‘You need a miracle to survive here’
Desperation in Gaza grows as Israeli assault continues
Israel’s military directed the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City yesterday ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive.
It came after another day of airstrikes, leaving Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine.
A visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with shipments of US weapons, offered a powerful green light to Israel to drive ahead with its retaliation in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly attack on civilians and soldiers, even as international aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel has halted deliveries of basic necessities and electricity to Gaza’s 2.3 million people and prevented entry of supplies from Egypt.
“Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said.
Yesterday the United Nations said it has been told by the Israeli military that 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should immediately relocate to the enclave’s south.
Israel’s directive charged that Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels under the city.
“This is chaos, no one understands what to do,” said Inas Hamdan, an officer at the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza City while she grabbed whatever she could throw into her bags as the panicked shouts of her relatives could be heard around her. She said all the UN staff in Gaza City and northern Gaza had been told to evacuate south to Rafah.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
A Hamas official called the UN warning “fake propaganda”, and has urged Palestinians in Gaza not to fall for it, Reuters reported.
Hamas’ assault on Saturday and smaller attacks since have killed more than 1300 people in Israel, including
247 soldiers — a toll unseen in Israel for decades — and the ensuing Israeli bombardment has killed more than
1530 people in Gaza, according to authorities on both sides. Israel says roughly 1500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel, and that hundreds of the dead in Gaza are Hamas members. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
As Israel pounds Gaza from the air, Hamas militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel.
The relentless barrage on Gaza left Palestinians running through streets, carrying their belongings and looking for safety. A strike yesterday in the Jabaliya refugee camp took down a residential building on families sheltering inside, killing at least 45 people, Gaza’s Interior Ministry said. At least 23 of the dead were under the age of 18, including a month-old child, according to a list of the casualties.
“We can’t flee because anywhere you go, you are bombed,” Khalil Abu Yahia, said. “You need a miracle to survive here.”
A ground offensive in Gaza where the population is densely packed into a sliver of land only 40km long would likely bring even higher casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting. The number of people forced from their homes by the airstrikes soared 25 per cent in a day, reaching
423,000 out of a population of 2.3 million, the UN said. Most crowded into UN-run schools.
Families were cutting down to one meal a day, said Rami Swailem, a
34-year-old lecturer at al-Azhar University, who had 32 relatives sheltering in his home. Water stopped coming to the building two days ago, and they have rationed what’s left in a
tank on the roof.
On Thursday, Gaza’s only power station ran out of fuel and shut down, leaving only lights powered by scattered private generators.
Hospitals, overwhelmed by a constant stream of wounded and running out of supplies, have only a few days worth of fuel before their power cuts off, aid officials say.
“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Ambulance crews carrying bodies to the morgue at Gaza’s biggest hospital, Shifa, found no space left.
With Israel sealing off the territory, the only way in or out is through the crossing with Egypt at Rafah, but Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said airstrikes on Rafah have prevented it from operating. Israel is employing a new tactic of levelling whole neighbourhoods, rather than just individual buildings.
Lieutenant colonel Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said targeting decisions were based on intelligence on locations being used by Hamas and that civilians were warned.
The military said strikes have hit Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces, including command centres used by the fighters in Saturday’s attack, and the home of a senior Hamas naval operative used to store weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hamas after the militants stormed into the country’s south on Saturday and massacred hundreds of people, including killings of children in their homes and young people at a music festival. Netanyahu said Hamas’ atrocities included beheading soldiers and raping women, descriptions that could not immediately be independently confirmed.
While the Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions capable of burning human flesh in Gaza and Lebanon.
The international nongovernmental organisation claimed it had verified videos showing repeated use of artillery-fired white phosphorus in Gaza and Lebanon.
White phosphorus can cause severe burns, putting civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries, including causing multiple organ failure.
Amid grief and demands for vengeance among the Israeli public, the government is under intense pressure to topple Hamas rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza.
In a video released yesterday, civilian Hamas figures defended the group’s rampage and decried the civilian deaths in Gaza from six days of Israeli airstrikes.
Basem Naim, a former Hamas government minister, said there would be no action to free the 150 captives taken back into Gaza while Israel’s operation continued.
Brewing anger over Israeli military and intelligence failures in the surprise attack is being directed at Netanyahu’s far-right government, which for months advanced a contentious legal overhaul that divided the country and affected the military.
In what appeared to be a first admission of fault from a government member, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told Israeli news outlet Ynet: “We are responsible. I, as a member of the government, am responsible. We were dealing with nonsense.”
Blinken’s visit underscored American backing for Israel’s retaliation.
“You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourselves, but as long as America exists, you will never have to,” Blinken said.
Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.
Fabrizio Carboni, Red Cross.