Civilian loss unprecedented in Gaza

GAZA: Most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza are without electricity and water. And, with hundreds of Israeli strikes raining down on their tiny enclave, they have nowhere to run, Reuters reported.

The Palestinian territory, one of the most crowded places on Earth, has been under siege since Saturday in a near-constant bombardment that Gazan health officials say has killed more than 1,000 people. 

Gaza’s sole power station, which had been working intermittently for days, cut out on Wednesday after running out of fuel. Without power, water can’t be pumped into houses. At night there’s nearly total darkness punctuated by fireballs and the pin-pricks of light from phones used as flashlights.

“I lived through all the wars and incursions in the past, but I have never witnessed anything worse than this war,” said Yamen Hamad, 35, a father-of-four, whose home had been destroyed by Israeli strikes on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

At a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, relatives and friends lined up outside the overloaded morgue where bodies were laid out on the floor because coolers were full or had no power.

The mourners were desperate to bury their loved ones swiftly before the unseasonable heat took its toll. They spoke briefly over the bodies, praying for the souls to rest in peace, before they carried them to graves nearby, with stretchers if they were available, or otherwise without.

The Hamas attack drew strong condemnation by the United States and other Western governments. The militant group’s 1988 founding charter called for Israel’s destruction, and the group is branded a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States, the European Union, Canada, Egypt and Japan.

CIVILIAN LOSS ‘UNPRECEDENTED’

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has pledged intensify the military campaign in Gaza, saying on Wednesday that Israel would wipe Hamas “off the face of the Earth”.

Beit Hanoun, near the frontier with Israel, was among the first places hit hard by retaliatory Israeli strikes, with many roads and buildings destroyed and thousands of displaced, according to Hamas and local residents.

There was no escape for Ala al-Kafarneh’s family.

The 31-year-old said he fled the town on Saturday with his pregnant wife, his father, brothers, cousins and in-laws. They drove to Beach Refugee Camp on the coast, where they hoped they would be safer, but air attacks began targeting that area too so they headed to Sheikh Radwan, another district deeper east.

On Tuesday night, an airstrike hit the building where Kafarneh and his family were sheltering, killing all of them except him, he added.

“We escaped from danger into death,” Kafarneh said outside the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, his head cut and a plaster cast running from his shoulder to his wrist.