Israel forms ‘emergency govt’ to oversee war against Hamas as it readies massive ground assault
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GAZA – Israel bombed the Gaza Strip for a fifth day on Wednesday as its leaders announced the formation of an “emergency government” that would oversee what would likely be a protracted and brutal war against Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Israel’s military campaign following Saturday’s onslaught
With Israel’s army preparing for a ground assault on Gaza, Mr Netanyahu and former defence chief and centrist opposition leader Benny Gantz agreed to form an “emergency government” to see Israel through this war.
The main piece of their deal includes a “war management Cabinet” that would include Mr Netanyahu, Mr Gantz and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Fears of a regional conflagration have surged ahead of an expected Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, the crowded, impoverished enclave from where Hamas launched its land, air and sea attack on the Jewish Sabbath.
The death toll in Israel has reached 1,200 from the worst attack in the country’s 75-year history
International non-governmental organisations issued a stark warning over the health and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas gunmen killed more than 100 people in the kibbutz of Beeri alone, said Mr Moti Bukjin, a volunteer with the charity Zaka that recovers bodies in accordance with Jewish law.
United States President Joe Biden condemned the Hamas attacks as “sheer evil”
Condemnation from Western leaders contrasted markedly with pro-Palestinian sentiment in the Arab world, where people distributed sweets, danced and chanted prayers in support of “resistance” to Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories.
“My entire life, I have seen Israel kill us, confiscate our lands and arrest our children,” said coffee vendor Farah al-Saadi, 52, from Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, who praised the Hamas assault.
Israel has vowed swift punishment for an onslaught that left bodies strewn around a music festival venue and a kibbutz community. The military said dozens of its fighter jets struck more than 200 targets in a neighbourhood of Gaza City overnight which it said had been used by Hamas to launch its attacks.
“Hamas wanted a change, and it will get one. What was in Gaza will no longer be,” Mr Gallant told soldiers near the fence on Tuesday. “We started the offensive from the air. Later on, we will also come from the ground.”
In another sign of the crisis widening, Israeli shelling hit towns in southern Lebanon after the powerful armed group Hezbollah targeted northern Israeli positions with anti-tank fire.
The Israeli army has called up 300,000 reservists
The military said its forces had largely reclaimed the embattled south
But late on Tuesday in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, troops backed by helicopters and drones exchanged fire with several militants, leaving three fighters dead, the army said.
A new barrage of rockets was also fired from Gaza towards Ashkelon.
In Kfar Aza kibbutz, where Israeli forces say Hamas massacred more than 100 civilians, Israeli soldiers prepared to remove several of their compatriots in black body bags.
‘Blackmail’
In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Biden confirmed that at least 14 Americans were killed, and others were missing.
The US has sent an aircraft carrier and other warships
Relatives of Americans believed to be held in Gaza called on the Biden administration
Western powers and many other nations have reported citizens killed, abducted or missing
Hamas has held around 150 captives since its ground incursion, among them children, the elderly and young people captured at a music festival, where around 270 were killed
On Monday, Hamas warned that it would start killing hostages called the threat “unacceptable blackmail”
Fear and chaos reigned among the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the coastal territory that has been hammered by thousands of Israeli munitions.
Hamas said the strikes killed two of its senior figures: Mr Zakaria Muammar led its economics section, and Mr Jawad Abu Shamala coordinated ties with other Palestinian factions.
Israel’s army also announced their deaths.
Four Palestinian journalists were killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza City, media unions and officials said.
Explosions again shook Gaza City on Tuesday night.
Earlier, for the third time in 24 hours, an Israeli air strike hit Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, an AFP photographer and an NGO said.
White smoke billowed from among fishing boats after an air strike on Gaza’s port, and in Jerusalem, the deserted streets were targeted by Hamas rocket fire.
“Israeli people, they are scared of the Arabs, and the Arabs are scared of the Jews... Everybody is scared of each other,” said Mr Ahmed Karkash, a shop owner in Jerusalem’s Old City.
In Gaza City, streets are clogged with rubble and littered with shards of glass.
Mr Mazen Mohammad and his family slept on the ground floor of their apartment block, huddling together as explosions rang out around them.
The sight they woke up to the next day was unrecognisable.
“We felt like we were in a ghost town, as if we were the only survivors,” Mr Mohammad, 38, told AFP.
Israel on Monday imposed a total siege on Gaza, which it has already blockaded for years, cutting off the water supply, food, electricity and other essential supplies.
European Union foreign ministers urged Israel
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said such sieges are prohibited under international humanitarian law.
Medical supplies, including oxygen, were running low in Gaza’s overwhelmed Al-Shifa hospital, said Dr Mohammed Ghonim, a doctor in the emergency room.
Taken ‘by surprise’
The United Nations said more than 187,500 people have been displaced inside Gaza, most taking shelter in UN schools.
Israel has been left reeling by Hamas’ unprecedented ground, air and sea assault that began with thousands of rockets, likening it to the 9/11 attacks on the US.
In the aftermath, soldiers who were on guard duty along the high-tech security barrier around Gaza recounted how the attack began with an effort to cripple observation cameras and communications.
“They took us by surprise, and we weren’t ready for it,” a lookout soldier said in testimony posted on Instagram. AFP, REUTERS
