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

Ehud Olmert, former Israeli prime minister, has said that Israeli soldiers will face "everything you can imagine and worse" if the army launches a ground invasion into Gaza.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Olmert said such an attack "is not going to be simple and it won’t be pleasant - for us or them".

During his time as prime minister, Olmert sent ground troops into Gaza during Israel's assault on the besieged strip in 2008.

The Israeli army has called up some 300,000 reservists and is amassing soldiers near the Gaza Strip, though they have not made it clear whether a ground invasion will take place.

Olmert added if such an assault is launched, Israeli troops would be walking into “new shooters or new types of rockets that are stronger [and] bigger or new anti-tank rockets that we’re not familiar with”.

Survivors in Gaza have woken up to total destruction, with residents of the Jablaia camp searching for loved ones under the rubble, while air strikes still target the residential area. 

Rescue teams have not been able to reach the camp, which has been reduced to rubble, due to the lack of capacity and challenges reaching the areas. 

The overnight and morning airstrikes have been some of the deadliest since the start of the war. 

With no electricity, water, food, or fuel, residents have been left unable to bury their loved ones or reach out to other survivors. 

Residents say they were not warned or told to evacuate before the bombing starting.

Gaza residents tell MEE correspondent Mohammed al-Hajjar, who is on the ground in Gaza, that the situation on the ground has escalated, and that survivors are struggling to find any clean water.

“We don’t have any electricity or water left, people need it not just to drink but to clean themselves,” one resident said.

“People are queuing up to get water, there are only three trucks which have clean water to serve the whole of Gaza. people are also waking up early to queue outside bakeries just to get some bread,” he added.

In central Gaza City, people are scrambling to find any source of food, as they are unable to cook or make any food at home after Israel cut off all electricity supplies to the besieged enclave. 
 

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has called on international health organisations to help establish field hospitals in Gaza.

The call comes after Cardon Christian, the chief protection officer at the International Committee of the Red Cross, said: "The lifeline to Gaza is starting to be inexistant."

In a post made on social platform X, Christian added that it was: "Time for Action. It’s time for respite. It’s time for Humanity & Protection."

Middle East Eye correspondent Mohammed al-Hajjar is currently in Gaza speaking to survivors in the al-Shati and Jabalia camps following a night of heavy Israeli bombing. 

The camps are almost totally residential and house thousands of Palestnians, but have now been turned to rubble. 

“We woke up to suddenly find bombs raining down on us, we went outside to find body parts littering the streets. There was no warning before the airstrikes hit. People were killed in their homes, we couldn’t even call anyone," one resident told MEE.

“Civil defence crews have not been able to reach us, there’s not water or electricity here, we are future deaths. No one around the world is getting involved to help Gaza. We are speaking to you knowing we will be next, there’s no help,” he added. 

“I can’t add anything else, what can I say? They attacked civilians, were all just kids and women sleeping at home.”

Israel bombed the al-Shati camp at 6am, flattening 10 residential towers, according to eyewitnesses.

People have been unable to pull out bodies from under the rubble due to the magnitude of the disaster.

Gaza has been left without basic resources, including food, water and electricity since Monday.

‘This is our final message to the world’

“All internet and connection will be cut out for us in six hours, this is our final message to the world,” Ahmed told MEE, calling on the international community to help civilians in Gaza.

Another resident said that they have been searching for bodies amidst the rubble for hours. 

Shouting in frustration, a devastated resident asked where the Arab community was.

“What is happening to us is wrong, Netanyahu and the American’s are bullying us. Children are being torn apart under the rubble," he said. "What have they done to deserve this?”

Israel’s most recent overnight and morning bombardment has been one of the most deadly since the start of the war. 

In a statement put out by the Egyptian foreign ministry, officials asked Israel not to target the Palestinian side of the crossing with Egypt’s Sinai, saying that it was preventing normal operations.

The statement comes as Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called for more humanitarian aid to be supplied to the besieged territory.

Egypt is keen to avoid an influx of refugees into its Sinai peninsula. In previous conflicts, such as during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the 1967 war, Palestinians were expelled from their homes within historic Palestine and the vast majority were never allowed back.

