Israel-Palestine escalation updates: Gaza under bombardment

Thanks for following us with Saturday’s updates on the ongoing fighting between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military.

Here is a summary of the today’s events:

• At least 232 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air attacks on the Gaza Strip according to medical sources, launched after a Hamas offensive against Israel. At least 250 Israelis have been killed.
• According to Hamas’s military wing, it has captured “several times greater” than dozens of Israelis.
• Hamas, which runs Gaza, said its offensive is a response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased settler violence. You can read more here on how Hamas’s offensive unfolded.
• Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told residents of the besieged enclave to “leave now”, saying Israel’s forces “will turn all Hamas hideouts into rubble”.

Israeli bombardment of Gaza has continued into the early hours of Sunday, Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed said reporting from Gaza City.

“Very violent raids shook the centre of Gaza City … in Al Nasr neighbourhood,” she said. “Again, its a very densely populated area.”

ElSayed said that currently, there was no information on the number of casualties as a result of this latest air raid.

As Palestinians in Gaza prepare for what could be a long-drawn war in the besieged enclave, residents such as medical professional Belal Aldabbour have already started taking precautions to protect and provide for their families.

“I started by geographically mapping my little flat to locate the point that is farthest away from the windows in case of shrapnel wounds,” he told Al Jazeera.

“I’m now working on reserve batteries,” the father of two said, to keep the electricity running in his home. “There is no telling what is coming next.”

Following one of the deadliest attacks on Israel in decades, Netanyahu promised to turn all Hamas hideouts in Gaza to “rubble”, telling residents of the besieged enclave to “leave now”.

It is a statement that underscores the fundamental plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza who live under Israeli blockade and do not have freedom of movement, several analysts have noted.

“Where exactly are they supposed to go if they can’t leave?” Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israel analyst with Crisis Group, questioned on X.

Where exactly are they supposed to go if they can’t leave? https://t.co/S829jUb2Ok

— Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין (@MairavZ) October 7, 2023

A prominent mosque in Cairo, which is a seat of Sunni learning, has expressed its solidarity with Palestinians in the wake of Hamas’s attack.

The Al-Azhar al-Sharif mosque houses the Sunni world’s foremost seat of religious learning. A statement by the mosque said it “stands fast with full support to the free people of Palestine, who have come to revive our self-confidence, lifeline, and a long-lost sense of aliveness”.

It also criticised the global approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying the international community “adopts nothing but double standards when it comes to the Palestinian cause”.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has told his US counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, that his country rejects the targeting of unarmed civilians “in any way”.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan also called for “concerted efforts to calm the situation and avoid further violence,” the Saudi Arabian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Earlier, the Egyptian foreign ministry said it was talking with Saudi Arabia and Jordan in an effort to defuse the continuing escalation.

You can read here a list of reactions from other countries on the ongoing war between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military.

The total number of Israelis captured by Hamas is “several times greater” than dozens, according to the military wing of Hamas.

A Hamas spokesman was responding to Israeli statements on those taken captive. Neither side has given a clear number.

The spokesman said those taken captive were spread throughout all areas of the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of the US-based Electronic Intifada website, said that Biden’s unequivocal support of Israel will likely lead to more violence in the coming days.

“We should take Joe Biden’s statements as a green light to Israel to perpetrate more of the kind of massacres that it has been carrying out against the Palestinian people now for almost 80 years with total impunity,” he said.

“What we’re seeing now is exactly what many of us have predicted, and it’s the inevitable result of granting impunity to a regime that has absolutely no respect for international law, for basic humanity, and for the rights of the Palestinian people,” he said, referring to US support for Israel.

While multiple Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have occurred in the past 15 years, Israel’s war in 2014 was by far the deadliest. Here is a short summary of the level of destruction that took place:

• More than 2,200 Palestinians – the vast majority civilians – and 71 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed over a seven-week period between July and August.
• At least 18,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed and 73 medical facilities severely damaged.
• Most of the destruction resulted from 6,000 Israeli air strikes on heavily populated areas.

You can view the timeline of past Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since 2008 here.

The head of UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, has said she is “deeply concerned for the wellbeing of children in Israel and the State of Palestine”.

“With hundreds of civilians reportedly killed or injured, we are closely monitoring the situation for reports of grave rights violations committed against children,” Catherine Russell said in a statement.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher says it would be difficult for the US White House to pressure Israel to desist from escalating its attacks in Gaza, including in the face of a potential ground assault of the besieged enclave, amid tensions between the leaders of the two countries.

