(Reuters) – Israel said on Thursday there would be no humanitarian exceptions to its siege of the Gaza Strip until all its hostages were freed.
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules Gaza in retribution for the deadliest attack on Jewish civilians since the Holocaust.
The United Nations World Food Programme warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low in Gaza after Israel imposed a total blockade.
Conflict
* U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv to show solidarity with Israel, help prevent the conflictspreading and try to free hostages. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Thank you, America, for standing with Israel, today, tomorrow and always”.
* Israel’s public broadcaster Kan said the Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1,300. Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza; Israel says it has identified 97 of them.
* Gaza authorities said more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded. Ten Palestinian medics were among the dead.
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned violence against civilians. “We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law,” Wafa news agency Wafa quoted him as saying.
* Egypt said it was directing international aid flights for Gaza to an airport in northern Sinai near the Gaza border. Egypt signalled that any exodus of Gazans across its border would be unacceptable.
* Russia’s foreign ministry urged Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza to allow in food and medicine and criticised “indiscriminate” bombing of the Gaza Strip.
* European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused the Israeli government on Tuesday of breaking international law by imposing a total blockade of Gaza in response to the attack.
* Israel’s El Al Airlines said it would operate flights this Saturday from the United States and Asia to bring back reservists, breaking a 40-year policy of not flying on the Jewish Sabbath.
Human Impact
* Israeli air strikes have made major cemeteries in Gaza dangerous to reach so mourning families are burying their dead in informal graveyards dug in empty lots. “As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk,” said the ICRC’s regional director.
* When Israel called up its reservists and declared war this week, the response was swift and overwhelming.”This is different, this is unprecedented, the rules have changed,” said one.
* How an Israeli kibbutz ‘paradise’ turned into hell. Corpses strewn on streets. Body bags lined up on a basketball court. The stench of death everywhere.
International
* More than 2,500 Israelis have sought sanctuary in Cyprus where the local Jewish community has come to their aid. Less than 40 minutes flight from Israel, Larnaca has received droves of Israelis since Saturday.
* Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told the German chancellor that a sovereign Palestinian state should be established for a lasting solution to the conflict, the Turkish presidency said.
* NATO defence ministers watched stunned as their Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant showed them “shocking” and “horrific” video from the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, diplomats said.
* Iran’s foreign minister accused Israel of seeking “genocide” by enforcing a siege against Gaza, according to Iranian state TV.
* Former U.S. President Donald Trump said Netanyahu “was not prepared and Israel was not prepared” for the attack. A White House spokesman called the comments “dangerous and unhinged”. Some of Trump’s Republican opponents assailed him for criticizing a U.S. ally at a time of crisis.
* Governments around the world have arranged repatriation flights from Israel. Here is a list.
Insights
* A factbox on the Gaza Strip, devastated by conflict and economic blockade.
* The war falls under a complex international system of justice that has emerged since World War Two.
* The conflict hinges on statehood, land, Jerusalem and refugees, pitting Israeli demands for security against Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own.
* “He is elusive. He is the man in the shadows.” The secretive Hamas mastermind behind the assault: Mohammed Deif.
* The Israel-Hamas war upends Biden’s two-pronged Mideast strategy: brokering Israeli-Saudi detente and containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Markets And Business
* What are global firms with a presence in Israel doing after the Hamas attack?
* International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva said the “heartbreaking” Israel-Hamas conflict threatened to darken an already murky global economic outlook. “We are closely monitoring how the situation evolves, how it is affecting, especially oil markets,” Georgieva said.
* International airlines have suspended hundreds of flights to and from Tel Aviv following the attack by Hamas militants on Israel. Here are airlines that have temporarily halted flights.
