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No electricity, water for Gaza until all hostages are freed: Israeli minister
Hamas media said 15 Palestinians had been killed and several wounded in the latest Israeli air strikes
Smoke plumes billow during Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on October 12 as raging battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day. — AFP
Israel said on Thursday there would be no humanitarian break to its siege of the Gaza Strip until all its hostages were freed, after the Red Cross pleaded for fuel to be allowed in to prevent overwhelmed hospitals from "turning into morgues".
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip in retribution for the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, when hundreds of gunmen poured across the barrier fence and rampaged through Israeli towns on Saturday.
The country's Energy Minister Israel Katz said there would be no exception to the siege without freedom for Israeli hostages.
"Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be lifted, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And nobody should preach us morals," Katz posted on social media platform X.
Hamas' fighters killed at least 1,200 people — mostly civilians shot dead in their homes or on the streets — and carried scores of hostages back to Gaza.
The scale of the killings has emerged in recent days after Israeli forces reclaimed control of towns, finding homes strewn with bodies, including women who were raped and killed and children who were shot and burned.
Israel has responded so far by putting the enclave, home to 2.3 million people, under total siege and launching by far the most powerful bombing campaign in the 75-year history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, destroying whole neighbourhoods.
Gaza authorities say more than 1,200 people have been killed and more 5,000 people have been wounded in the bombing. The sole electric power station has been switched off and hospitals are running out of fuel for emergency generators.
"The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent, and I implore the sides to reduce the suffering of civilians," Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement on Thursday.
"As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk. Kidney dialysis stops, and X-rays can’t be taken. Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues."
'No decision on ground assault'
Israel formed a new unity war government on Wednesday, bringing opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into his cabinet.
It has called up hundreds of thousands of reservists in preparation for what could be a ground assault on Gaza. No decision to invade has yet been made "but we're preparing for it," military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht said early on Thursday.
The latest strikes overnight were focused on Hamas' "Nukhba Force", which spearheaded Saturday's attacks, Hecht told reporters. Palestinian gunmen were still trying to infiltrate Israel by sea and the military was still working to secure the Gaza fence, Hecht said.
Hamas media said 15 Palestinians had been killed and several wounded in the latest Israeli air strikes. Witnesses reported Israeli aircraft heavily bombarding Gaza city and Gazan authorities also reported an air strike on the Jabalia refuge camp in northern Gaza.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel on Thursday on a trip to the region show solidarity with Israel and help prevent the war from spreading. He will also visit Jordan.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said on X that Blinken would meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday.
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