photograph by Mohammed Abed of an Israeli strike on a building in Gaza, 9 October 2023
Israel has declared a "complete siege" on Gaza as the United Nations states there is "clear evidence" of war crimes committed in the conflict.
900 Palestinians have been killed, which includes 260 children following intense bombing by Israel across Gaza. The area is home to about 2.3 million people in total - 80% of whom rely on humanitarian aid.
Since the attacks began on Saturday morning, Israel has stopped all supplies entering Gaza, including food and medicine.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said more than a dozen healthcare workers had been killed or injured and at least seven medical centres had been damaged.
Meanwhile, many people are currently without electricity and internet, and could soon be out of essential food and water supplies.
"Damage to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities has undermined services to more than 400,000 people," said Mr Dujarric, speaking to BBC News
"The Gaza Power Plant is now the only source of electricity and could run out of fuel within days."
He added that the World Food Programme was already distributing food for up to 100,000 internally displaced Palestinians and that these efforts would increase eight-fold in the coming days. More than 200,000 civilians have been displaced following the bombing campaign. As Nethanyahu called on people to leave Gaza, Israeli air strikes targeted the only land crossing into Egypt forcing its closure.
A massive Israeli military buildup has continued along Gaza’s border on Tuesday, as the country’s military confirmed the death toll from Saturday’s Hamas attack – the deadliest militant assault in its history – had passed 1,000.
About 150 people are believed to be being held captive by militants in Gaza, Evidence of the scale of Saturday’s attack has continued to emerge, including in the southern kibbutz of Be’eri, where more than 100 bodies have been retrieved, about 10% of the community’s population. thousands witnessed a massacre at an Israeli music festival where Hamas fighters killed at least 260 people and took captives back into Gaza.
The country’s military said on Tuesday that it had recovered the bodies of more than 1,500 Hamas fighters inside Israel, giving the clearest indication yet of the scale of the weekend’s assault.
The huge scale of the mobilisation suggests Israel is preparing for a far more substantial military attack against Hamas in Gaza than in the previous rounds of fighting, which claimed thousands of Palestinian lives.
Read more at the Guardian
