According to the UN, over one million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip in the last week as a result of Israeli shelling and threats of a ground attack on Hamas officials.
Last Sunday, Israel declared war on the Islamist group, a day after waves of fighters breached the heavily defended border and killed over 1,400 people, the most of whom were civilians.
Seven days of continuous bombing targeting those responsible for the attack have demolished neighborhoods and killed at least 2,450 people in Gaza, the bulk of whom were regular Palestinians, according to the health ministry there.
The Arab League and African Union have warned that the invasion could result in “genocide” as Israel strives to avenge the worst attack in its history.
It was also warned about the security consequences of placing forces on the ground in the densely populated area.
“No one can guarantee the control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflicts” if Israel deploys troops into Gaza, according to Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
“Those who are interested in preventing the scope of war and crisis from expanding need to prevent the current barbaric attacks… against citizens and civilians in Gaza,” he added.
Iran is Israel’s number one adversary, and in addition to backing Hamas, it also supports Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north, where cross-border fighting has escalated in the last week.
At least ten people have been killed in Lebanon, and two have been killed in Israel, causing Israel to close the border area to civilians.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated that Israel has “no interest in escalating the situation in the north.”
But he added: “If Hezbollah chooses the path of war, it will pay a heavy price… but if it restrains itself, we’ll respect the situation.”
The United States, which has unambiguously supported Israel, is concerned about the spread of violence and has dispatched two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean as a deterrence.
In Washington, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan expressed concern about Iran getting “directly engaged” after it hailed the Hamas strike but denied involvement.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been touring Middle Eastern countries in recent days in an attempt to forestall a bigger crisis in the volatile area.
As he departed Egypt for Israel on Sunday, he emphasized “determination in every country I went to make sure that this doesn’t spread.”
Blinken has appealed to China to use its influence in the region to ease tensions.
But on Sunday Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Israel’s response had “gone beyond the scope of self-defence”.
He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his emergency government to “cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza”.
Evacuations
Israel has amassed thousands of troops and heavy equipment in the country’s south desert, ready for the go-ahead to enter northern Gaza.
The army has advised 1.1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip’s north — nearly half of its 2.4 million people — to flee to safety.
On the other side of the border, Israelis were moving to safer areas.
A “political decision” would spark any ground offensive, according to military spokesmen Lieutenant Richard Hecht and Daniel Hagari.
Netanyahu paid a visit to frontline troops on Saturday, telling them that “more is coming” but not stating when any ground action would begin.
Hecht singled out Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza-based Hamas leader implicated for the October 7 assaults, describing him as “a dead man walking.”
Foreign governments and aid organizations, including the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have regularly criticized Israel’s order for Gazans to evacuate their homes, accusing it of inflicting collective punishment on ordinary people.
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said on Sunday that some one million people had already been displaced in the first week of the conflict.
“The number is likely to be higher as people continue to leave their homes,” UNRWA director of communications Juliette Touma told AFP.
Palestinians carrying whatever they can fit into bags and luggage, or piled onto three-wheeled motorbikes, decrepit vehicles, trucks, and even donkey carts, have been a regular sight in recent days.
They have had to seek refuge wherever they can in Gaza’s increasingly populated south, including on the streets and in UN-run schools.
For the course of the conflict, Israel shut off water, gasoline, and food supplies to Gaza. Local hospitals are becoming overburdened as the number of dead and injured rises.
Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, announced on Sunday that water supplies to southern Gaza have been restored.
“This will push the civilian population to the southern Strip,” he said.
However, power outages pose a threat to life-support systems ranging from seawater desalination plants to food freezers and hospital incubators.
In Rome, Pope Francis advocated for humanitarian corridors in Gaza, emphasizing that “children, the sick, the elderly, women, and all civilians must not be victims of the conflict.”
“There have already been so many deaths, please let’s not shed any more innocent blood,” he urged, lashing out at “the diabolical force of hatred, terrorism and war” .
With Israeli-controlled borders closed and Egypt closing the Rafah border crossing in the south, Gazans are practically confined.
Convoys of humanitarian aid are stacked up on the Egyptian side, witnesses told AFP.
Hostages
The mood in Israel has swung between collective grief, fury and a strong desire to punish Hamas, which Netanyahu has likened to the Islamic State group.
There are also deep fears about the safety of some 120 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip.
“We must bring them back home alive,” said a tearful Yrat Zailer, the aunt of children aged nine months and four years who were abducted with their mother.
Israel pushed on with its evacuation of southern towns close to Gaza that were targeted in the Hamas attacks.
Packed buses were taking families to hotels in Jerusalem and the Red Sea resort city Eilat.
“It’s hard, I’m crying,” said Helen Afteker, 50, an evacue from the town of Sderot. “It’s terrifying every time there’s a warning, we have to leave. It’s better for the children.”
Planeloads of Israelis have returned from around the world to join the latest of the many wars in Israel’s 75-year history.