JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a leading opposition figure on Wednesday created a wartime cabinet to oversee the fight against Hamas militants after their stunning weekend attack. In the sealed off Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinians scrambled to find safety as Israeli bombardment was brought down. whole neighborhoods and the only power plant in the territory ran out of fuel.
The new wartime cabinet will consist of Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, a senior opposition figure and former defense minister, and current defense minister Yoav Gallant, Gantz said. The Council of Ministers will focus only on war issues. It appeared that the rest of Netanyahu’s government partners, a collection of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, would remain in place to deal with other issues.
The unusual arrangement builds a degree of unity after years of bitterly divisive politics, as the army looks increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive in Gaza. The government is under intense public pressure to topple Hamas, after its militants stormed the border fence Saturday and they killed hundreds of Israelis in their homesin the streets and at an outdoor music festival.
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, was invited to join the new cabinet, but did not immediately respond to the offer.
the war at least 2,200 lives have already been claimed from both sides, and a ground offensive in Gaza is likely to increase casualties dramatically.
Yay, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza it destroyed entire city blocks rubble in the small coastal enclave and left an unknown number of bodies under piles of rubble.
It is estimated that the militants in Gaza have about 150 people snatched from Israel: soldiers, men, women, children and elderly adults. They continued to fire rockets at Israel on Wednesday, including a heavy shelling of the southern city of Ashkelon.
Israel stopped food, water, fuel and medicine from entering Gaza, a 40-kilometer-long (25-mile) strip of land sandwiched between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. The only remaining access from Egypt was closed on Tuesday after airstrikes near the border crossing.
When the Palestinians crowded into the UN schools and small number of safe neighborhoodshumanitarian groups called for the creation of corridors to access aid, warning that hospitals overwhelmed by the wounded 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 shelling in a downtown neighborhood that is home to government ministries, media offices and hotels. “I’m really scared for my life.”
Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel late Wednesday, forcing it to shut down after Israel cut off supplies, the Energy Ministry said. This leaves only generators to power the territory, but they also run on scarce fuel.
The UN’s World Health Organization said supplies it had prepositioned for seven hospitals had already run out amid the flood of wounded. Doctors Without Borders said surgical equipment, antibiotics, fuel and other supplies were running low at the two hospitals it runs in Gaza.
In one, “we consumed three weeks of emergency stock in three days, partly due to the arrival of 50 patients at once,” Matthias Kannes, the aid group’s head of mission in Gaza, said on Wednesday. He said the territory’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, only has enough fuel for three days.
Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists and looks increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive in Gaza, with its government under intense public pressure to topple Hamas, which has ruled the territory since 2007 and maintained firm control during four previous wars.
This would likely require a protracted ground assault and the reoccupation of Gaza, at least temporarily. Even then, Hamas has a long history of operating as a clandestine insurgency in areas controlled by Israel.
“We will not allow a reality in which Israeli children are killed,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a meeting with soldiers near the southern border on Tuesday. “I have removed all restraints – we will eliminate anyone who fights us and use all measures at our disposal.”
Israeli airstrikes struck the family home of Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, on Tuesday afternoon, killing his father, brother and at least two other relatives in the southern city of Khan Younis, Bassem Naim told The Associated Press.
Deif has never been seen in public and his whereabouts are unknown.
Meanwhile, exchanges of fire on Israel’s northern borders with militants from Lebanon and Syria pointed to the risk of a widening regional conflict.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, this Tuesday he warned other countries and armed groups against entering the war. The United States is already sending ammunition and military equipment to Israel and has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean as a deterrent.
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 bombed the area of southern Lebanon where the attack was launched.
In a new tactic, Israel is warning civilians to evacuate entire neighborhoods, rather than just individual buildings, and then wreak havoc in what could be a prelude to a ground offensive.
“The goal is for this war to end very differently than all previous rounds. There has to be a clear victory,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel. “What has to be done to fundamentally change the situation will have to be done.”
Hamas officials have said they were planning all possibilities, including punishing the Israeli escalation. Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose unending Israeli military occupation i increasing settlements in the West Bank, a 16-year blockade of Gaza and what they see as world 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. He said medical teams could not reach the area because all the roads leading there were destroyed. Rescue officials say they have had difficulty getting into other areas as well.
In another neighborhood on Tuesday, Palestinian Civil Defense forces pulled Abdullah Musleh from his basement along with 30 other people after his apartment building was crushed.
“I sell toys, not missiles,” the 46-year-old said through tears. “I want to leave Gaza. Why should I stay here? I lost my house and my job.”
On Wednesday, an AP reporter witnessed waves of rockets raining down on Ashkelon, with shrapnel crashing into the street and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepting at least one overhead. Residents screamed and cried when they heard the explosions.
On Tuesday night, a group of militants entered an industrial area in Ashkelon, sparking a firefight with Israeli troops, the army 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 number not seen since the weeks-long 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. In Gaza, 1,055 people have died, according to the authorities there; Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are among them. Thousands injured on both sides.
The bodies of about 1,500 Hamas militants were found in Israeli territory, the army said. It was unclear whether those figures overlapped with the deaths reported by the Palestinian Authority.
Days of clashes between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli forces in the West Bank have left 15 Palestinians dead. The violence also spread to east Jerusalem, where Israeli police said they killed two Palestinians who threw stones at police on Tuesday afternoon.
In Gaza, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes, according to the UN, the most since Israel’s 2014 air and ground offensive uprooted some 400,000. The vast majority are housed in schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Damage to three water and sanitation sites has cut services to 400,000 people, the UN said.
Tens of thousands of people in southern Israel have been evacuated since Sunday.
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Shurafa reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel and Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
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