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

At least seven Palestinian journalists have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel declared war on Hamas following a surprise attack by the group.

In the first three days of fighting, at least seven journalists were killed, two were missing and two injured, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

MEE previously reported that Said al-Taweel, Mohammed Sobboh and Hisham Nawajhah were killed on Monday by Israeli airstrikes while covering bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Also on Monday, journalist Salam Mema, her husband, and their three children, Hadi, Ali, and Sham, were killed when their home in the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip was hit by an Israeli strike.

The headquarters of the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza was damaged by Israeli overnight airstrikes nearby the building, according to a video released by UNRWA.

The UN agency said at least 18 of its facilities including schools sheltering displaced civilians have received collateral and direct damage from Israeli strikes. 

Israel has pummelled the Gaza Strip in response to a surprise Hamas attack on Israel. The strikes have killed 900 Palestinians, including 260 children and 230 women, according to Palestinian authorities. 

The sole power plant in the besieged Gaza Strip is set to shutdown “within hours due to the depletion of fuel,” the media office of the government in the besieged enclave said. 

Gaza has been pounded by Israeli airstrikes since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel Saturday. 

In addition, Israel has imposed a total blockade of Gaza that includes cutting off water, food and fuel.  

The Gaza Power Plant is now the only source of the enclave’s minimal amount of electricity. Hospitals treating wounded have had to work without power.

Video footage shows the destruction of a home in Jabalia refugee camp in the besieged Gaza Strip after an Israeli strike on Tuesday night.

In the video a man is seen carrying a young child covered in dust and debris who appears to have been pulled from the rubble.

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

Israel's death toll from a surprise attack by Hamas has reached 1,200 people, "the overwhelming majority" of whom are civilians," Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Cornicus said Wednesday. 

The spokesperson said that more than 2,700 Israelis have been wounded. 

The rising death count was not due to further Hamas attacks, the spokesperson noted, but the growing number of victims the Israeli military is discovering after it retook Israeli towns and villages. 

The spokesperson added that international media had been given access to the Kfar Aza Kibbutz were men, women, children and the elderly had been "dragged out of their shelters and executed at point blank" or killed "after they were trying to flee their houses which Hamas set on fire."

The Israeli military continued to pound Gaza with air strikes, hitting 200 targets in advance of an anticipated invasion of the besieged enclave.  

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

US President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.

The two leaders discussed Iron Dome interceptors, additional ammunition and other defence materials that are on the way to Israel or have already arrived, the White House said. 

Biden reaffirmed US support for Israel following a surprise attack on the country by Hamas whose actions he said were “akin to the atrocities of ISIS from many years ago," according to the White House. 

Biden and Netanyahu agreed to speak again in the coming days.

Also on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. 

Blinken “reaffirmed unequivocal US support for Israel’s right to defend itself and its citizens against this attack,” according to the State Department.

Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in East Jerusalem on Tuesday night, as Israel carried out arrests in the neighbourhood of Silwan, Palestinian media reported.

Meanwhile, marches took place Tuesday night in the occupied West Bank cities of Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin in support of Gaza as Israel continued bombing the besieged enclave overnight. 

Israeli forces attacked demonstrators Huwarra in the occupied West Bank, where protestors were seen running away from a checkpoint, according to social media posts.

Reports say Israeli military targeted the home of the leader of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, known as Mohammad Dief is the alleged mastermind behind the group’s surprise attack on Israel.

The Israeli military struck the home in Khan Younis, in the besieged Gaza Strip, Palestinian media reported.

Top Republican and Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee introduced a non-binding resolution in support of Israel on Tuesday that slammed “Hamas’ brutal war against Israel”.

The resolution, introduced by Republican Congressman Mike McCaul and Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks said Hamas had launched “an unprovoked war on Israel…slaughtering Israelis and abducting hostages in towns in Southern Israel including children and the elderly.”

The resolution calls for enhanced sanctions against Iran and the release of hostages held in Gaza.

It adds that the US should be ready to aid Israel with additional security assistance along with diplomatic and intelligence support.

“The House of Representatives stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists,” the resolution, signed by 390 lawmakers said.

Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he plans to introduce a similar resolution.

The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations on Tuesday slammed Israel for conducting a “genocidal” campaign against Gaza.

“These acts constitute war crimes,” Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour wrote in a letter to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, reported by Reuters.

Israel's defence minister said the country was fighting human animals as he announced the blockade to stop food and fuel reaching Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.

“Such blatant dehumanization and attempts to bomb a people into submission, to use starvation as a method of warfare, and to eradicate their national existence are nothing less than genocidal,” Mansour wrote.

Canada plans to evacuate its civilians from Israel in the coming days with aircraft from the Canadian armed forces, the foreign minister said.

Canada joins a host of countries trying to bring stranded citizens home after flights were canceled amid fighting.

Spain said Monday it had sent two military aircraft to Israel to evacuate some 500 Spaniards.

Meanwhile, German airline Lufthansa plans to operate special flights to evacuate German citizens from Israel on Thursday and Friday, the German foreign office said.

Israeli airlines are adding more flights to bring home reservists, according to their websites and Israel's airports authority.

Hamas’ surprise attack fell on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot when many Israelis had left the country.

Israir Airlines website is offering flights from Larnaca, Cyprus, Corfu, Greece and Batumi, Georgia to bring Israelis back home. Arkia boosted flights from Athens, Greece and Marrakesh, Morocco.

At the same time, foreign carriers have cancelled flights into the country citing the risk of ongoing fighting.

The USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier strike group has arrived in the eastern Mediterranean in a show of US support for Israel, according to US Central Command.

The strike group includes 8 squadrons of attack and support aircraft, a guided missile cruiser and guided missile destroyers.

US Central Command said that efforts to increase US posture in the region are continuing including with the additional deployment of F-15’s, F-16’s and A-10 aircraft to the region.

Hello MEE readers.

We are now entering the fifth morning of fighting since Palestinian groups launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza, which in just a few days has shaped up to be one of the deadliest periods of fighting in decades.

Israel has renewed its air strikes, unleashing a wave of bombings across central Gaza late on Tuesday night.

Israel has also refused requests to allow the entry of food and medical supplies, after it imposed a full siege on the enclave, cutting off electricity and water.

The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees has said it has 12 days' worth of supplies of food and water.

Here is what has been happening over the last several hours:

• US President Joe Biden gave an address in which he outlined steadfast report for Israel. Hamas responded, saying that his speech had a number of "legal and political errors".
• The EU has said that some of Israel's actions violate international humanitarian law.
• The US has said it is in talks about opening a safe passage for civilians in Gaza.
• The situation in the occupied West Bank is getting increasingly tense. Israeli forces have killed four Palestinians on Tuesday, and 21 in total since Saturday morning.
• The death toll for Israelis has increased to at least 1,000, while the death toll for Palestinians has increased to at least 900.
• Outside of Israel and Palestine, the UK government is calling on police to consider whether waving the Palestinian flag should be considered a criminal offence. More on that here.
• While over the weekend, rocket fire was exchanged on the Israel-Lebanon border, on Tuesday night Israeli forces said they exchanged fire across the Syrian border.

Middle East Eye is going to continue providing you with up-to-date information around the clock. Be sure to check out our coverage elsewhere as well, including on Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

A “torrent of Israeli air raids” was unleashed on Gaza's Karama neighbourhood late on Tuesday, the Palestinian interior ministry has said, with footage on local media showing explosions illuminating the sky.

Local media reported the area was attacked with thermobaric weaponry (vacuum bombs) and white phosphorus, the use of which in civilian areas is considered a war crime. Middle East Eye could not independently verify these claims.

The bombing was so intense that it destroyed roads leading to the neighbourhood, preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded, the Gaza-based interior ministry said.

The ministry added that a large number of people are still trapped under rubble. The Karama neighbourhood contains a number of high-rise residential buildings.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on Monday that “Israel appears to be using thermobaric weaponry (vacuum bombs)“. It added that it has heard several testimonies, but yet to be verified, that the Israeli army “used tightly controlled white phosphorus munitions in areas in the southern Gaza Strip”.