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GAZA CITY — Gazans passed a fearful night Saturday and awoke to more violence Sunday, as Israeli airstrikes pummeled Hamas targets and residential neighborhoods.
“It was bombing all night long,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.
Rimal, his relatively upscale neighborhood on Gaza’s western edge, saw a relentless barrage overnight, as Israeli forces pounded militant security compounds, he said.
“But the Israelis are not only bombing governmental or security buildings,” Abusada said. “They also went after some residential towers and buildings.”
The Israeli military says it has hit more than 500 sites across Gaza over the past two days. More than 400 people have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, including 78 children.
The death toll in Israel after Saturday’s rampage by Palestinian militants has soared to 600, most of them civilians. More than 100 hostages, both civilians and soldiers, are being held by militants in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media reports. After Israel’s cabinet approved a formal declaration of war Sunday, Gazans braced for intensified strikes and the possibility of a land invasion.
“To all civilians in Gaza, I say, get out of there,” Netanyahu said in a speech late Saturday. But there is no way out for the 2 million people here, who have lived for more than 15 years under a sea, land and air blockade — imposed by Israel and backed by Egypt after Hamas seized power in 2007.
Eight in 10 Gazans live in poverty, according to the United Nations, and 95 percent of the population lacks regular access to clean water. Even before the latest violence, Gazans had already endured four wars between Israel and Hamas, and a string of deadly exchanges in recent years between Israeli forces and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group in the strip.
COGAT — the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli administrative body for the West Bank and Gaza — echoed Netanyahu’s warning Saturday night, telling residents of communities bordering southern Israel to evacuate, saying the zone would be an area of operation for the Israeli army.
Khalil al-Ayyash lived with his wife and four children in the Palestine Tower, in central Gaza, which was leveled by Israeli airstrikes on Saturday. They were sheltering with neighbors when the rockets hit.
“The moment of the strike was very, very horrible,” he said. “We were afraid for the kids, afraid for our wives, afraid for ourselves.”
Ayyash said he had obeyed Israeli instructions to hunker down in the center of the city, “thinking this is our area and our stores and livelihoods are here.” But nowhere felt safe now: “The [Palestine] Tower did not emerge unscathed, nor did the humans in the center of the city, nor did the outskirts of the city,” he said.
After his family made it out alive, Ayyash said he called emergency services to evacuate the wounded. 2,300 Gazans have been injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday, and medical facilities are stretched thin.
“Hospitals are overcrowded with injured people; there is a shortage of drugs … and a shortage of fuel for generators,” said Ayman al-Djaroucha, the deputy coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza.
Darwin Diaz, the organization’s medical coordinator in Gaza, added that health workers were struggling to reach the wounded. “Ambulances can’t be used right now because they’re being hit by airstrikes,” he said.
What’s behind the violence in Israel and Gaza? Here’s what to know.
The Israeli government cut electricity to the Gaza Strip on Saturday night, leaving families reliant on the local power station, which only produces enough for several hours of electricity each day. Some areas had no power at all. The fuel for generators all comes from Israel, and was already in short supply.
“We rely on private generators and local batteries or house batteries to try to at least turn on the TV, keep the router going, the internet going,” Abusada said. “But if this situation goes on for a long time, we’re going to have a very serious problem with water, with the sewage system, because all of that is running through electricity.”
Roughly half a million Gazans live along the Israeli border, Abusada said — too many to be taken in by relatives and friends in other parts of the strip.
Many are seeking refuge at schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the U.N. body charged with supporting Palestinians.
By early evening Saturday, more than 20,000 internally displaced people, some carrying mattresses and other belongings, were sheltering at UNRWA schools in Gaza, the agency said.
Water wells had stopped operating at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, UNRWA said, and the agency’s food distribution operations were on hold “until further notice.”
Arf Abu Leila, a mother from northern Gaza, was at a school with her young son, who slept in front of her on a desk.
“As you see, there’s no blanket, no mattress, no food, no drink, nothing,” she said.
“We want to return to where we were in the first place. We want peace,” she continued, glancing down at her child. “We don’t want anything to happen to our little ones. We don’t want anything to happen to our young men.”
Parker reported from Cairo and Dadouch from Beirut.
