JERUSALEM: Palestinians in the sealed-off Gaza Strip struggled to find any safe area Wednesday, as Israeli strikes demolished entire neighborhoods, hospitals ran low on supplies and the territory’s only power plant ran out of fuel, deepening the misery of a war sparked by a stunning and deadly assault by Hamas militants.
Israeli relentless bombardment on the blockaded enclave has killed 1,055 people and wounded 5,184, Palestinian officials say.
Airstrikes smashed entire city blocks to rubble in the tiny coastal enclave and left unknown numbers of bodies beneath mounds of debris. The bombardment raged on even though militants are holding an estimated 150 people snatched from Israel — soldiers, men, women, children and older adults.
The war is expected to escalate — and compound the misery of people living in Gaza, where basic necessities and electricity were already in short supply.
After the attack, Israel stopped the entry of food, water, fuel and medicine into the territory — a 40-kilometer-long (25-mile) strip of land wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. The sole remaining access from Egypt was shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing.
As Palestinians crowded into U.N. schools and a shrinking number of safe neighborhoods, humanitarian groups pleaded for the creation of corridors to get aid in, warning that hospitals overwhelmed with wounded people were running out of supplies.
“There is no safe place in Gaza right now,” journalist Hasan Jabar said after three Palestinian journalists were killed in the bombardment of a downtown neighborhood home to government ministries, media offices and hotels. “I am genuinely afraid for my life.”
Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday afternoon, forcing it to shut down after Israel cut off supplies, the Energy Ministry said. That leaves only generators to power the territory — but they also run on fuel that is in short supply.
The U.N.’s World Health Organization said that supplies it had pre-positioned for seven hospitals have already run out amid the flood of wounded. Doctors Without Borders said surgical equipment, antibiotics, fuel and other supplies were running out at two hospitals it runs in Gaza.
In Gaza, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes, the U.N. said, the most since a 2014 air and ground offensive by Israel uprooted about 400,000. The vast majority are sheltering in schools run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Damage to three water and sanitation sites have cut off services to 400,000 people, the U.N. said.
Tens of thousands of people in southern Israel have been evacuated since Sunday.
