Israel on Thursday warned that Gaza will suffer further “severe” impacts from its widening aerial onslaught against Hamas as USSecretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the country for talks on the crisis.
Mr Blinken’s meetings were due to include one with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party controls the West Bank but not the Gaza Strip where Hamas is in charge.
He will also hold meetings with senior Israelis, following the formation of an emergency government uniting the two main parties, to show support for their country as it seeks to recover and strike back from the devastating weekend incursion by Hamas fighters.
His diplomatic mission came as Israel’s air force announced it had killed a “senior operative” in Hamas, Muhammad Abu Shamla, in an overnight strike on his home which it said was being used “to store naval weapons intended to carry out terrorist operations”.
Other air strikes were reported to have hit further targets in Gaza City and in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. Israel said it had been targeting members of Hamas’s elite Nakhba force and that it was also trying to identify those involved in the attack.
Military spokesman Lt-Col Jonathan Conricus said that Israel was seeking to target a network of tunnels, built below civilian tunnels, that Hamas had constructed across Gaza and also seeking to take out “commanders” wherever it believed them to be.
Another military spokesman, Lt-Col Richard Hecht, said that the scale of the airstrikes was already “bigger than they have seen before” in Gaza. “The scale and scope of this is going to be very severe,” he said.
The warning came as:
- The UN said that 340,000 people had been forced from their homes in Gaza in a “mass displacement”.
- The combined death toll approached 2,500 with around 1,200 on each side.
- The international committee of the Red Cross said it was trying to negotiate the release of hostages taken by Hamas.
- Egypt was reported to have warned Israel three days before Hamas attacked that a major incident was imminent.
- Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant vowed to “wipe this thing called Hamas off the face of the Earth”.
- Israel said it had foiled fresh attempts by Hamas to enter by sea.
The latest developments came as Lt- Col Conricus said that further evidence of atrocities carried out by Hamas, including the beheading of babies in “horrific scenes”, had been uncovered at Kibbutz Be’eri near to the Gaza Strip.
He said the “horrific” scenes resembled those from a “zombie movie” and included “women and children handcuffed and shot” and people burned alive in their homes.
Meghan and Harry’s condemnation
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have condemned “all acts of terrorism and brutality” and pledged to support efforts to send aid to the region.
Under the title With Heavy Hearts, Harry and Meghan said in a statement on their Archewell website that they support action to “help all innocent victims of this unconscionable level of human suffering”.
It came after the King yesterday said he is “appalled” by the “barbaric” terror acts in Israel. The King, who made a historic visit to Israel and the West Bank in 2020, was said to be “extremely concerned” about the conflict and had asked to be kept abreast of developments.
Buckingham Palace said: “His Majesty is appalled by and condemns the barbaric acts of terrorism in Israel.”
The Prince and Princess of Wales went further, with Kensington Palace saying: “The Prince and Princess of Wales are profoundly distressed by the devastating events that have unfolded. The horrors inflicted by Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel are appalling — they utterly condemn them.”
