Aid warehouses in Gaza looted as desperation grows and ground offensive widens

Nearly three dozen lorries carrying water, medicine and food entered from Egypt while tanks and infantry pushed into Gaza over the weekend, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a “second stage” in the conflict against Hamas, three weeks after the terror group launched a brutal incursion into Israel.

The widening ground offensive came as Israel also pounded the territory from air, land and sea.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians has passed 8,000 – mostly women and minors.

It is a toll without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, and one that is expected to climb even more rapidly as Israel presses its ground offensive.

More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial Hamas onslaught.

The number of children killed in the blockaded Gaza Strip since the start of the conflict earlier this month has exceeded the number of children killed in armed conflict every year globally since 2019, international charity Save the Children said on Sunday.

In a statement, the charity cited numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry of at least 3,195 children killed.

It also mentioned the deaths of 33 children in the occupied West Bank and 29 children killed in Israel.

“The numbers are harrowing and with violence not only continuing but expanding in Gaza right now, many more children remain at grave risk,” Save the Children country director in the occupied Palestinian territory Jason Lee said in a statement.

“One child’s death is one too many, but these are grave violations of epic proportions. A ceasefire is the only way to ensure their safety.”

The bombardment over the weekend – described by Gaza residents as the most intense of the war – knocked out most communications in the territory late on Friday, largely cutting off the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million people from the world.

Communications were restored to much of Gaza early on Sunday.

The Israeli military said on Sunday it had struck more than 450 militant targets over the past 24 hours, including Hamas command centres, observation posts and anti-tank missile launching positions.

It said more ground forces were sent into Gaza overnight, and it circulated footage showing tanks and troops operating in open areas.

Thomas White, of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said the warehouse break-ins were “a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza”.

He added: “People are scared, frustrated and desperate.”

Israel has allowed only a small trickle of aid to enter from Egypt, some of which was stored in one of the warehouses that was broken into, UNRWA said.

Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the crowds broke into four facilities on Saturday. She said the warehouses did not contain any fuel, which has been in critically short supply since Israel cut off all shipments after the start of the war.

On Sunday, 33 trucks of aid crossed the only border crossing from Egypt, a spokesman at the Rafah crossing, Wael Abo Omar, told The Associated Press.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court visited the Rafah crossing on Saturday and was briefed on the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes to the Palestinian side.

Karin Khan said on social media that the court has “active investigations” into recent Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank and dating back to the 2014 war. He called the suffering of civilians in this war “profound”.

Elad Goren, the head of civil affairs of COGAT, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said Israel has established a “humanitarian zone” near the southern city of Khan Younis and has recommended that Palestinians flee there.

But he provided no details on the exact location of the zone or how much aid will be available. He also said Israel has opened two water lines in southern Gaza within the past week. It could not be independently verified that either line is functioning.

Residents living near Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, meanwhile said Israeli air strikes overnight hit near the hospital complex and blocked many roads leading to it.

Israel accuses Hamas of having a secret command post beneath the hospital, without providing much evidence.

Tens of thousands of civilians are sheltering in Shifa, which is also packed with patients injured in the strikes.

The army recently released computer-generated images showing what it said were Hamas installations in and around Shifa Hospital, as well as interrogations of captured Hamas fighters who might have been speaking under duress. Israel has made similar claims before, but has not substantiated them.

Little is known about Hamas’s tunnels and other infrastructure, and the claims could not be independently verified.

The Hamas government denied the allegations and said they are aimed at justifying future Israeli strikes on the facility.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital received two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate. It said air strikes have hit as close as 50 metres from the Al-Quds Hospital, where 12,000 people are sheltering.

Israel had ordered the hospital to evacuate more than a week ago, but it and other medical facilities have refused, saying it would mean death for patients on ventilators.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the latest evacuation order or the strikes near Shifa.

An Israeli air strike hit a two-storey house in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday, killing at least 13 people, including 10 from one family.

The escalation has ratcheted up domestic pressure on Israel’s government to secure the release of some 230 hostages seized in the October 7 rampage, when Hamas fighters from Gaza breached Israel’s defences and stormed into nearby towns, gunning down civilians and soldiers in a surprise attack.

Desperate family members met Mr Netanyahu on Saturday and expressed support for an exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yehia Sinwar, said Palestinian militants “are ready immediately” to release all hostages if Israel releases all of the thousands of Palestinians held in its prisons.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, dismissed the offer as “psychological terror”.

Mr Netanyahu said during the nationally televised news conference that Israel is determined to bring back all the hostages, and he maintained the expanding ground operation “will help us in this mission”.

The Israeli military said it was gradually expanding its ground operations inside Gaza, while stopping short of calling it an all-out invasion. Casualties on both sides are expected to rise sharply as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants battle in dense residential areas.

Despite the Israeli offensive, Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel, with the constant sirens in southern Israel a reminder of the threat.

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza rose on Sunday to just over 8,000 people since the war began, according to the Health Ministry. It said that includes more than 3,300 minors and over 2,000 women.

An estimated 1,700 people remain trapped beneath the rubble, according to the Health Ministry, which has said it bases its estimates on distress calls it received.

Israel says its strikes target Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the militants operate among civilians, putting them in danger.