The Israeli army has bombarded the Gaza Strip with approximately 6,000 bombs since Saturday, causing at least 1,417 fatalities.
“Approximately 6,000 bombs have been dropped on the Gaza Strip with a total weight of 4,000 tonnes,” the army said in a statement.
AFP journalists witnessed Israeli warplanes carrying out dozens of strikes on Shati, the crowded refugee camp, within the span of half an hour on Thursday morning.
A four-year-old child cried as his father scrambled to pull him from under the rubble. “Daddy, where is my mom and my siblings?” the boy screamed, covered in dust and bleeding from multiple wounds on his tiny body.
Aid agencies warn of severe crisis, death toll rises to 1,417; Abbas calls for immediate halt to Israeli aggression
“We were asleep. Suddenly, the entire neighbourhood came under the occupier’s bombs. My house, my brother’s house, my family’s house, and several neighbours’ houses were completely destroyed,” Jamal al-Masri, owner of one of the destroyed homes, told AFP.
When he emerged from his home, Masri said he was met with a scene of carnage. “I found everyone dead, body parts and bodies of my sons and their children,” he said, his eyes wide open in shock.
A dire humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the besieged enclave, and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday that crucial supplies were running dangerously low in the Gaza Strip after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory.
“It’s a dire situation in the Gaza Strip that we’re seeing evolve with food and water being in limited supply and quickly running out,” said Brian Lander, the deputy head of emergencies at WFP.
“We’re going to run out very soon,” he told Reuters.
The Red Cross has also warned that fuel for hospital generators in Gaza would soon be depleted, and aid and medicine stocks remained stranded due to the lack of safe passage.
But as the West tried to negotiate the corridor for residents of the enclave to flee the bombing via a border crossing with neighbouring Egypt, its President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Thursday that Gazans must “stay steadfast and remain on their land”.
Meanwhile, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called for “an immediate end to the comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people”, his office said following a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
In his first public remarks since Saturday’s raid against Israel,
Mr Abbas rejected “practices related to killing civilians or abusing them on both sides”, according to a statement.
Mr Abbas leads the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, while Hamas governs the Gaza Strip.
The two leaders met in Amman and discussed “ways to stop the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and deliver aid and relief” to Hamas-controlled Gaza, the statement said.
The targeting of civilians “contravenes morals, religion and international law”, Mr Abbas said.
Additionally, Mr Abbas called for the release of Palestinians detained by Israel, as well as those reportedly held captive in Gaza.
New front with Syria
Separately, Syria reported that Israeli forces conducted coordinated missile strikes on the airports in the capital, Damascus, and the northern city of Aleppo.
These strikes resulted in damage to the runways and the temporary suspension of operations at both airport facilities.
According to state news agency SANA, the strikes that targeted both airports simultaneously were being seen as an attempt to divert global attention from Israel’s conflict with Hamas fighters in Gaza.
Israel has, over the years, conducted strikes on what it has characterised as Iran-affiliated targets in Syria, including the airports in Aleppo and Damascus.