Gaza City
\nAmid Israel\u2019s complete blockade of the besieged territory, a group of independent United Nations (UN) experts on Thursday deplored that relentless strikes against Gaza amounted to \u201ccollective punishment,\u201d as the death toll in the region surged past 1,300 with the war entering its sixth day on Thursday.
\nIsrael said on Thursday there would be no humanitarian break to its siege of the Gaza Strip until all its hostages were freed after the Red Cross pleaded for fuel to be allowed in to prevent overwhelmed hospitals from \u201cturning into morgues\u201d.
\nIsrael has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip in retribution for the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, when hundreds of gunmen poured across the barrier fence and rampaged through Israeli towns on Saturday.
\nPublic broadcaster Kan said the Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1,300 people killed since Saturday. Most were civilians gunned down in their homes, on the streets or at a dance party. Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza.
\nIsrael has responded so far by putting the enclave, home to 2.3 million people, under total siege and launching by far the most powerful bombing campaign, destroying whole neighbourhoods.
\nGaza authorities report 1,354 people have been martyred and 6,049 people have been wounded in the bombing. The sole electric power station has been switched off and hospitals are running out of fuel for emergency generators.
\nIsrael links food to hostages
\nIsraeli Energy Minister Israel Katz vowed his country would not allow basic resources or humanitarian aid into Gaza until Hamas released the hostages it took during its surprise weekend attack on Israel after the United Nations (UN) called for allowing humanitarian aid into the besieged territory.
\n\u201cHumanitarian aid to Gaza? No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home,\u201d he said in a statement.
\n\u2018UN experts condemn horrific crimes\u2019
\nWhile condemning the \u201chorrific crimes committed by Hamas\u201d, the group of independent UN experts said that Israel had resorted to \u201cindiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza,\u201d Reuters reported.
\n\u201cThey have lived under unlawful blockade for 16 years, and already gone through five major brutal wars, which remain unaccounted for,\u201d the group, which includes several UN special rapporteurs, said in a statement.
\n\u201cThis amounts to collective punishment. There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces.
\nThis is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.\u201d
\nUN chief seeks \u2018unimpeded\u2019 humanitarian access to Gaza
\nUnited Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for allowing humanitarian aid into war-struck Gaza, with the death toll in the region surging past 1,3000 as the war enters its sixth day on Thursday.
\nDays after Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza, The UN chief took to X, formerly known as Twitter, saying the supply of humanitarian aid, including food and water, \u201cmust be allowed\u201d into Gaza.
\n\u201cCrucial life-saving supplies \u2014 including fuel, food and water \u2014 must be allowed into Gaza. We need rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access now,\u201d the UN chief wrote on X.
\nBiden backtracks on remarks
\nWhile addressing the Jewish community in the US Wednesday, President Joe Biden vividly described the horrors of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Soon after he made the claims that he believed based on confirmed pictures, the White House was forced to retract his statements.
\nIn broad statements regarding his administration\u2019s support for Israel amid its conflict with Hamas and efforts to release US hostages, Biden said, \u201cI never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.\u201d
\nAccording to officials from the White House, Biden was alluding to allegations from Israel of children being killed, referencing several media reports of beheadings.
\nIsrael forms unity government
\nIsrael\u2019s leaders on Wednesday formed a unity government, promising to put bitter political divisions aside to focus on the fight against Hamas, Reuters reported.
\nFormer defense minister Benny Gantz, a centrist opposition leader, spoke live on Israeli television alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant after forming a war cabinet focused entirely on the conflict.
\n\u201cOur partnership is not political, it is a shared fate,\u201d said Gantz. \u201cAt this time we are all the soldiers of Israel.\u201d
\nNetanyahu said the people of Israel and its leadership were united. \u201cWe have put aside all differences because the fate of our state is on the line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gantz\u2019s National Unity Party, which has fiercely opposed judicial reforms proposed by Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing coalition, said it will not promote any unrelated policy or laws while the fighting goes on.
\nIsrael has put Gaza under \u201ctotal siege\u201d to stop food and fuel from reaching the enclave of 2.3 million people, many poor and dependent on aid. Hamas media said on Wednesday that electricity went out after the only power station stopped working.
\nWith Palestinian rescue workers overwhelmed, others in the crowded coastal strip searched for bodies in the rubble.
\n\u201cI was sleeping here when the house collapsed on top of me,\u201d one man cried as he and others used flashlights on the stairs of a building hit by missiles to find anyone trapped.
\nOver 338,000 forced to flee Gaza Strip
\nMore than 338,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations said, as heavy Israeli bombardments continue to hit the Palestinian enclave.
\n\u201cMass displacement across the Gaza Strip continues,\u201d the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement sent on Thursday.
\nBy late Wednesday, the number of displaced people in Gaza had risen by an additional 75,000 people from the figure given 24 hours earlier, reaching 338,934, it said.
\nOCHA said nearly 220,000 people, or two-thirds of the displaced people, have sought shelter in schools run by the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
\nAnother nearly 15,000 people fled to schools run by the Palestinian Authority, while more than 100,000 were being sheltered by relatives, neighbours and a church and other facilities in Gaza City.
\nOCHA said that around 3,000 people had already been displaced within the enclave prior to Saturday\u2019s attack.
\nThe bombing campaign has destroyed or rendered uninhabitable at least 2,540 housing units in Gaza, OCHA said, citing numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Public Works and Housing.
\nAnother 22,850 housing units sustained moderate to minor damage, it said.
\nThe UN agency also voiced alarm at the significant destruction of civilian infrastructure damaged in the shelling.
\nAmong other things, it said sewage facilities serving more than a million people had been hit by air strikes, leaving solid waste accumulating in the streets, posing a health threat.<\/p>\n
Only power plant in Gaza enclave shuts down
\nHeavy bombardments have been relentlessly rained down on Gaza, where at least 2,540 housing units have been levelled or rendered uninhabitable, according to the Gaza Ministry of Public Works and Housing.
\nRubble, burnt-out cars and broken glass cover the roads in Gaza City, where bombs struck the Hamas-linked Islamic University.
\nThere is rising concern over the worsening humanitarian crisis in the long-blockaded Palestinian enclave, where the sole power plant shut down Wednesday after running out of fuel, Gaza\u2019s electricity provider said.
\nAdditionally, medical supplies, including oxygen, were running low at Gaza\u2019s overwhelmed Al-Shifa hospital, said emergency room physician Mohammed Ghonim.
\nThe European Union called for a \u201chumanitarian corridor\u201d to allow civilians to flee the enclave\u2019s fifth war in 15 years, while Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo called for aid to be allowed into Gaza \u201cimmediately\u201d.
\nGaza resident Mazen Mohammad, 38, said his terrified family spent the night huddled together as explosions shook the area, before emerging in the morning.
\n\u201cWe felt like we were in a ghost town as if we were the only survivors,\u201d Mohammad told AFP.
\nUnrest has also flared in the occupied West Bank, where protests have been held in solidarity with Gaza and 27 Palestinians have been martyred in clashes since Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gaza City Amid Israel\u2019s complete blockade of the besieged territory, a group of independent United Nations (UN) experts on Thursday deplored that relentless strikes against Gaza amounted to \u201ccollective punishment,\u201d as the death toll in the region surged past 1,300 with the war entering its sixth day on Thursday. Israel said on Thursday there would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-361189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n