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

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said yesterday that the US is in talks with Israel and Egypt about providing a safe passage for civilians in Gaza. 

“We are focused on this question, there are consultations going on. But the details of that are something that are being discussed among the operational agencies and I don’t want to share too much of that publicly at this time,” he said. 

However, online, commentators and civilians in Palestine have said that the humanitarian corridor is not the solution, and that instead Israel should stop bombing Gaza.

Rex Brynen, a political science analyst said that the humanitarian corridor would be “deeply problematic,” adding that “Gaza largely consists of people whose families fled past Israeli military operations, only to see their properties seized, their villages deliberately destroyed, and who were barred from returning.”

Drawing comparisons to the Nakba of 1948, where Israel forced out 750,000 Palestinians, Brynen said “Indeed the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of 1948, is core to Palestinian identity and existential fears.”

He also mentioned that there is “limited infrastructure on the Egyptian side of the border.”

Yousef Hammash, the advocacy officer for the humanitarian organisation the Norwegian Refugee Council is currently on the ground in Gaza, and says that there is “no safe place” left in the besieged enclave. 

“This is Gaza City, which people used to consider safe, this is just to prove that there is no safe place left in Gaza,” he says in the video, to a backdrop of complete destruction. 

Much of Gaza has been reduced to apocalyptic scenes, with people on the ground questioning where survivors can flee too. 

The Israeli army says it is attacking Lebanon in response to the anti tank guided missile attack on the border.

The army added that it would provide further information on the attack soon.
 

Gaza’s power plant will be shutting down in a matter of hours after Israel cut fuel supplies to the besieged Strip. 

According to Palestine’s Government Media Office in Gaza, this “threatens to plunge the Strip into complete darkness and make it impossible to continue providing all basic life services, all of which depend on electricity, and it will not be possible to operate them partially with generators in light of the prevention of fuel supplies from Rafah Gate.”

The Government Media Office called on the international community to “move quickly to stop this crime against humanity and this multi-form mass murder.”
 

The UN agency for Palestine told Al Jazeera that Gaza has under two weeks’ supply of food and water after Israel cut all electricity, fuel, food and water to the besieged enclave. 

“We are relying on our staff, who are themselves refugees, who are going out to provide a service. It is a really unprecedented situation we are facing. We don’t turn anyone away,” Jennifer Austin, Deputy Director of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in Gaza, said. 

Hospitals in Gaza operating ‘beyond their capacity’

Palestinian Minister of Health doctor Mai al Kaila says that hospitals in Gaza are “working beyond their capacity to treat the wounded as a result of the occupation’s aggression, and as a result the hospitals in the Strip are out of service.”

She also warned against an impending “health disaster” as hospitals run out of fuel.

Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian organisation called on medical facilities to be respected following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza last night. 

“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic; the hospitals are overwhelmed. The number of wounded is extremely high – there is a constant influx into all the hospitals in the Gaza Strip. The medical teams are exhausted, working around the clock to treat the wounded,” Leo Cans, the head of their mission for Palestine said. 
 

Palestinians have been recovering the bodies of family members from under the rubble, after Israeli rockets struck residential areas in Gaza throughout the day and evening yesterday. 

In this video, Gaza resident, Ziad Musleh says he lost four of his children along with their spouses and children when a rocket struck the building they resided in. 
 

Live coverage from Al Jazeera Arabic shows ongoing air strikes on Gaza this morning, which started last night. 

Footage shared online shows demolished buildings, which are mainly residential. There is also a United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) office and school in the area which have been demolished. 

Journalists and emergency services have not been able to get past the entryway to the neighbourhood due to roads being blocked by rubble. 

Residents have been rendered homeless, searching for relatives to stay with. 

Another educational institution has been destroyed by Israeli air strikes, which have now entered their fifth day in the besieged enclave. 

The Qatar-based al-Fakhoora House of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation issued a statement saying that the building was demolished on Tuesday.

According to the EAA, the institution was a “space for students and families in an area that hosts civil society and international organisations.”

“EAA reiterates that collective punishment, reprisals and attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are a severe violation of international humanitarian law,” a statement from them read. 
 

