Israel’s bombardment leaves Gaza reeling
Millions lack food, water, and fuel with ground war possibly looming
TEL AVIV — Six days of Israeli airstrikes have left more than 300,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip homeless, with 2 million residents facing critical shortages of food, water, and fuel, while Israeli troops prepared Thursday for a possible ground invasion after Hamas’s deadly assault last weekend.
Retaliating for the bloodiest attack on Israel in 50 years, Israel is pummeling Gaza with a ferocity not seen in past conflicts and has cut off vital supplies to the coastal territory. Health officials in Gaza said the Israeli bombardment had killed at least 1,500 people and injured more than 6,600.
Israel’s military said it is hitting places used by Hamas, which controls Gaza, including mosques, houses, and other outwardly civilian locations. Gazans said the airstrikes are doing indiscriminate damage to civilians and civilian sites, and independent observers have confirmed that schools and ambulances have been destroyed.
The retaliatory strikes began after Hamas terrorists broke through the border fence with Israel on Saturday morning and attacked towns, kibbutzim, and a military base, killing more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, wounding about 3,000, and holding hostage about 150, the Israeli government said.
Gaza’s only power plant stopped generating electricity Wednesday for lack of fuel, shutting down everything from lights to refrigerators, and much of the region lacks running water. Hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded patients and running out of vital supplies; fuel for generators and vehicles is dwindling rapidly; food and water are growing scarce; and it is not clear when humanitarian aid might be allowed in.
“We are facing a huge disaster,” Adnan Abu Hasna, an official with the United Nations agency that aids Palestinian refugees, said from Gaza. He described conditions as “absolute
ly horrible.”
With the United States stepping up its weapons shipments to Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a military base in Tel Aviv to reinforce support for Israel “as long as America exists.”
“I come before you not only as the US secretary of state, but also as a Jew,” said Blinken, whose stepfather, Samuel Pisar, survived Nazi concentration camps. “I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes that Hamas’s massacres carry for Israeli Jews and for Jews everywhere.”
He added: “This is, this must be, a moment for moral clarity.”
But Blinken also suggested the need for caution in Israel’s retaliation. “It’s important to take every possible precaution to prevent harming civilians,” he said.
Netanyahu has said that Hamas shot children in the head, burned people alive, raped women, and decapitated soldiers.
In a videoconference call to NATO headquarters, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant showed a video of the Hamas attacks that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called “horrific.” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin later added: “We are appalled by the emerging scope of the atrocities committed by the terrorists of Hamas.”
The White House said 27 US citizens were killed in the Hamas attack, and the State Department said there were 500 to 600 Americans living or visiting in Gaza whose safety it was trying to guarantee.
In a televised speech, Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida said the group had achieved more than it had hoped for in its attack, which he said involved a 3,000-person battalion and a 1,500-person backup force. He confirmed reports that Hamas had successfully duped Israeli intelligence into believing that it did not want a major conflict.
“We are telling the enemy, if you dare enter Gaza, we will destroy your army,” he said.
Israel has called up 360,000 reservists and is building up a large force on the border with Gaza — as well as a smaller one near the northern border with Lebanon — amid widespread speculation that it will invade the Hamas-held territory, which it last did in 2014.
The military “is preparing multiple operational contingency plans” for what it expects will be a protracted war, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, told reporters. “We’re waiting to see what our political leadership decides about a potential ground war. This has not been decided yet.”
He said Israeli warplanes were concentrating on striking targets belonging to an elite Hamas unit known as the Nukhba, which is believed to have led the attack on Israel. “We plan to get every one of those people,” he said.
Although Israeli forces retook all of the area overrun by the incursion within a few days, Hamas fighters were still trying to enter Israel, including by sea, Hecht said, adding that two were captured and five were killed Wednesday.
In Gaza, 338,000 people have been displaced, the UN said, with most of them taking shelter in UN schools. Egypt, which with Israel has enforced a blockade of Gaza for 16 years, has refused to allow people fleeing the bombardment to enter its territory. US officials said the Biden administration was talking with Israel and Egypt about safe passage for civilians to leave and relief supplies to enter.
Israeli warplanes have bombed 88 educational facilities in Gaza, including 18 UN schools, two of which were being used to shelter civilians, said Stéphane Dujarric, a UN spokesperson.
Several medical and emergency workers have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza since Saturday, including four Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance drivers and paramedics who were killed Wednesday, the group said.
Israel’s siege of Gaza, cutting off water, food, and medical supplies, is “not acceptable,” Fabrizio Carboni, Middle East director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said at a news briefing. He added: “We need a safe humanitarian space,”
A steady stream of broken and lifeless bodies was flowing into Gaza’s largest medical center, Al Shifa Hospital. Ambulances, yellow cabs, and private vehicles screeched to a halt at the entrance to deliver the wounded. Adults arrived carrying injured children or pushing people on stretchers or wheelchairs.
Inside, bloodied patients sat or lay on the tile floor, waiting for treatment. Outside, bodies wrapped in white cloth lined the sidewalk waiting to be identified or collected by loved ones.
Hamas is backed by Iran, which is eager to derail efforts to normalize relations between its two regional archenemies, Saudi Arabia and Israel. US officials say that, so far, they have seen no evidence of Iranian involvement in the Hamas attack.
But Thursday, the United States and Qatar agreed to refreeze $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue, preventing Iran from spending it. The Biden administration agreed in August to release the money for Iran to spend on humanitarian needs in exchange for the release of Americans held prisoner in Iran.
Although Israelis have largely shown solidarity in the aftermath of the Hamas attack, Israeli politicians have begun to face a backlash. On Wednesday, Idit Silman, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party who serves as environmental minister, faced a heckling crowd while she visited injured people at a hospital.
“You are responsible! Go home!” yelled one person, according to video published by Ynet, a popular Israeli news site.