Israel has stopped all movement of food, fuel and medicines into Gaza, and the sole remaining access from Egypt was shut down on Tuesday, Oct 10
Jerusalem: Israeli warplanes launched a blitzkrieg on the Gaza Strip neighbourhood on Tuesday, Oct 10, reducing buildings to rubble and sending people scrambling to find safety in the tiny, sealed-off territory as Israel vowed a retaliation for Hamas’ surprise weekend attack that would “reverberate…for generations”, an AP report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says.
Aid organisations pleaded for the creation of humanitarian corridors to send aid into Gaza, warning that hospitals overwhelmed with wounded were running out of supplies.
Israel has stopped all movement of food, fuel and medicines into Gaza, and the sole remaining access from Egypt shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing.
The war began after Hamas militants stormed into Israel on Saturday, bringing gunbattles to its streets for the first time in decades. At least 1,600 lives have already been claimed on both sides, and perhaps hundreds more.
Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza hold more than 150 soldiers and civilians hostage, according to Israel.
After days of fighting, Israel’s military said Tuesday morning that it had regained effective control over areas Hamas attacked in its south, and of the Gaza border.
A looming question is whether Israel will launch a ground offensive into Gaza – a 40 km-long (25 mile-long) strip of land wedged amidst Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to 2.3 million people and has been governed by Hamas since 2007.
The Israeli military said it struck hundreds of targets overnight in Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood, an upscale district that is home to ministries of the Hamas-run government, as well as universities, media organisations and the offices of aid organisations.
Palestinian Civil Defence forces pulled Abdullah Musleh out of his basement together with 30 others after their apartment building was flattened by the airstrikes.
“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.” After hours of nonstop attacks, residents left their homes at daybreak to find buildings torn in half by airstrikes or reduced to mounds of concrete. Cars were flattened and trees burned out on residential streets that had been transformed into moonscapes.
The devastation signalled what appeared to be a new Israeli tactic: warning civilians to leave certain areas and then hitting those areas with unprecedented intensity. On Tuesday afternoon, the military warned residents of another nearby neighbourhood to move into the centre of Gaza City.
“There is no safe place in Gaza right now, you see decent people being killed every day,” Hasan Jabar, a Gaza journalist, said after three other Palestinian journalists were killed in the Rimal bombardment.
“I am genuinely afraid for my life.” The bombardments and Israel’s threats to topple Hamas sharpened questions about the group’s strategy and objectives. But it is unclear what options it has in the face of the ferocity of Israel’s retaliation and the potential of losing much of its government infrastructure.
Hours after Saturday’s incursion began, a senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri said the group had planned for all possibilities, including “all-out war,” and was ready to suffer “severe blows”.
Al-Arouri’s comments suggested Hamas expected the fight to spread to the West Bank and possibly for Lebanon’s Hezbollah to open a front in the north. But despite some eruptions of violence, neither has happened on a significant scale.
The militants’ attack stunned Israel with a death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria – and those deaths happened over a longer period of time. It brought horrific scenes of Hamas militant gunning down civilians in their cars on the road, in streets of towns, and at a music festival attended by thousands in the desert near Gaza, while dragging men, women and children into captivity.
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 immediately clear whether those numbers overlapped with deaths previously reported by Palestinian authorities.
In Gaza, more than 187,000 people have fled their homes, the UN said, the most since a 2014 air and ground offensive by Israel uprooted about 400,000. On Monday, Israel announced a “complete siege” on the territory, halting deliveries of food, fuel, water, medicines, electricity and other supplies. That leaves the only access in and out through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
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