JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military pulverized the Hamas -ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes and kept blocking deliveries of food, water…
The Israeli military pulverized the Hamas -ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes and kept blocking deliveries of food, water, fuel and electricity Thursday ahead of a possible ground invasion as Palestinians tried to stock up on supplies.
Israel said that nothing would be allowed into Gaza until the release of around 150 hostages taken captive by Hamas during an unprecedented surprise attack Saturday into Israel that also left hundreds killed.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed American support for Israel Thursday in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
International aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis after Israel prevented entry of supplies from Egypt to Gaza’s 2.3 million people. The Israel-Hamas war has claimed at least 2,700 lives on both sides.
Some key takeaways from the war:
As the Israeli military retaliates for the Hamas attack, Palestinians say civilians are paying the price in strikes on Gaza, a small coastal strip of land.
Near-constant airstrikes that level entire neighborhoods have forced some 340,000 people to flee their homes, according to the U.N. Most have crowded into U.N. schools. Others sought the shrinking number of safe neighborhoods. Gaza is only 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
While Israel has insisted that it is giving advance notice of its strikes, it is employing a new tactic of leveling whole swaths of neighborhoods, rather than just individual buildings.
Palestinians were in near-total darkness overnight after the only power station ran out of fuel and shut down. Hospitals’ supplies of medicine and fuel for emergency generators are also expected to run out within days.
The morgue at Gaza’s biggest hospital overflowed Thursday as bodies came in faster than relatives could claim them on the sixth day of Israel’s heavy aerial bombardment.
With scores of Palestinians killed each day, medics in the besieged enclave said they have run out of places to put remains pulled from the latest strikes or recovered from the ruins of demolished buildings.
The morgue at Gaza City’s Shifa hospital can only handle some 30 bodies at a time, and workers had to stack corpses three high outside the walk-in cooler and put dozens more, side by side, in the parking lot. Some were placed in a tent, and others were sprawled on the cement, under the sun.
Internet connectivity in Gaza City has been below 20% since Tuesday, according to analyst Doug Madory of the network monitoring firm Kentik Inc., whose data shows outages began Saturday morning.
Madory said an internet provider in Gaza told him that Israeli air strikes had cut fiber optic cables.
The Israeli military says it is preparing for a possible ground operation in Gaza but that political leadership has not yet decided on one. Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told reporters Thursday that forces “are preparing for a ground maneuver if decided.”
Israel’s government is under intense pressure from the public to topple Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007.
