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

Around 35,000 people have crammed into the largest hospital in Gaza to seek shelter ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive, medical officials said. 

Earlier, Israel said it was planning to invade the Gaza Strip in a "joint and coordinated attack from the air, sea and land".

Tzipi Navon, a close adviser and office manager for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife, Sara, posted incendiary remarks on Facebook, calling on Israel to torture the people of Gaza. 

"We keep saying to flatten Gaza, flatten Gaza, and I think that's not enough," Navon wrote. "It won't calm the storm of emotions, it won't dull the intensity of the rage and pain that can't find an outlet for them."

Instead, she said the people of Gaza should be captured and tortured "one-by-one" by pulling out their nails and skinning them alive.

Further detailing the type of torture she said Palestinians from Gaza should endure, Navon said that male genitals should be cut off, fried and fed to the captured.

"Save their tongues for last, so we can enjoy his screams, his ears so he can hear his own screams, and his eyes so he can see us smiling," she said.

Israel is completing preparations for a "significant ground operation" in the Gaza Strip, an army spokesperson said in a statement.

The army is readying to "expand the offensive" by implementing a "wide range of offensive operational plans" which it says include a "joint and coordinated attack from the air, sea and land".

The statement said Israel was finalising the draft of hundreds of thousands of reservists, as it works to provide troops with all the equipment they would need for the expected ground offensive.

"[Army] battalions and soldiers are deployed all over the country and are prepared to increase readiness for the next stages of the war, with an emphasis on a significant ground operation," the statement added. 

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in a televised speech, accused Israel of committing war crimes against civilians. 

"Israel is turning to crimes against civilians after failing to defeat our fighters," Haniyeh said. 

The leader also insisted that Palestinians would not leave Gaza or the West Bank and migrate to Egypt.

"Our decision is to remain in our land," Haniyeh added, while addressing Egypt in that part of the speech.

Since the moment the Israel-Palestine war erupted last weekend, Israeli society has been turned upside down.

The shock Palestinian attack on Israeli communities near Gaza, which killed around 1,300 Israelis, has prompted a complete breakdown of previous social bonds between Jewish Israelis and their Palestinian fellow citizens.

A prominent example of this is in the corridors of academia, where previous ties between Jewish and Arab students have unravelled as Israeli fury is directed at Palestinians.

One Palestinian student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told Middle East Eye that his fellow students have "suddenly turned into spies".

Read More: Palestinian students targeted by campaign in Israeli universities

Israeli raids on the eighth day of its ongoing bombardment in Gaza have killed an average of over two Palestinians every 10 minutes, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement.

Saturday is shaping up to be the deadliest day since Israel started a retaliatory and indiscriminate bombing campaign in Gaza following a surprise attack by Palestinian groups from the besieged strip on 7 October.

Non-stop raids across overcrowded areas on Saturday have so far left at least 310 people killed. Scores more were killed since this tally was announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

On average, at least 273 Palestinians have been killed each day since 7 October. However, the intensity of Israeli shelling appears to be growing each day, with the daily death toll spiking with it.

At least 724 children and 458 women are among the 2,215 killed so far. 

The intensifying bombing campaign is happening while Israel cuts electricity, fuel, food and water supply to Gaza's 2.2m population and blocks aid from entering through Egypt.

Palestinian civilians and officials in Gaza have warned that a humanitarian disaster is unfolding, with hospitals, medics, relief agencies and news organisations nearing a complete collapse of their operations.

Thousands of protesters poured onto the streets of central London on Saturday to demand that Israel halt its bombing campaign and siege of the Gaza Strip as it prepares for a possible ground invasion of the tiny Palestinian enclave.

Undeterred by warnings against waving the Palestinian flag, the protesters gathered outside the BBC's New Broadcasting House to denounce what they called "Israeli agression", as air strikes pounded the Gaza Strip for an eighth successive day.

Earlier on Saturday, the exterior of BBC studios in London was sprayed with red paint in protest against the channel's coverage of the conflict. Middle East Eye contacted the BBC for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.

