Israel yesterday pounded Gaza in an escalating air and ground campaign as the UN warned that civil order was “starting to break down” in the Palestinian territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steeled the nation for a “long and difficult war” ahead as the Red Cross voiced shock at the “intolerable” human suffering inside Gaza.
Despite calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and outrage across the Muslim world, Israel has intensified the war triggered when Hamas militants stormed across the Gaza border on Oct. 7 in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
Photo: AFP
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said the unrelenting retaliatory Israeli bombardment has killed more than 8,000 people, mainly civilians and half of them children.
The Israeli military yesterday said that it had struck another 450 Hamas targets within the past 24 hours, and that it was increasing its ground forces in Gaza.
In a late-night televised address on Saturday, Netanyahu announced a “second stage of the war whose goals are clear: Destroying the military and leadership capabilities of Hamas, and bringing the hostages back home.”
Panic and fear have surged inside Gaza, where more than half of its 2.4 million residents are displaced, according to the UN, and thousands of buildings have been destroyed.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the situation was “growing more desperate by the hour,” as casualties increase and essential supplies of food, water, medicine and shelter dwindle.
He reiterated appeals for a ceasefire to end the “nightmare.”
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East yesterday said “thousands of people” broke into several of its warehouses and distribution centers in Gaza, grabbing basic survival items like wheat flour and hygiene supplies.
“This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down,” it said.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, voiced shock at the “intolerable level of human suffering” in Gaza and urged all sides to de-escalate.
“This is a catastrophic failing that the world must not tolerate,” she said.
Israeli fighter jets again dropped leaflets over Gaza City on Saturday, warning residents that the northern area was now a “battlefield” and they should “evacuate immediately.”
Hamas authorities yesterday reported that a “large number” of people were killed overnight in strikes on two refugee camps in northern Gaza.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari reiterated that Palestinian civilians should go south “to a safer area where they can receive water, food and medicine.”
After 84 aid trucks entered the territory in the past few days, he vowed humanitarian efforts to Gaza would expand.
However, Ibrahim Shandoughli a 53-year-old from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, said: “Where do you want us to evacuate to? All the areas are dangerous.”
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