RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hospitals in Gaza faced collapse Monday as water, power and medicine neared depletion, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians searched for dwindling food supplies while Israel maintained punishing airstrikes in retaliation for last week’s deadly rampage by Hamas. Thousands of patients’ lives were at risk, U.N. officials said, and mediators struggled for a cease-fire to let in aid waiting at the Egyptian border.
More than a week after Israel stopped entry of any supplies, all eyes were on the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, where trucks carrying aid have waited for days to pass through. Israel forced the crossing to shut down with airstrikes on the Gaza side last week and has not agreed to reopening it for aid. Egyptian state TV and Gaza media reported Israel struck the crossing again Monday.
As Israel prepared a likely ground offensive into Gaza that would mean deadly house-to-house fighting, fears rose over the conflict spreading. Israel evacuated towns near its northern border with Lebanon, where the military has exchanged fire repeatedly with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.
Speaking to the Israeli Knesset, 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,” referring to Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, which operates out of Lebanon.
Soon after he spoke, the Knesset floor was evacuated as a rockets headed toward Jerusalem, part of the steady stream of attacks militants have launched from Gaza into Israel. Sirens in Tel Aviv warning of incoming rockets prompted staff to duck into stairways for cover as visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel’s defense minister.
This has become the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides. At least 2,778 have been killed and 9,700 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry there. More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, the vast majority civilians massacred in Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault. The Israeli military said Monday that at least 199 hostages were taken into Gaza, more than previously estimated.
The head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, in charge of monitoring militant groups, took responsibility for failing to avert Hamas’ surprise attack. As agency head, “the responsibility for that is on me,” Ronen Bar said.
“There will be time for investigation — now is a time for war,” he wrote in a letter to Shin Bet workers and their families.
The combination of airstrikes pulverizing neighborhoods, dwindling supplies, and Israel’s mass evacuation order for the north of the Gaza Strip has thrown the tiny territory’s 2.3 million people into upheaval and increasing desperation. More than 1 million have fled their homes, and 60% of them are now in the approximately 8-mile area south of the evacuation zone, according to the U.N.
The Israeli military says it is trying to clear away civilians for their safety ahead of a major campaign against Hamas in Gaza’s north, where it says the militants have extensive networks of tunnels and rocket launchers. Much of Hamas’ military infrastructure is in residential areas.
Those fleeing northern Gaza still faced airstrikes in the south. Before dawn Monday, a strike in the town of Rafah collapsed a building sheltering three families who had evacuated from Gaza City. At least 12 people were killed and nine others remained buried under rubble, survivors from the families said. The strike reduced the house to a vast crater blanketed with wreckage.
Hospitals are expected to run out of generator fuel in the next 24 hours, meaning life-saving equipment like incubators and ventilators will stop functioning, the U.N. said.
People grew increasingly desperate in their search for food and water. With taps dry, many have resorted to drinking dirty or sewage-filled water, risking the spread of disease.
More than 400,000 displaced people in the south crowded into schools and other facilities of the U.N. agency for Palestinians, UNRWA. But the agency can’t provide them any supplies. UNRWA said it has only 1 liter of water a day for each of its staff members trapped in the territory.
“Gaza is running out of water, and Gaza is running out of life,” said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, calling for a lifting of the siege. “We need this now.”
