Israel targets downtown Gaza City with massive bombardments

Israel ramped up its aerial strikes on buildings in downtown Gaza City early Tuesday as the country called up its reserve military amid an escalating conflict with Hamas — which has killed at least 1,600 people on both sides.

Hamas launched an unprecedented, wide-scale attack on Israeli border settlements early Saturday, catching Israeli forces off guard. The militants continued fighting inside Israel until early Tuesday, the Israeli government said.

Israel claims the Palestinian group, which controls the Gaza Strip, is holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians as hostages while the country continues its missile strike campaign against the 140 square-mile area — home to 2.3 million people.

Overnight strikes devastated Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, home to some Hamas ministries, but also a university, multiple media organizations and international aid organizations.

Hundreds of missiles over hours rendered much of the district uninhabitable as buildings were flattened, cars burned and roads unusable. 

The Israeli military strategy could force the already-packed residents of Gaza to seek increasingly rare places of shelter as strikes are expected to continue.

“Hamas terrorists won’t have a place to run to in Gaza,″ Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told The Associated Press. “We will reach them wherever they are.” 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to completely wipe out Hamas, a goal which has seen the backing of the country’s Western allies, including the U.S.

“All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble,” Netanyahu said. “I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”

Missile strikes have also made leaving Gaza impossible, while Israel has also prevented medical and food aid — including from the United Nations — from entering the already impoverished territory. Late Saturday, Israel cut its power supply to Gaza, leaving the territory’s hospitals in the dark and the lone power station struggling to keep up.

The single border crossing accessible out of the territory, in Rafah on the Egyptian border, was closed due to Israeli air strikes, Hamas said.

The U.N. said late Monday that more than 187,000 people have left their homes in Gaza, a figure that is expected to continue to rise — the most since a six-week siege on the territory in 2014 by Israel uprooted about 400,000.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is sheltering more than 137,000 people in 83 schools across the territory. 

The two governments have claimed about 900 Israelis and 765 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting with thousands more wounded. Both figures are expected to continue to rise. 

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid group, warned a long siege of Gaza would mean “utter disaster” for those in the territory.

“There is no doubt that collective punishment is in violation of international law,” he told the AP. “If and when it would lead to wounded children dying in hospitals because of lack of energy, electricity and supplies, it could amount to war crimes.”

Missile strikes have also extended to Lebanon against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group traditionally allied with Hamas, sparking fears that the group could open a second front in the conflict for Israel.

Late Monday, President Biden penned a joint statement alongside four Western European leaders to denounce Hamas and commit to supporting Israel in the conflict.

“We make clear that the terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned. There is never any justification for terrorism,” the leaders wrote. “Our countries will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities.”

The attacks mark the most violent fighting in the region since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began exactly 50 years and one day before the Saturday fighting.