The Gaza Strip is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe as its power plant ceased operations entirely due to the exhaustion of fuel supplies, while essential food and water provisions continue to diminish.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity leader Benny Gantz reached a deal on Wednesday to form an emergency government as the country prepares for a ground invasion in Gaza.
The news of the deal comes as the Lebanon border saw clashes and reports of infiltration by fighters into Israel, raising fears of Hezbollah opening a new front.
In Gaza, Israel intensified its airstrikes as the death toll soared to at least 1,200 Israelis and 1,055 Palestinians.
Israeli airstrikes went late into the night on Tuesday and resumed on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces reported.
Video footage circulating on social media showed complete neighborhoods flattened in Gaza as the humanitarian crisis worsened under the blockade. Israel also bombed the Rafah crossing into Egypt at least three times on Tuesday.
Hamas’ armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said it was still fighting inside Israel yesterday as Israeli tanks and armored vehicles assembled in large numbers just north of Gaza.
“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic, as food, water and electricity supplies in the besieged city continue to dwindle,” Alia Zaki, the spokesperson for the World Food Program (WFP), told Al Arabiya on Wednesday.
Israel has been carrying out air strikes on Gaza for five consecutive days in response to an unexpected incursion into its territory by Hamas on Saturday.
Entire neighborhoods in the city have been reduced to rubble, leaving most of its 2.3 million people without shelter or access to food or water.
The damaged infrastructure has severely impeded food production and distribution at shops and bakeries monitored by the WFP, Zaki explained.
Israel has put Gaza under a “complete siege,” preventing food and fuel from reaching the impoverished enclave where the United Nations estimates more than 80% of the population was already living in poverty.
On Wednesday, Gaza’s electricity authority announced that the enclave’s only power plant had run out of fuel and ceased operations.
Residents can still use power generators for electricity; however, due to Israel’s blockade on all sides of the border, the fuel necessary to operate these generators is expected to deplete soon.
Ready-to-eat fresh bread and canned food have been delivered to 137,000 displaced Gazans seeking refuge in UNRWA shelters.
The WFP has also provided 164,000 people with an emergency cash top-up to their electronic vouchers that they can use to buy food from local shops that are still open.
However, nearly 175,500 internally displaced people are seeking shelter in 88 UNRWA schools across the Gaza Strip, with the numbers expected to increase as Israeli air strikes continue, the UNRWA said in its latest update report.
Risks ahead
A ground offensive carries risks for Israel, notably to the hostages held in the narrow, densely populated Gaza Strip tightly controlled by Hamas.
Palestinian sources said one of the homes Israeli air strikes hit in Gaza overnight killed three relatives of Hamas military wing chief Mohammed Deif, the secretive mastermind of the operation, planned for two years.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation. Since Hamas seized power there in 2007, Israel has kept it under blockade, creating conditions among its inhabitants that Palestinians say are intolerable.
Washington said it was talking with Israel and Egypt about the idea of safe passage for civilians from Gaza, with food in short supply.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, an official in the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, called on the international community to intervene urgently, saying Gaza faced “a major humanitarian catastrophe.”