Many of these refugees and their descendants remain in neighbouring Arab states.

The Prisoners Authority has stated that Israel has cut off all access to water and electricity for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. 

In a statement published today, the authority called it a “dangerous escalation,” and said that the decision is putting the lives of male and female prisoners at risk. 

Electricity and water was cut off in the prisons at 2pm yesterday.

“This is a disturbing step of revenge, as it is unthinkable to leave nearly a thousand detainees without water for all these hours,” the statement added.

There are around 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. 

The Prisoners Authority called on the international community and the Red Cross to intervene and immediately put a stop to the decision. 
 

Former US president Donald Trump has called Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, a “jerk,” and mocked Israel’s failure to anticipate Hamas’ attack on Saturday.

Trump also called Hezbollah “very smart,” while calling Gallant a “jerk".

“Two nights ago, I read all of Biden’s security people [who] said, ‘gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack [Israel] from the north because that’s the most vulnerable spot,” he said. 

“I said, ‘wait a minute, Hezbollah is very smart. They’re all very smart,” he added.

When speaking about Gallant, Trump said, “they have a national defence minister or somebody saying: ‘I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack us from the north.’ So, the following morning, they attacked… If you listen to this jerk, you would attack from the north because he said: ‘That’s our weak spot.’”

Trump also stated that Israel was not ready and was taken by surprise.

Gallant responded by calling his comments “far-fetched speculation”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that three out of five water plants in Gaza are now out of service after Israel cut off water supplies to the besieged enclave. 

Concerns have been raised that the lack of water in the enclave will result in the spread of disease.

Some Palestinian families have said they have now gone five days with no water. 
 

Palestine’s Ministry of Health said that two Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank town of Qusra while another is critically wounded.

The killing was carried out by an Israeli settler who shot at the Palestinians. 
 

The UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese has questioned the UK Labour leader Keir Starmer’s stance over the ongoing war, calling it “extremely concerning".

“It is extremely concerning that a senior politician expresses support for the commission of war crime and, potentially, a crime against humanity: such is intentional starvation of civilians when part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population,” she said, in a statement posted on social platform X. 

The statement was made in response to an interview in which Starmer says that “Israel does have the right to defend itself” and “I think that Israel does have the right [to cut off water and power and impose a siege on Gaza] in an ongoing situation".
 

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories called on Ursula Von Der Leyen, president of the EU Comisison, to make a statement over Israel cutting off electricity, water and food supplies in Gaza.

In a post, she calls out the double standards of the president, saying “I look forward to the same declaration by President Von Der Leyen  on Israel's cutting of electricity, water and food in Gaza.”

The comments were made in response to Leyen’s speech about Russia’s attacks against civilian Ukranian infrastructure and electricity, which she called war crimes.

“If not, people could think that European institutions do not value the protection of Palestinian children, women and men as much as that of Ukrainians,” she added.
 

Overnight Israeli bombing has levelled the al-Shati refugee camp, located west of Gaza City.

Palestinians were seen searching through the rubble for loved ones and pulling out dead bodies. 

Graphic videos shared online show the extent of the damage caused and the chaos as people try to process what happened. 

At least 10 civilians have been killed in the camp, with the full extent of the damage and the deaths yet to be identified. 

Israeli warplanes fired four missiles at homes, according to local Palestinian media. 
 

Dead bodies are piling up in the besieged Gaza Strip following Israel’s bombardment, which is now in its sixth day.

Israel cut off all food, water, fuel and electricity to Gaza on Monday. 

The electricity cuts mean that many hospitals are now out of service and mortuary freezers have stopped working. 

Streets in Gaza, particularly residential neighbourhoods which have been heavily bombed, are lined with dead bodies. 

Gaza’s Ministry of Health says at least 1,203 Palestinians have been killed and 5,763 wounded since Israel began its bombardment of the territory.

Israel has levelled entire neighbourhoods resulting in mass casualties in what residents are describing as the most intense bombing campaign in living memory.