Two days after the Hamas attacks which left up to 700 people dead, Israel has announced a total blockade on Gaza, saying there will be “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed”.
Speaking today, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said: “We are putting a complete siege on Gaza … No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”
On Saturday morning a huge barrage of thousands of rockets were launched into Israel while Hamas gunmen crossed into the country in an attack that took Israel’s Army and intelligence by surprise.
The incursion is the deadliest attack Israel has experienced in the 50 years since the Yom Kippur war, and footage of the dead, wounded and captured have drawn international condemnation.
A music festival in the Negev Desert, a community close to the Gaza Strip, was targeted – with 270 mostly younger people believed to have been killed by gunmen in a terrifying attack.
Some 100 Israeli citizens are believed to have been kidnapped and are being held hostage across Gaza, a narrow and densely populated strip of land between Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel retaliated to the attack with airstrikes against Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Saturday that his country was seeking “mighty vengeance for this black day”.
The Israel Defense Forces says that it struck more than 1000 enemy targets in overnight and daytime attacks on the strip.
Some 490 Palestinian people have died in the bombardment so far, reports said. CNN reported that “most Gazans have no way of fleeing the besieged enclave. All crossings out of the territory are shut, with the exception of the tightly controlled Rafah crossing with Egypt”.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) called for the creation of humanitarian corridors to bring food into Gaza.
“As the conflict intensifies, civilians, including vulnerable children and families, face mounting challenges in accessing essential food supplies,” the WFP said.
“WFP urges safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to affected areas, calling on all parties to uphold the principles of humanitarian law … including ensuring access to food.”
A former British ambassador to the US and Israel has said that it should be “the top priority of the Arab world now to try and find some kind of ceasefire”.
However, Sir David Manning told Sky News that ceasefire would very difficult to negotiate.
“The Americans have got the same interest, as have the Europeans, there will be differences of view but the question is now what happens on the ground in Gaza, and is it possible to contain this violence or this war going to spread?
“It’s in nobody’s interest that it should be spread, and that is what I certainly would expect the Gulf Arabs and the Americans and Europeans to be working very hard to try to achieve,” he said.