By Henriette Chacar, Dedi Hayun and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/GAZA (Portal) – Israel said on Thursday there would be no humanitarian exemptions from the Gaza siege until all its hostages were released, after the Red Cross pleaded for fuel to be allowed in to prevent overflowing hospitals. “Morgues are reduced to rubble and ashes”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Tel Aviv to show solidarity with Israel, prevent the conflict from spreading and try to free hostages. Beside him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Thank you, America, for standing with Israel today, tomorrow and always.”
Israel has vowed to destroy the Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the deadliest attack on civilians in its history, as hundreds of gunmen crossed the barrier and rampaged through Israeli cities on Saturday.
Public broadcaster Kan said the Israeli death toll had risen to over 1,300. Most were civilians shot in their homes, on the street or at a dance party. Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were returned to Gaza; Israel says it has identified 97 of them.
The full extent of the killings became clear in recent days after Israeli forces retook control of cities and found homes littered with bodies. They say they found women raped and killed and children shot and burned.
Israel has so far responded by completely laying siege to Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, and launching by far the heaviest bombardment in the 75-year history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, destroying entire neighborhoods.
According to Gaza authorities, the bombing killed 1,354 Palestinians and injured more than 6,000.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said emergency generators in hospitals in Gaza could run out of power within hours.
“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said ICRC regional director Fabrizio Carboni. “The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent and I implore the sides to alleviate the suffering of civilians.”
Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said there would be no exceptions to the siege without the release of Israeli hostages.
“Humanitarian aid for Gaza? No electrical switch will be opened, no water hydrant will be opened and no tanker truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And no one should preach morality to us,” Katz posted on social media Platform X.
Bury the dead
Standing next to Blinken after their meeting in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu praised US President Joe Biden for his comments on Wednesday in which he called the Hamas attacks “plain evil.” Biden also noted that the attacks were “the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”
Blinken supported Netanyahu’s decision to bring some of his political opponents into a wartime unity cabinet, saying the United States knows that Hamas does not represent the true aspirations of the Palestinian people.
Blinken will visit Jordan on Friday to meet King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Abbas, an enemy of Hamas, did not directly condemn Saturday’s attacks on Israel, attributing the escalation to a neglect of Palestinian grievances.
Scores of Israelis gathered at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday to bury their dead.
“When you didn’t answer my call, I knew you were fighting with all your might. When I realized you were missing, I couldn’t imagine it would end like this,” a mourner was heard saying as families hugged.
At the hospital in Khan Younis, the capital in southern Gaza, a woman tried to calm a crying girl whose house had been hit. The girl kept screaming, “My mother, I want my mother.”
“She’s looking for her mother. We don’t know where she is,” said the woman who took the girl in her arms.
In Gaza’s Al Shati refugee camp, residents searched the rubble with their bare hands for survivors and bodies. Rescue workers say they lack fuel and equipment to pull victims out of collapsed buildings.
According to the United Nations, at least 340,000 people have been made homeless in the Gaza Strip in the past four days. Nearly 220,000 of them are housed in 92 United Nations-run schools.
At a school turned shelter, 14-year-old Hanan Al-Attar said her family rushed out of their home with nothing but the clothes on their backs as bombs fell nearby. Her uncle went back to get some clothes and was killed when the house was hit.
“They are bombing the homes of civilians, women and children,” her grandfather said.
Egypt, which has a single border crossing with the Gaza Strip, said it was trying to allow aid there.
Israeli reservists – a significant portion of the combat-ready population in a country with compulsory military service – streamed home from abroad to join the fight.
“Everybody comes. Nobody says no,” said Yonatan Steiner, 24, who flew back from New York, where he works for a technology company, to join his old Army medical unit.
“This is different, this is unprecedented, the rules have changed,” he said by telephone from the border near Lebanon, where his regiment is based.
Israel’s next step could be a ground attack on Gaza. A decision on the invasion has not yet been made, “but we are preparing for it,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said early Thursday.
The war has torn diplomacy in the region just as Israel prepared to strike a deal to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia, the richest Arab power, and months after Riyadh cut ties with its regional rival Iran, sponsor of the Hamas, had resumed.
Tehran has celebrated Hamas’ attacks but denied being behind them. Biden said deploying military ships and aircraft closer to Israel should be seen as a signal to Iran to stay out of the conflict.
(Reporting by Henriette Chacar, Dedi Hayun, Maayan Lubell and Emily Rose in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Emma Farge in Geneva, Jeff Mason in Washington and Portal bureaus, Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alex Richardson, Nick Macfie , Alexandra Hudson)