurafa reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel and Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.