“The relationship between Netanyahu and Biden isn’t good. Biden has been in office now for almost three years and still hasn’t invited the Israeli prime minister to come to the White House,” he said.

“That would normally happen within the first year or so of a new presidency.”

Al Jazeera’s Willem Marx, reporting from Tel Aviv, says the roads are “very empty” and the security lapse will have implications for the Netanyahu-led government.

“There were a lot of very panicked people at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv when I arrived there, including members of staff and clearly across the city,” he said.

“I’m sure that pressure on the government, on the security forces will continue to mount over the course of the next 24 hours as people start to come out of their shelters.”

Israel’s military has said the commander of the Nahal Brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Yonathan Steinberg, was killed by Hamas fighters in southern Israel. The brigade is a main infantry branch of the Israeli military.

The military said on X Steinberg was fatally shot near Kerem Shalom as he was responding to a gunfight between his brigade and Hamas fighters.

הותר לפרסום כי מפקד חטיבת הנח”ל, אלוף-משנה יהונתן שטיינברג ז”ל נהרג היום בהיתקלות עם מחבל סמוך לכרם שלום.

אלוף-משנה יהונתן שטיינברג ז”ל, בן 42 מהקיבוץ שומרייה, היה בדרכו לחילופי אש שניהלו פקודיו עם מחבלים. בדרכו, נתקל במחבל ונהרג במהלך חילופי אש סמוך לכרם שלום>> pic.twitter.com/BNNrVYW2vN

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 7, 2023

Yonah Jeremy Bob, a military analyst for the Jerusalem Post, says Israel is likely planning a major ground assault into Gaza – the biggest since the 2014 invasion.

“There’s going to be a second act and that is an invasion of Gaza, and I think larger than 2014 when Israel called up 80,000 reserves. Israeli has four divisions of reservists that it is already calling up and has moved 35 brigades to the border. So what Israel had a 6:30am this morning [when the Hamas attack began] was minuscule to what it has now. Within a day or two, Israeli will have a massive force that will be able to overwhelm Hamas forces in Gaza,” Bob told Al Jazeera.

“What the question will really be is how far they want to go? Does it want to topple Hamas and have to figure out being in control, or handing control over to the Palestinian Authority, or a multinational force and all the consequences that could have?”

According to the health ministries in Gaza and the West Bank, this is the death and injury toll so far this Saturday:

• 232 dead, 1,700 injured in the Gaza Strip
• Six dead (two in Ramallah, one in Jericho, one in Qalqilia and two in Hebron), more than 50 injured in the West Bank

Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli Knesset says it will “not be easy” for the people of Gaza tonight.

“I can tell you tonight that the people of Gaza will have to take into consideration that they will have to pay a price and we will advise them to take steps to avoid any casualties,” the former UN ambassador told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv.

“We will be efficient, and we will do whatever it takes to hunt them [Hamas] down.”

Khaled Elgindy of the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC says the offensive by Hamas was an “audacious” and “unprecedented” operation, and a huge failure on the part of the Israeli intelligence.

“In operational terms and in terms of intelligence, it’s a colossal failure … its impossible to overstate,” he said.

“Gaza is one of the most heavily surveilled areas on Earth. They control the air, land and sea borders. They typically know what’s happening. What goes in and out of Gaza. And the fact that they didn’t know that this operation was being conducted and Palestinians were able to breach the border wall and enter Israeli territory … its a colossal failure.”

Moreover, Elgindy said it was also a political failure for the Israeli government, predicting that there will be domestic and political repercussions, as well.

“The Israeli political establishment had convinced themselves they turned a corner on the Palestinian issue. That it’s no longer a priority In this new Middle East, Israel would be at the centre with normalisation agreements around the corner with key Arab states like Saudi Arabia,” he noted.

You can read more here for how the Hamas offensive unfolded.

A general strike across the occupied West Bank has been called by all Palestinian factions for Sunday.

All ministries and commercial establishments will be closed to observe the call for the shutdown.

The death toll in Israel has risen to 250, according to Israel’s emergency medical service.

Another 1,500 people were injured, with 270 more in serious condition.

Six Palestinians, including a child, have been killed in the West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says.

Another 126 Palestinians have been injured, according to a tally by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. That number includes occupied East Jerusalem.

A breakdown of the injuries:

• 33 hit with live ammunition
• 10 injured by rubber-coated bullets
• 69 treated for tear gas inhalation
• 5 injured by shrapnel
• 8 physically assaulted
• 1 stabbed by an Israeli settler