Israel-Palestine war: First week ends with over 2,500 Palestinians, 1,400 Israelis killed

One Palestinian is being killed every five minutes in Gaza as Israeli air strikes pummel the besieged enclave non-stop for the ninth successive day, the health ministry said.

More than 724 children and 458 women are among 2,239 Palestinians killed so far, with nearly 10,000 more wounded - all in less than nine days. 

Gaza's healthcare system is "taking its last breath amid Israeli massacres" and is due to totally collapse in a matter of hours, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday. 

"The world will be horrified by what is about to happen in a couple hours," a spokesperson for the health ministry told Al Jazeera. 

"We call on the world to take immediate action to open a safe humanitarian corridor to bring aid to hospitals," he said.

If aid and fuel don't enter in the next few hours, he added, then hospitals will collapse.  

Palestinian authorities will begin burying victims of Israeli bombardment in mass graves because bodies are pilling up in hospitals, the Gaza-based government media office said. 

The health ministry issued a warning earlier that they fear the overwhelming number of bodies and wounded people in hospitals will lead to the spread of disease.

Pope Francis said on Sunday that a humanitarian corridor should be opened to help those under siege in Gaza, and appealed for the release of Israeli hostages taken by Palestinian groups in the enclaves. 

"I strongly ask that the children, the sick, the elderly, women and all civilians do not become victims of the conflict," he said during his weekly address to crowds in St Peter's Square in Vatican City. 

"Humanitarian right must be respected, above all in Gaza."

A humanitarian corridor to resettle civilians in Egypt is an idea that many Palestinians in Gaza have rejected, fearing a repeat of the displacement in the 1948 Nakba.

As the war in Gaza now enters its second week, five Palestinian academics give their take on the conflict. 

The researchers consider Washington's role in supporting Israel, the involvement of Hezbollah in the fighting, and the inevitability of a crisis after the breakdown of the post-Oslo process. 

You can read their thoughts below. 

MEE Debate: Israel's slaughter of civilians in Gaza lays bare its genocidal intent

Israeli forces have detained 51 people in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as part of a mass arrest campaign, according to local reports. 

Arrests were made during house raids in Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Israel has said it is deliberately disrupting GPS services on the border with Lebanon and near Gaza as part of its military operations. 

Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Sunday that the disruption could impact the functions of mobile apps.

It comes after Israel told citizens not to go within 4km of the border with Lebanon. 

Israel's communication minister is seeking to shut down Al Jazeera's bureau in the country.

Shlomo Karhi said the proposal was being looked at on Sunday by Israeli security officials and legal experts. 

"This is a station that incites, this is a station that films troops in assembly areas... that incites against the citizens of Israel - a propaganda mouthpiece," he told Israel's army radio.

Hezbollah said that it has targeted an Israeli Merkava tank at the Al-Raheb military site off Lebanon's southern town of Aita Al-Shaab.

The group said the tank was directly hit, and those inside were "killed and wounded". 

Earlier, Hezbollah fired an anti-armour missile at the northern Israeli village of Shtula, killing one person and wounding at least three others. Israel responded with artillery fire.  

A Labour member of Scotland's parliament has described Israel's siege on Gaza and forcible ejection order as "ethnic cleansing".

"Through its illegal military occupation of Palestine, Israel controls and restricts access to every vital resource in Gaza," Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, wrote on X.

"Now it has cut off all electricity, food, water and medical supplies and ordered 1 million people to evacuate - with no way out. This is ethnic cleansing." 

Earlier this week, UK Labour leader Keir Starmer came under fierce criticism after stating that Israel had the "right" to totally cut power and water supplies to Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel's bombing of Gaza has killed 47 entire families in recent days, according to Wafa news agency. 

Citing hospital reports, it said that the families - consisting of around 500 people - were "entirely wiped out from the civil registry". 

Israel's military has told Israeli citizens not to go within 4km of the border with Lebanon.

It said that another anti-tank missile had struck an Israeli post on the border, and it was responding with artillery fire. 

An anti-armour missile was fired from inside Lebanon at a border village in northern Israel, according to Israel’s Army Radio. One person was killed and at least three injured.

A Hezbollah source said that it was responsible for the missile, according to Al Jazeera. 

The Israeli military said it was striking Lebanon in response to the reported attack.

Palestinians in Gaza are in danger of mass ethnic cleansing, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, has warned on Saturday.

"There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale," Albanese said, referring to two previous forced displacements of Palestinians. "The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again."

"Israel has already carried out mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war," the expert said.

"Again, in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing."

She added that Israel's military operation had gone "well beyond the limits of international law", and urged the international community to stop the violations and mediate an immediate ceasefire.