Gaza medical supplies exhausted, WHO says

There are no prepared medical supplies left in Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday, after days of fighting with Israel has killed at least 750 Palestinian people.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jazarevic told The Associated Press that despite emergency procedures to ration supplies, hospitals are “beyond their capacity.” The organization has moved $1 million to purchase additional supplies locally, Jazarevic said.

The ongoing and escalating fighting in Israel and Gaza, which began early Saturday, has killed at least 1,600 people on both sides of the conflict and injured thousands more.

Israel mobilized its reserve military forces on Tuesday and ramped up missile strikes on Gaza, a 140 square-mile strip home to 2.3 million people.

More than 180,000 residents of Gaza have been displaced from their homes, the United Nations said, though there is no way to leave the territory as of early Tuesday. The only open border crossing, in Rafah on the Egyptian border, was closed due to Israeli air strikes, Hamas said.

Israel also cut off power to Gaza on Saturday, leaving many hospitals in the dark as the territory’s power supply struggles to handle demand.

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.”

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid group, warned that 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.”