JERUSALEM/GAZA: The Red Cross has warned of “intolerable” suffering as Israeli forces are expanding ground operations while their fighter jets have been pounding Gaza.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, voiced shock Saturday at the “intolerable level of human suffering”, urging all sides to de-escalate the conflict.
“This is a catastrophic failing that the world must not tolerate.”
Thousands of buildings have been flattened in the overcrowded territory of 2.4 million people, with more than half the population displaced as Israel imposed a near-total siege.
Telephone and internet communications were partially restored in Gaza on Sunday after a more than day-long blackout that had badly impacted rescue operations as Israel pounded targets of the militant Hamas group that controls the territory.
“Israel cut us off from the world in order to wipe us out, but we are hearing the sounds of explosions and we are proud the resistance fighters have stopped them at meters distance,” said Shaban Ahmed, a public servant who stayed in Gaza City despite an Israeli warning to evacuate south.
Ahmed said he only found out on Sunday that his cousin had been killed in an air strike on Friday because of the blackout.
With supplies of food, water and medicines running low, thousands of Gaza residents broke into warehouses and distribution centres of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) grabbing flour and “basic survival items”, the organisation said on Sunday.
Israel will allow a dramatic increase in aid to Gaza in the coming days and Palestinian civilians should head to a “humanitarian zone” in the south of the tiny territory, said Colonel Elad Goren of Cogat, the Israeli Defence Ministry agency that coordinates with the Palestinians.
Western countries have generally backed what they say is Israel’s right to self-defence. But there has been a mounting international outcry over the toll from the bombing and growing calls for a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid to reach Gaza civilians and ease the humanitarian crisis.
Medical authorities in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.3 million people, say 8,005 Palestinians – including 3,324 minors – have been killed in Israel’s campaign to obliterate the Iran-backed militants.
Displaced Palestinians staying in tents in Gaza’s Khan Younis described dire living conditions, with little access to food and water and having to queue hours for the toilet.
“I wish God will have mercy on us and the war stops,” said Rami Al-Erqan, a father cradling his daughter, one of his six children. “We reached a state where we wish to have died under the rubble just to find some rest. Our life is torture.”
Central Israel also came under heavy rocket fire on Sunday, with sirens sounding in several major cities.
