Gaza\u2019s humanitarian crisis deepened Thursday as Israeli jets continued to pound the densely populated enclave in response to Hamas\u2019 brutal terror attacks, while Israel\u2019s government formed an emergency war cabinet and ordered hospitals to prepare for an expected escalation of violence. <\/p>\n
The decades old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians entered uncharted territory this week after Israel suffered its worst attack by Palestinian militants since its founding 75 years ago. <\/p>\n
Israel has stepped up its offensive in Gaza following Hamas\u2019 October 7 onslaught, when armed militants poured over the heavily-fortified border into Israel. <\/p>\n
The gunmen killed more than 1,200 people, wounding thousands more in a coordinated rampage through farms and communities where they also took as many as 150 hostages. <\/p>\n
The atrocities have sparked international revulsion and vows by Israel\u2019s government to destroy Hamas, which has continued to fire rockets at Israeli towns over the last five days. <\/p>\n
At least 1,354 people have since been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. <\/p>\n
More than 6,000 have been wounded, the ministry said, as Israeli air strikes continue to pummel the densely populated strip, decimating buildings, reducing entire streets to rubble and trapping residents. <\/p>\n
Israel has ordered a \u201ccomplete siege\u201d on the enclave of 2 million people, including halting supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, Israel\u2019s Energy Minister Israel Katz said supplies would remain cut off until hostages being held by Hamas are freed. \u201cNo electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And no one will preach us morals,\u201d Katz said on social media. <\/p>\n
More than 330,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, according to a statement by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) early Thursday. <\/p>\n
Hospitals are expected to run out of fuel on Thursday, leading to \u201ccatastrophic\u201d conditions, the Palestinian Health Ministry warned. <\/p>\n
A surge in injured people seeking treatment has pushed Gaza\u2019s health infrastructure close to breaking point, Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said on Thursday. \u201cEven after expansion, all beds are occupied, leaving no room for new patients in critical condition,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila has called for urgent international assistance to help set up field hospitals in the Gaza Strip and to provide medicines and medical supplies. <\/p>\n
Video and photo from the besieged enclave depict scenes of tragedy and heartbreak. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are body parts scattered everywhere. There are still people missing,\u201d one man in the northern neighborhood of Al-Karama said. \u201cWe\u2019re still looking for our brothers, our children. It\u2019s like we\u2019re stuck living in a nightmare.\u201d <\/p>\n
In response to Hamas\u2019 assault Israel has massed some 300,000 reservists near the Gaza border, according to the Israel Defence Force (IDF), a huge mobilization given the country\u2019s 9 million population. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, the IDF said it was continuing \u201clarge scale strikes on terror targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza strip,\u201d as speculation of a possible ground incursion into Gaza grows. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have sent our infantry, armored soldiers, our artillery corps and many other soldiers from the reserves. 300,000 in numbers in different brigades,\u201d Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are now close to the Gaza Strip, getting ready to execute the mission that they have been given,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s government also said it was preparing its hospitals and healthcare system for \u201cpossible escalations in the security situation,\u201d its health ministry said. <\/p>\n
Hamas\u2019 attack has also sparked some political unity in Israel after months of domestic friction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz jointly announcing an emergency government and war management cabinet on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Gantz, a former defense minister, will join Netanyahu and current defense minister Yoav Gallant in a wartime cabinet. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is time for war and time for peace. This, now, is the time for war,\u201d Gantz said during a televised address. <\/p>\n
A diplomatic push is being made to try and bring about some sort of mediation. <\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday and met with Netanyahu. <\/p>\n
Blinken is scheduled to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah II of Jordan on Friday, according to a US official. <\/p>\n
Abbas leads the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was established in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 1993 through the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It stipulated the PLO give up armed resistance against Israel in return for promises of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. <\/p>\n
The PA are rivals to Hamas. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman received a call from Iran\u2019s President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday in which they discussed the \u201cmilitary escalation in Gaza,\u201d Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. <\/p>\n
The scale and nature of Hamas\u2019 attacks have horrified Israelis with each day bringing new testimonies of both atrocities committed as well as astonishing tales of survival and bravery amidst the carnage. <\/p>\n
Tom Hand, a resident of the Be\u2019eri, a kibbutz where Hamas gunmen left at least 120 dead, learned his daughter Emily, 8, was among the murdered. <\/p>\n
The fact that Hamas has taken an unprecedented number of hostages now complicates Israel\u2019s response. <\/p>\n
\u201cReason dictates that they are underground,\u201d he said. \u201cReason also dictates that Hamas, since they planned to launch this attack and they planned to take these people hostage, reason dictates that they planned in advance locations to hide these hostages and keep them safe from Israeli intelligence, and efforts to get them out.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said even though Israel has had \u201csome experience\u201d with hostage situations they have never dealt with anything like this. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were many calls made by Arab and non-Arab states to Hamas leadership abroad asking about the possibility of exchanging Israeli captives with Hamas prisoners,\u201d al-Risheq said from Doha, Qatar. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut we told everybody that it\u2019s now too early to discuss it while Israel continues to pound Gaza and kill Palestinian civilians indiscriminately.\u201d <\/p>\n
That bombardment has taken an increasing toll on Gaza. <\/p>\n
More than 2 million Palestinians \u2013 including over a million children \u2013 live in the Gaza Strip, an area that has been under a land, sea and air blockade, enforced by Israel since 2007. <\/p>\n
It has been 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 naval blockade, which has continued ever since. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said hospitals in the enclave \u201crisk turning into morgues\u201d following Israel\u2019s siege. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk,\u201d ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East, Fabrizio Carboni, said in a statement. <\/p>\n
He added the organization is in touch with Hamas and Israeli officials to address the release of the dozens of hostages held by the Islamist militant group. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a neutral intermediary we stand ready to conduct humanitarian visits; facilitate communication between hostages and family members; and to facilitate any eventual release,\u201d Carboni said. <\/p>\n
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Wednesday it is urgently seeking $104 million to provide with its humanitarian response to the civilians impacted by the escalation of violence in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Hospitals are already overrun with injured patients, many of whom are children. <\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone came and helped me out, they took me straight to the hospital. But I don\u2019t know what happened to all of my sisters.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Gaza\u2019s humanitarian crisis deepened Thursday as Israeli jets continued to pound the densely populated enclave in response to Hamas\u2019 brutal terror attacks, while Israel\u2019s government formed an emergency war cabinet and ordered hospitals to prepare for an expected escalation of violence. The decades old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians entered uncharted territory this week after <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}