Israel-Palestine conflict: Deaths spike to over 3,500 as air strikes pound Gaza, thousands flee homes

The death toll is rising fast as the brutal war between Israelis and Palestinian militants raged on.

Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas militant group that controls Gaza in retaliation for a rampage by the group's fighters, who stormed through Israeli towns a week ago, killed 1,300 people, mainly civilians, and seized scores of hostages.

Israel has since put the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, under a total siege and bombarded it with unprecedented air strikes. The Palestinian health ministry said at least 2,269 have been killed and 9,814 others wounded due to attacks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Here's what's happening on day 8 of the war:

A senior military commander of Hamas who headed the Islamist group's aerial operations in Gaza City has been killed in Israeli air strikes, the military said on Saturday.

Murad Abu Murad was killed over the past day when fighter jets struck an operational centre of Hamas from where the group carried out its "aerial activity", the military said. There was no immediate confirmationfrom Hamas.

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Thousands of Palestinians fled the north of the Gaza Strip on Saturday from the path of an expected Israeli ground assault, while Israel pounded the area with more air strikes and said it would keep two roads open to let people escape.

Israel had given the entire population of the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which includes the enclave's biggest settlement Gaza City, until Saturday morning to move south. It announced overnight that it would guarantee the safety of Palestinians fleeing the area on two main roads until 4pm.

"Around the Gaza Strip, Israeli reserve soldiers in formation (are) getting ready for the next stage of operations," Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told a video briefing early on Saturday.

"They are all around the Gaza Strip, in the south, in the centre and in the north, and they are preparing themselves for whatever target they get, whatever task."

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 324 people in the past 24 hours alone, including 126 children, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said.

There were 88 women among those killed, it said, adding that 1,018 were wounded over that period.

In Gaza City's Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood, part of the area Israel has ordered evacuated, warplanes bombed a residential area during the night, hitting several houses, according to residents who posted appeals on social media platforms.

Hundreds of residents of the area took refuge at the nearby Quds hospital and planned to join those fleeing to the south in the morning.

"We lived a night of horror. Israel punished us for not wanting to leave our home. Is there brutality worse than this?", a father of three told Reuters by telephone from the hospital, declining to give his name for fear of reprisals.

"I was never going to leave, I prefer to die and not leave, but I can’t see my wife children die before my eyes. We are helpless."

In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli planes struck a four-storey building, killing and wounding several people. Dozens of Palestinians were rushing there to help rescue people trapped in the rubble.

Hamas militants shared the video on their Telegram channel, with the caption, "Hamas fighters, showing compassion for children in the midst of the Kibbutz 'Holit' battles on day one of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood."

According to Israeli media, the children seen in the video have not been identified yet and it is unclear if their parents were killed when the children were taken away.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared the same clip on the platform 'X', stating that the children are being held hostage in their own homes by Hamas terrorists, while their parents lie dead in the next room.

The World Health Organization said on Saturday that enough basic health supplies to serve 300,000 people in the Gaza Strip have been flown to an Egyptian airport near the Palestinian enclave.

Supplies were ready to go in once humanitarian access could be established through the Rafah crossing from Egypt into the southern Gaza Strip, WHO said.

A plane carrying 78 cubic metres of health supplies from the UN health agency's logistics hub in Dubai has landed in El Arish airport "to serve the needs of 300,000 people," including pregnant women.

The UAE has launched a humanitarian campaign that seeks to provide relief for Palestinians caught in the middle of the ongoing war in Gaza Strip.

Named 'Compassion for Gaza', the campaign will establish centres to collect and mobilise aid packages.

Through this campaign, the UAE hopes to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable groups — particularly the more than one million children who make up nearly half of Gaza Strip's population.

Basic needs, in addition to health supplies and general hygiene materials, shall be provided to them and their mothers.

Hamas has vowed to fight until the last drop of blood, and says Israel's order to leave is a trick to force residents to give up their homes. Gaza City mosques have blared calls telling people to stay.

"We are striking our enemies with unprecedented might," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a rare statement televised after the Jewish Sabbath began on Friday. "I emphasise that this is only the beginning."

Conricus, the military spokesman, said: "The end state of this war is that we will dismantle Hamas and its military capability and fundamentally change the situation so that Hamas never again has the ability to inflict any damage on Israeli civilians or soldiers."

The Israeli military said on Friday tank-backed troops had mounted raids to hit Palestinian rocket crews and gather information on the location of hostages, the first official account of ground troops in Gaza since the crisis began.

Egypt, the only Arab state to share a border with Gaza, and Jordan, which is next to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have both warned against Palestinians being forced off their land.

It reflects deep-rooted Arab fears that Israel's latest war with Hamas in Gaza could spark a new wave of permanent displacement from land where Palestinians want to build a future state.

"This is the cause of all causes, the cause of all Arabs," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Thursday. "It is important that the (Palestinian) people remain steadfast and present on their land."

The Israeli army said on Saturday it was aware of the incident in southern Lebanon in which a Reuters journalist was killed and that it was being investigated.

"We are aware of the incident with the Reuters journalist. We are looking into it. We already have visuals. We're doing cross examination. It's a tragic thing," a military spokesperson told reporters.

Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah was killed and six other journalists injured in southern Lebanon on Friday when missiles fired from the direction of Israel struck them, according to a Reuters videographer who was at the scene.

The UN estimated that tens of thousands of Palestinians headed south from northern Gaza after the Israeli order on Friday, adding to 400,000 Gazans already displaced earlier in the week.

"No safe corridors were initially provided for people to safely comply with the orders to move southwards. Hundreds of people, including families, had to flee on foot. There are concerns about the food security, and access to water, shelter, and health care of the new IDPs," the UN office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update.

It said it no longer considered U.N. premises in the northern half of Gaza to be protected.

The UN and other bodies have called on Israel to lift its total siege of Gaza so that aid can get in.

"We need immediate humanitarian access throughout Gaza, so that we can get fuel, food and water to everyone in need," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Friday. "Even wars have rules."

(Inputs from Reuters, AFP)

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