Jerusalem, Oct 11 (AP) Palestinians in the sealed-off Gaza Strip scrambled to find safety Wednesday,
as Israeli strikes demolished entire neighborhoods, hospitals ran low on supplies and a power
blackout was expected within hours, further deepening the misery of a war sparked by a deadly
mass incursion of Hamas militants.
Airstrikes smashed entire city blocks to rubble in the tiny coastal enclave and left unknown numbers
of bodies beneath mounds of debris. The bombardment raged on even though militants are holding
an estimated 150 people dragged from Israel into Gaza — soldiers, men, women, children and older
adults.
Israel has vowed unprecedented retaliation against the Hamas militant group ruling the Palestinian
territory after its fighters stormed through the border fence Saturday and gunned down hundreds of
Israelis in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor music festival.
The war, which has already claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides, is expected to escalate — and
compound the misery of people living in Gaza, where basic necessities and electricity were already in
short supply.
As Palestinians crowded into U.N. schools and a shrinking number of safe neighborhoods,
humanitarian groups pleaded for the creation of corridors to get aid in, warning that hospitals
overwhelmed with wounded people were running out of supplies.
“There is no safe place in Gaza right now,” journalist Hasan Jabar said after three Palestinian
journalists were killed in the bombardment of a downtown neighborhood home to government
ministries, media offices and hotels. “I am genuinely afraid for my life.”
Gaza’s power authority says its sole power plant will run out of fuel within hours, leaving the
territory without electricity after Israel cut off supplies. Palestinians there have long relied on
generators to power homes, offices and hospitals, but have no way of importing fuel for those
either.
The U.N.’s World Health Organization said that supplies it had pre-positioned for seven hospitals
have already run out amid the flood of wounded. Doctors Without Borders said surgical equipment,
antibiotics, fuel and other supplies were running out at two hospitals it runs in Gaza.
In one, “we consumed three weeks worth of emergency stock in three days, partly due to 50
patients coming in at once,” Matthias Kannes, the aid group’s head of mission in Gaza, said
Wednesday. He said the territory’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, only has enough fuel for three days.
Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists and appears increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive
into Gaza, with its government under intense public pressure to topple Hamas, which has ruled the
territory since 2007 and remained firmly in control through four previous wars.
That would likely require a prolonged ground assault and reoccupying Gaza, at least temporarily.
Even then, Hamas has a long history of operating as an underground insurgency in areas controlled
by Israel.
“We will not allow a reality in which Israeli children are murdered,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant said in a meeting with soldiers near the southern border on Tuesday. “I have removed every
restriction — we will eliminate anyone who fights us, and use every measure at our disposal.”
Israeli airstrikes late Tuesday struck the family house of Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of
Hamas’ military wing, killing his father, brother and at least two other relatives in the southern town
of Khan Younis, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told The Associated Press.
Deif has never been seen in public and his whereabouts are unknown.
Exchanges of fire over Israel’s northern borders with militants in Lebanon and Syria, meanwhile,
pointed to the risk of an expanded regional conflict.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday warned other countries and armed groups against entering the
war. The U.S. is already rushing munitions and military equipment to Israel and has deployed a
carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean as deterrence.
On Wednesday, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military
position and claimed to have killed and wounded troops. The Israeli military confirmed the attack
but did not comment on possible casualties. The Israeli army shelled the area in southern Lebanon
where the attack was launched.
In a new tactic, Israel is warning civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods —rather than just
individual buildings — then inflicting devastation, in what could be a prelude to a ground offensive.
“The objective is for this war to end very differently from all of the previous rounds. There has to be
a clear victory,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel. “Whatever
has to be done to fundamentally change the situation will have to be done.”
Hamas officials have said they planned for all possibilities, including punishing Israeli escalation.
Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending
Israeli military occupation and increasing settlements in the West Bank, a 16-year-long blockade in
Gaza and what they see as the world’s apathy.
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said Israeli airstrikes destroyed the entire al-Karama neighborhood
in Gaza City, with a “large number” of people killed or wounded. It said medical teams were unable
to reach the area because all roads to it were destroyed. Rescue officials say they have struggled to
enter other areas as well.
In another neighborhood on Tuesday, Palestinian Civil Defense forces pulled Abdullah Musleh out of
his basement together with 30 others after their apartment building was flattened.
“I sell toys, not missiles,’’ the 46-year-old said, weeping. “I want to leave Gaza. Why do I have to stay
here? I lost my home and my job.”
On Tuesday night, a group of militants entered an industrial zone in the southern Israeli town of
Ashkelon, sparking a gunbattle with Israeli troops, the military said. Three militants were killed, and
troops were searching the area for others.
The Israeli military said more than 1,200 people, including 155 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, a
staggering toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria that lasted weeks. In Gaza, 1,055
people have been killed, according to authorities there; Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are
among them. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
The bodies of roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were found on Israeli territory, the military said. It
wasn’t clear whether those numbers overlapped with deaths reported by Palestinian authorities.
Days of clashes between rock-throwing Palestinians and Israeli forces in the West Bank have left 15
Palestinians dead, but Israel has clamped down heavily on the territory, preventing movement
between communities. The violence also spread into east Jerusalem, where Israeli police said they
killed two Palestinians who hurled stones at police late Tuesday.
In Gaza, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes, the U.N. said, the most since a 2014 air
and ground offensive by Israel uprooted about 400,000. The vast majority are sheltering in schools
run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Damage to three water and sanitation sites have cut
off services to 400,000 people, the U.N. said.
Tens of thousands of people in southern Israel have been evacuated since Sunday.