At the rally - organised by Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and other groups - pro-Palestinian protesters could be heard chanting "Israel is a terrorist state" and "free Palestine" as they moved from Regent Street, one of London's main shopping thoroughfares, towards Westminster.

More than 1,000 police were deployed ahead of the protest, with the Metropolitan police warning that anyone showing support for Hamas, a group proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK, or deviating from the protest route could face arrest.

Read more: Thousands gather in London to denounce Gaza bombardment

Israeli protesters called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign at a demonstration outside the defence ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Protesters included families of those believed to be held captive by Palestinian groups in Gaza, according to Israeli media. 

Reporter Noga Tarnopolsky told MSNBC "calls for Netanyahu to resign are rising" and that families of hostages "feel abandoned" by the prime minister, according to journalist Victoria Brownworth. 

Netanyahu supporters were also at the protest "screaming obscenities and offences at the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas", according to Tarnopolsky.

A Palestinian doctor said the Israeli military has given them a final notice to leave hospitals in northern Gaza before they start bombing them.

In a recorded message heard by Middle East Eye, Sohaib al-Hems said staff of Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia and the General Services Hospital in Gaza City are refusing to leave. 

"We will die in the hospitals," Hems said. "More than 27 ambulances have been targeted just now, and dozens of medical staff and patinets have been killed.

"Do not stay silent over what's happening in Gaza. We will not forgive you."

Renewed Israeli air strikes near a school on Saturday afternoon have killed at least 20 Palestinians in an initial tally reported by the Gaza-based interior ministry.
The attack targeted areas adjacent to al-Fakhura School in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, which is home to refugees forcibly expelled by Zionist militia in 1948, and their descendants.

Translation: Video of the genocide committed by the occupation in the Jabalia camp near al-Fakhura School.

An Israeli army veteran who was involved in a 1948 massacre of Palestinian civilians has called on Israelis to "erase the memory of... families, mothers and children".

Ezra Yachin, 95, is one of more than 300,000 army reservists mobilised by Israel since war broke out with Hamas in Gaza a week ago.

Yachin won't be involved in combat, but instead will serve to "motivate" soldiers, according to recent reports.  

"Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them," Yachin said while addressing Israeli troops this week, in a video that has since gone viral.

"Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live.

"Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbour, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him."

Read more: Israeli veteran, 95, rallies soldiers to 'erase' Palestinian children

Missiles were fired at an Israeli army post from south Lebanon, Al Jazeera and Reuters have reported.

The Israeli military said it was attacking the source of the missiles.

Al Jazeera said a clash involving medium and heavy weaponry was ongoing in a Lebanese town in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms following the missile attack. 

Hamas's Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades said nine more captives were killed in indiscriminate Israeli shelling in the last 24 hours, including a number of foreigners. 

Qassam has previously announced the death of 17 captives in Israeli air stikes in Gaza over the past week. 

Middle East Eye could not independently verify the authenticity of the claim. 

For the seventh day in a row, overnight and early morning Israeli air strikes levelled homes atop their civilian occupants in Gaza, killing scores of people.

On Friday night and into Saturday morning, the bombardment was concentrated in the areas of Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah.

At least 315 people have been killed between 11pm Friday and 11am Saturday local time, including 110 children. 

More than two milion people are risk in Gaza as water runs out, the UN has said. 

It has become a matter of "life and death", said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of Unrwa, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

According the Unrwa, no humanitarian supplies have been allowed into Gaza since Saturday.

"Fuel needs to be delivered now into Gaza to make water available for 2 million people,” Lazzarini said.

"If not, people will start dying of severe dehydration, among them young children, the elderly and women. Water is now the last remaining lifeline. I appeal for the siege on humanitarian assistance to be lifted now,” he added. 

Clean and drinking water is running out, forcing people to use dirty water from wells and increasing risks of waterborne diseases, the Unrwa added. 

Water supply has also been impacted by the total electricity blackout imposed by Israel since 11 October.