"Dead bodies are everywhere, and no one is here to pick them up." 

This is the scene that Middle East Eye correspondent Mohammed al-Hajjar saw on Wednesday morning in what was the al-Karama complex, an area in Gaza that contained several residential towers housing hundreds of families. 

The Israeli military dropped 100 bombs on the neighbourhood in two hours on Tuesday night as people were inside their homes, eyewitnesses have said.  

The continues bombing from 8pm to 10pm completely destroyed roads leading to the area, rending emergency workers unable to reach the wounded. 

Almost 12 hours later, and bodies are still scattered all over the place and the wounded have yet to be evacuated to hospitals. 

'They are now targeting innocent people - the elderly, women, children - as a form revenge. For the purpose of destruction and nothing else'

- Palestinian survivor

"It was heinous, indiscriminate bombardment without warning," Abdelaziz Helo, a resident who survived the bombing, told Middle East Eye. 

"People were in their homes when the bombs began raining down on the area hysterically. It turned it into a block of flame. No women, no children, no men were able to move or leave the area," he said. 

"We were going door to door looking for each other. I couldn't identity my own children from all the smoke and blood covering us." 

Initial reports say the army used thermobaric weaponry (vacuum bombs) and white phosphorus in the attack. Middle East Eye could not indefinitely verify the reports. 

Prior to the onslaught, resident of the area had lost connection and contact with the outside world, Helo said. They were also running short on water and food. 

"It was a massacre targeting civilian. This is a civilian residential area. There is not even the slightest feature of any military equipment or work here. They did not warn us or send any messages beforehand," Helo said. 

"We had told relatives in other areas to come stay with us because this is considered a safe area. We did not expect it to be bombed like this. 

"The occupation has failed against the resistance fighters, so they are now targeting innocent people - the elderly, women, children - as a form revenge. For the purpose of destruction and nothing else. It's collective punishment."

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced that “Operation Guardian of the Walls 2 is on its way,” and that every resident of the Israeli city Sderot will be able to carry a weapon. 

Operation Guardian of the Walls refers to Israel’s military campaign on Gaza in 2021, which killed at least 233 Palestinians and 1,245 injured.

Our Gaza-based correspondent, Maha Hussaini, says that she has lost connection due to being unable to charge her laptop and phone after Israel cut all essential supplies to Gaza.

The journalist has raised concerns that she will be unable to reach others, and people in Gaza have been “silenced” as a result of the power cuts. 

“I will be off until we find alternatives,” she said on X, formerly known as twitter. 
 

The Israeli army has posted a video allegedly eliminating combatants, however, the footage shared shows individuals, believed to be civilians, raising their hands up and kneeling down to surrender before they were killed from behind.

The video was posted by Euro-Med Monitor, a Geneva-based independent human rights organisation, who have called it a “potential war crime.” 
 

The Palestinian death toll from Israeli shelling in Gaza has reached 950, including at least 240 children, the Palestinian health ministry has said.

At least 5,000 others have been wounded, it added. 

More than 263,934 Palestinians have been displaced as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, the United Nations said on Wednesday. 

At least 30 people were killed and hundreds more wounded overnight as Israel pounded the enclave with hundreds of air strikes.

Dozens of residential buildings, factories, mosques and shops were hit, the head of the government's media office, Salama Marouf, said.

The Israeli military said it hit more than 80 sites alone in Beit Hanoun area of the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday morning.

Israeli strikes have killed 900 Palestinians, including  260 children and 230 women, according to Palestinian authorities. 

Israel is “deliberately targeting” Palestinian medical workers, the ministry of health in Gaza said.

“Medical teams work in dangerous conditions, and we call on international bodies to take effective steps to protect them,” a spokesperson with the health ministry told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Israeli airstrikes have hit at least two hospitals and two centres run by the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Meanwhile, early Wednesday two people were killed and two paramedics were injured after an Israeli strike hit an ambulance in Gaza City. The ambulance was trying to evacuate injured people following an Israeli strike on the Karama neighbourhood of Gaza City, the ministry said.