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

An Israeli military general has doubled down on his defence minister's labelling of Palestinians as "human animals" and vowed to give them "hell".

Ghassan Alian, the Israeli military liaison to the Palestinians, suggested that the civilian population of Gaza were at fault for allegedly "celebrating" possible crimes that were committed by Palestinian fighters in the Saturday attack. 

“Human animals must be treated as such," he said in a video statement. 

"There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell."

Egyptian fuel trucks and relief materials have been filmed leaving the vicinity of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

The footage, obtained by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, comes shortly after local Israeli media reported a warning issue by Israeli officials to Egypt that they would attack any trucks bringing resources into Gaza:

The recent military operation against Israel launched by Hamas from Gaza represents a potential turning point in the conflict - one that could fundamentally reconfigure the longstanding power dynamics between Palestinian resistance and Israel.

Described as a “date that will live in infamy in Israel” by one Israeli official, the operation, codenamed Al-Aqsa Flood, has reverberated deeply within Israel and has also stirred apprehension among its allies, both regionally and internationally.

On 7 October, Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza initiated a multifaceted military operation involving rocket attacks on Israel, coupled with a massive ground attack that breached the Israeli-enforced barrier around Gaza.

Palestinian fighters were able to take control of Israeli settlements and military sites adjacent to Gaza.

The operation resulted in hundreds of Israelis killed and thousands injured, with more than 100 hostages taken into Gaza, according to Hamas. The ultimate number of Israeli casualties may be greater than what has been reported so far. 

Read more: This humiliation has shaken the Israeli psyche to its very core

The Israeli embassy in the US said the death toll in Israel from the Palestinian assault on Saturday has climbed to over 1,000, which includes at least 123 soldiers, according to the army. 

More than 3,418 have been wounded, the embassy added.

Health officials in Israel have not confirmed the figure.  

Bodies of Israeli residents and Palestinian fighters were laid out in the grounds of the Kfar Aza communal settlement among burned-out houses, strewn furniture and torched cars, as Israeli soldiers went from house to house to take away the dead.

The Israeli army took the foreign press through the site on Tuesday, which was one of the hardest hit areas when Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip.

The stench of bodies was heavy in the air as reporters walked the paths of Kfar Aza, near Sderot.

Outside one of the small houses of the communal settlement the body of a resident was covered by a purple sheet with a bare foot protruding.

Elsewhere bodies of Palestinians lay face down on the ground.

Israeli troops were going house to house to retrieve civilian bodies, which they had not been able to before as they were still fighting armed Palestinians and working through booby-traps.

Soldiers were still securing the paths of the settlement as bursts of gunfire and explosions could be heard in the distance.

Jets could be heard above and smoke could be seen rising from Gaza. Sirens warned of incoming rockets intercepted overhead.

Scotland’s first minister and Scottish National Party leader Humza Yousaf has revealed that his parents-in-law are “trapped” in Gaza, amid four consecutive days of Israeli air strikes on the besieged enclave. 

His announcement comes as the BBC reported that 10 Britons were feared dead or missing following an unprecedented assault on Saturday by Hamas in southern Israel.

Israeli forces have retaliated with a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which has killed hundreds so far and levelled entire residential areas.

Yousaf, whose wife, Nadia el-Nakla, is of Palestinian heritage, reported that her parents Elizabeth and Maged were visiting family in Gaza when the Hamas assault took place and did not know “if they would make it through the night”. 

According to Yousaf, the Israeli authorities had instructed them to leave as "Gaza would effectively be turned into rubble" but “they cannot guarantee a safe passage to any of the borders".

Read more: Scotland First Minister Humza Yousaf says in-laws trapped in Gaza

A military source at the Jordanian military has denied reports that the US army used a base in Jordan to transport supplies to Israel, according to Jordanian outlet Ammon News. 

"The plane referred to in the false allegations that were circulated on Sunday evening crossed Jordanian airspace after being granted a transit permit in accordance with the legal procedures governing international air traffic, and the transit request confirmed that it was carrying passengers and not carrying any equipment," the source said, according to Ammon. 

Sirens have been activated in Tel Aviv and across Israel, the Israeli army has said.

Al-Qassam said they have targted Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport with a barrage of rockets. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said the sharp escalation of the Israel-Palestinian conflict was a vivid example of the United States' policy failure in the Middle East, Reuters news agency reported. 

Putin told the visiting Iraqi prime minister that Washington had tried to monopolise the search for a settlement in the region.

The Kremlin earlier said it was in touch with both sides and would seek to play a role in resolving the conflict between them.

Israel is carrying out a widespread, systematic bombing campaign of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, following the Hamas-led attack of 7 October. 

Air strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip began on Saturday and have continued since then. On Monday, Israel cut off all electricity, food, gas and water in Gaza, severely hindering medical teams’ efforts to save wounded patients.

On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said that at least 770 Palestinians had been killed and 4,000 wounded in the strikes.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has referred to Palestinians as "human animals" and called for a "complete siege" of Gaza, with Israel calling up 300,000 reserves and mobilising its forces along the Strip.

As of Monday, the Israeli air force had dropped some 2,000 munitions and more than 1,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza, the army said, having shelled 20 high-rise residential buildings, mosques, hospitals, banks and other civilian infrastructure.

Middle East Eye takes a look at the civilian infrastructure that has been demolished in Israel’s attacks in the follow article: 

Read more: The Gaza civilian buildings bombed by Israel

Abu Ubaida, the spokesman of Hamas; Izzideen al-Qassam Brigades, said Ashkelon residents should leave the coastal Israeli city before 5 pm local time (2pm GMT). 

"In response to the enemy’s crime of displacing our people and forcing them to flee their homes in several areas of the Gaza Strip, we are giving the residents of the occupied city of Ashkelon a deadline to leave it before 5pm," Abu Ubaida said in a brief communique. 

An Israeli army spokesperson has said that "accuracy" is not the primary concern when it comes to attacking the Gaza Strip.

In a statement published by Haaretz, Daniel Hagari said the army was dropping hundreds of tonnes of bombs in the attacks and that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy".

"We exact a price from all Hamas locations and structure, dozens from every pilot in every air force attack."

He added that among other targets, the Israeli army attacked a weapons warehouse located in a mosque, as well as the houses of activists.

Israel says it will bomb trucks carrying supplies from Egypt to Gaza, according to Israel's Channel 12.

The outlet said Israel told Egyptian officials it would attacks any trucks attempting to bring supplies through the Rafah crossing that connects the Gaza Strip to northern Sinai.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said it is facing difficulties updating the death toll regularly due to disruptions to internet and communication networks.

The blackouts, which Middle East Eye correspondents in Gaza are also facing, come after Israel said it would cut the besieged Strip's access to water, food, fuel and electricity. 

In the latest death toll, the ministry said at least 765 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli shelling and over 4,000 wounded. At least 18 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the flare-up started on Saturday. 

Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister of Greece, says he will not condemn Hamas after its attack on Israel, and compares the siege imposed on Gaza to the apartheid in South Africa.

In an interview, Varoufakis said the criminals were not Hamas, nor the Israeli settlers, but rather Europeans who he said "have been complicit in a crime against humanity by remaining silent when there’s no trouble or when people are dying outside the view of the cameras especially if it involves Palestinians".