Photo courtesy Palestinian Foreign Ministry
The death toll in Gaza from Israeli attacks since the weekend climbed to 1,055 on Wednesday, with the Palestinian Health Ministry saying 5,184 people were injured.
Last week, Hamas fighters targeted the south of Israel in a surprise attack, killing over 700 people and injuring over 2,000 others. According to Israel’s military, the death toll in the country had climbed to 1,200, with over 2,700 others injured, since the events of Oct. 7. “We have sustained extremely heavy casualties,” Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said in a video briefing on X, formerly Twitter.
According to the U.N., over 260,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip amidst the heavy Israeli bombardments. “Over 263,934 people in Gaza are believed to have fled their homes,” said U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA on Tuesday, warning “this number is expected to rise further.” Among the displaced, nearly 175,500 people are sheltering in 88 schools run by the U.N. agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, it said.
Over 14,500 others, it said, had fled to 12 government schools, while close to 74,000 were believed to be staying with relatives and neighbors or seeking shelter in churches and other facilities. The number of displaced people inside Gaza “represents the highest number of people displaced since the 50-day escalation of hostilities in 2014,” it stressed, warning that meeting basic needs was becoming “increasingly challenging” for people not yet displaced.
According to OCHA, around 3,000 people were displaced “due to previous escalations,” adding the ongoing bombing campaign had destroyed over 1,000 housing units, with 560 so severely damaged they are now uninhabitable. There are also growing fears of food, drinkable water and fuel running out, as Israel has completely blockaded Gaza, preventing the entry of any basic commodities.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders have called for the creation of a humanitarian corridor to “reach people with critical medical supplies.” Describing the situation as “catastrophic,” the head of the Palestinian territories program for Doctors Without Borders said she did not believe anyone was safe in Gaza.
Following the Hamas assault, Israel vowed reprisals and has since undertaken intense bombardment from the air, sea and land. On Wednesday morning, Israel said dozens of its fighter jets struck more than 200 targets in Gaza overnight, alleging that these locales had been used by Hamas to launch its offensive. Israel has also indicated it could launch a ground assault into Gaza, calling up 300,000 reservists. “Hamas wanted a change and it will get one. What was in Gaza will no longer be,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told soldiers near Gaza fence on Tuesday.
“We started the offensive from the air, later on we will also come from the ground. We’ve been controlling the area since Day 2 and we are on the offensive. It will only intensify,” he added. On Monday, Hamas fighters had threatened to execute an Israeli hostage for each home in Gaza hit without warning, but as of yet there has been no indication they have delivered on their warning.
The Israeli assault has, meanwhile, prompted an ongoing U.N. investigation into alleged human rights violations in the Israeli-Palestinian war to declare there is “already clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed” since Saturday’s Hamas assault. “All those who have violated international law and targeted civilians must be held accountable for their crimes,” said the Commission of Inquiry, adding it was “gravely concerned” by Israel’s total siege on the Gaza Strip as that indiscriminately impacted civilians and constituted “collective punishment.”
The Palestinian Foreign ministry, in a posting on X, has alleged that Israel is using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Karama neighborhood of the Gaza Strip. The use of white phosphorus weapons to generate a smokescreen and cover troop movements is legally accepted, but the 1980 Geneva Convention forbids its use in densely populated areas.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated that Washington was rushing additional military assistance to Israel, and called for the country to follow the “law of war” in its response to Hamas’ assault. He also claimed the U.S. had enhanced its military force posture in the region to discourage any attempts at “interference” in the conflict. “Let me say again to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of the situation, I have one word: don’t,” he said, in an apparent reference to Iran and its proxies in the region.