More than a million people have fled their homes in the besieged Gaza Strip in the past week, ahead of an expected Israeli invasion that seeks to eliminate Hamas’ leadership after its deadly attack.
The enclave’s food and water supplies are dwindling, with its hospitals warning that they are on the verge of collapse.
All eyes are on the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, where trucks carrying badly needed aid have been waiting for days as mediators press for a ceasefire that would allow them to enter Gaza and allow foreigners to leave.
Rafah, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, was shut down nearly a week ago because of Israeli air strikes.
Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry said Israel “has not taken a position to open the crossing from the Gaza side”. The Israeli government did not respond to a request for comment.
With a ground invasion of Gaza expected, Israel is also preparing for the potential of a new front opening on its northern border with Lebanon, where it has exchanged fire repeatedly with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. The military ordered residents from 28 Israeli communities to evacuate.
Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of US warships in the region and the call-up of some 360,000 reservists, have positioned themselves along Gaza’s border and prepared for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle Hamas.
Israel said it has already struck dozens of military targets, including command centres and rocket launchers, and killed Hamas commanders.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said Hamas and other Palestinian militants are holding 199 hostages in Gaza, higher than previous estimates.
An Israeli military spokesman said the families have been notified. He did not specify whether that number includes foreigners, or say who is holding them. Most are believed to be held by the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza.
Officials in Israel have given no timetable for a ground incursion that aid groups warn could hasten a humanitarian crisis in the coastal Gaza enclave.
A week of blistering air strikes have demolished entire areas but failed to stem militant rocket fire into Israel.
The Gaza health ministry said 2,670 Palestinians have been killed and 9,600 wounded since the fighting erupted, more than in the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted more than six weeks. That makes this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.
More than 1,400 Israelis have died, the vast majority civilians killed in Hamas’ October 7 assault.
At least 155 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israel. It is also the deadliest war for Israel since the 1973 conflict with Egypt and Syria.
About 500,000 people, nearly one quarter of Gaza’s population, were taking refuge in United Nations schools and other facilities across the territory, where water supplies are dwindling, said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency.
The agency says an estimated one million people have been displaced in Gaza in a single week.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will return to Israel on Monday after completing a frantic six-country tour through Arab nations aimed at preventing the fighting from igniting a broader regional conflict, American officials said.
President Joe Biden is also considering a trip to Israel, though no plans have been finalised.
Mr Biden has repeatedly proclaimed support for Israel, but he said in a TV interview he thought it would be a “big mistake” for the country to reoccupy Gaza.
This weekend, I connected again with Prime Minister Netanyahu to reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel, and to provide an update on our military support and efforts to protect civilians.
It's time all countries unequivocally condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization…— President Biden (@POTUS) October 15, 2023
Israel’s ambassadors to the US and UN said the country does not want an occupation. But ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan told CNN that Israel will do “whatever is needed to obliterate their (Hamas’) capabilities”.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military ordered residents to evacuate 28 communities near the Lebanese border after increasing cross-border fire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The military order affects towns that are within 1.2 miles of the border.
Speaking to the Israeli Knesset on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran and Hezbollah: “Don’t test us in the north. Don’t make the mistake of the past.
“Today, the price you will pay will be far heavier,” he said, referring to Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the evacuation would allow Israeli forces to operate with greater latitude.
“Israel is ready to operate on two fronts, and even more,” he said. “If Hezbollah makes the mistake of testing us, the response will be deadly.”
Fighting along Israel’s border with Lebanon intensified on Sunday with Hezbollah militants firing rockets and an anti-tank missile, and Israel responding with air strikes and shelling.
The Israeli military also reported shooting at one of its border posts. The fighting killed at least one person on the Israeli side and wounded several on both sides of the border.
An Israeli drone fired two missiles late on Sunday at a hill west of the town of Kfar Kila in south Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported. There were no casualties reported in the strikes, which hit near a Lebanese army centre.
Hezbollah said it had fired rockets toward an Israeli military position in the northern border town of Shtula in retaliation for Israeli shelling that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah on Friday and two Lebanese civilians on Saturday.
We stand with Israel as it defends itself. The United States is also actively working to ensure the people of Gaza can get out of harm’s way and the assistance they need — food, water, medicine — can get in. Hamas does not care if Palestinians suffer.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 16, 2023
A Hezbollah spokeswoman said the increased strikes represented a “warning” and did not mean Hezbollah has decided to enter the war.
The US has named David Satterfield, the former US ambassador to Turkey experienced in diplomacy in the region, to be special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues.
America’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that Mr Satterfield will focus on getting humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
Hospitals in Gaza are expected to run out of generator fuel within two days, endangering the lives of thousands of patients, according to the UN.
Gaza’s sole power plant shut down for lack of fuel after Israel completely sealed off the 25-mile long territory following the Hamas attack.
In Nasser Hospital, in the southern town of Khan Younis, intensive care rooms were packed with wounded patients, most of them children under the age of three. Hundreds of people with severe blast injuries have come to the hospital, where fuel is expected to run out by Monday.
There are 35 patients who require ventilators and another 60 on dialysis. Dr Mohammed Qandeel, a consultant at the critical care complex, said if fuel runs out, “it means the whole health system will be shut down”.
He added: “All these patients are in danger of death if the electricity is cut off.”
Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the territory’s largest, said it would bury 100 bodies in a mass grave as an emergency measure after its mortuary overflowed. Tens of thousands of people seeking safety have gathered in the hospital compound.
The @UN has stocks available of food, water, medical supplies & fuel in Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank & Israel.
They can be dispatched within hours.
To ensure delivery, our staff need to be able to bring these supplies into and throughout Gaza safely, and without impediment.— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 15, 2023
Gaza was already in a humanitarian crisis due to a growing shortage of water and medical supplies caused by the Israeli siege.
“An unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding under our eyes,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Mr Sullivan told CNN that Israeli officials told him they had turned the water back on in southern Gaza.
Israel’s minister of energy and water, Israel Katz, said in a statement that water had been restored at one “specific point” in Gaza.
A spokesman said the location was outside Khan Younis. Aid workers in Gaza said they had not yet seen evidence the water was back on.
Israel has ordered more than one million Palestinians – almost half the territory’s population – to move south. The military says it is trying to clear away civilians ahead of a major campaign against Hamas in the north, where it says the militants have extensive networks of tunnels, bunkers and rocket launchers.
Hamas urged people to stay in their homes, and the Israeli military released photos it said showed a Hamas roadblock preventing traffic from moving south.
Nevertheless, more than 600,000 people had evacuated the Gaza City area, according to Rear Admiral Hagari.
The US has been trying to broker a deal to reopen Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza to allow Americans and other foreigners to leave and humanitarian aid amassed on the Egyptian side to be brought in. The crossing, which was closed because of air strikes early in the war, has yet to reopen.
Israel has said the siege will only be lifted when the captives are returned.
