The sole remaining crossing from Egypt was shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit nearby. Israel on Monday halted the entry of food, water, fuel and medicine into the territory. Only a few lights from private generators still glowed. Others sought shelter in the shrinking number of safe neighborhoods in the strip of land only 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.Īfter nightfall, Palestinians were plunged into pitch blackness in large parts of Gaza City and elsewhere after the territory's only power station ran out of fuel and shut down. The UN said late Wednesday the number of people displaced by the airstrikes had soared 30 percent within 24 hours, to 339,000, two-thirds of them crowding into U.N. Hamas on Wednesday launched a fresh barrage of rockets into Israel aimed at the southern town of Ashkelon. The death toll in Gaza rose to 1,200 early Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, including 51 people killed in what the Israeli military called a large-scale attack in the hours before daylight. A ground offensive in Gaza, whose 2.3 million residents are densely packed into a tiny, coastal strip, would likely result in a surge of casualties for fighters on both sides. Israel's increasingly destructive airstrikes in Gaza have flattened entire city blocks and left unknown numbers of bodies beneath debris. It appeared that the rest of Netanyahu’s existing government partners, a collection of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, would remain in place to handle non-war issues. The country's chief opposition leader, Yair Lapid, was invited to join the Cabinet but did not immediately respond to the offer. Still, Israel’s political divisions remain. The Cabinet, which will focus only on issues of war, will be led by Netanyahu Benny Gantz, a senior opposition figure and former defense minister and current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Militants in Gaza are holding an estimated 150 people taken hostage from Israel - soldiers, men, women, children and older adults - and they have fired thousands of rockets into Israel over the past five days. Rescue workers and witnesses have described horrifying scenes, including the slaughter of elderly people and finding bloody rooms crowded with massacred civilians. The prime minister’s allegations could not be independently confirmed, and authorities did not immediately offer further details. Netanyahu alleged that the attackers engaged in atrocities, including binding boys and girls and shooting them in the head, burning people alive, raping women and beheading soldiers. The Israeli government is under intense public pressure to topple Hamas after its militants stormed through a border fence Saturday and massacred hundreds of Israelis in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor music festival. The war has already claimed at least 2,300 lives on both sides. The new Cabinet establishes a degree of unity after years of bitterly divisive politics and at a time when the Israeli military appears increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive into Gaza. “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” he said in a televised address. Netanyahu vowed to “crush and destroy” Hamas. In the sealed-off Gaza Strip, Palestinian suffering mounted as Israeli bombardment demolished neighborhoods and the only power plant ran out of fuel. JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined with a top political rival Wednesday to create a wartime Cabinet to oversee the fight to avenge the gruesome weekend attack by Hamas militants.
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