Key Points
- Disruption to supplies of energy, food, and water threaten to exacerbate the situation in Gaza.
- Many of the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza say they feel trapped, and fear the worst is yet to come.
- The Israeli military has warned Gazans to flee ahead of further attacks, but many don't know where to go.
Most of the 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip have no electricity and no water - and, with hundreds of Israeli strikes raining down on their tiny enclave, they have nowhere to run. With the strip's only other border blocked by Egyptian authorities, people on the ground have said they feel trapped.
of the Palestinian territory earlier in the week, vowing to cut off food and fuel supplies. Gaza has been in a near-constant bombardment that Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 1,000 people. The blitz is retaliation for a , which the Israeli military says killed more than 1,200 people.
Gaza's sole power station, which had been working intermittently for days, cut out on Wednesday after running out of fuel. Without power, water can't be pumped into houses. At night there's nearly total darkness punctuated by fireballs and the pin-pricks of light from phones used as flashlights.
"I lived through all the wars and incursions in the past, but I have never witnessed anything worse than this war," said Yamen Hamad, 35, a father of four, whose home had been destroyed by Israeli strikes on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the week since the latest escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Source: AFP, Getty / Yahya Hassouna
Who lives in Gaza?
Gaza, which covers an area of just 365 square kilometres – almost 34 times smaller than Sydney – is home to some 2.3 million Palestinians, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world. About 1 million of those are children, according to estimates by UNICEF, while nearly 40 per cent of the population is aged 14 years or younger.
The median age in Gaza is just 18 - in Australia, it is 39.
Trapped between the Mediterranean to the west, Israel to the north and east, and Egypt to the south, the people in Gaza said they feared the worst was yet to come, including a possible ground invasion, as Israel seeks retribution for the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in the country's 75-year history.
That surprise raid, launched on Saturday, saw Hamas militants burst out of Gaza and kill hundreds of people, leaving corpses strewn around a music festival and a kibbutz community. Scores of Israelis and others have been taken to Gaza as hostages, some paraded through the streets.
What is Hamas?
The significant escalation is the latest boiling point in a long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
, gaining power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006.
Hamas’s stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.
Some countries list only its military wing as a terrorist group.
Hamas, as the de facto government of the Gaza Strip, runs the police, hospitals, ambulance service, plus the civil emergency department. Hamas militants make up just a tiny fraction of Gaza’s population, though. The group’s leaders claim it is made up of 40,000 fighters, while the Israeli government puts that number at closer to 30,000 – representing about 0.1 per cent of Gazans.
What do Israel's cuts to electricity, water, and food mean for people on the ground?
Israel has intensified its siege of Gaza in recent days, cutting off water, food and power. The majority of people in Gaza live in poverty and 63 per cent are food insecure, according to the World Food Programme.
Meanwhile, a looming fuel shortage means private generators as well as the enclave's own power station, which provides about four hours of electricity a day, will struggle to function. Energy cuts mean residents cannot recharge phones, so are cut off from news of each other and events.
Data from NetBlocks showed overall internet connectivity in Gaza has slumped since the attack amid Israeli disruptions to power and communications in the region.
The lack of electricity has cut off much of the enclave's water supply. Men and boys stood near one of the few supplies in Khan Younis loading huge tanks onto three-wheeled rickshaws, carts they dragged by hand and a small wagon pulled by a horse.
A house is left in ruins after dozens of civilians were killed near Israel's border with Gaza. Source: Getty / Alexi J. Rosenfeld
At a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, relatives and friends lined up outside the overloaded morgue where bodies were laid out on the floor because coolers were full or had no power.
At another hospital, Medecins Sans Frontiers doctor Mohammad Abu Mughaseeb said medical supplies had been lacking for years. The intensified Israeli siege meant fast-dwindling stocks would run out in weeks, he said.
"If things continue like this for a few days the health system will collapse," he said after sleeping at the hospital because his own home had been damaged in a blast.
Israel refused a request to bring food and medical supplies into the Gaza Strip, Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO said on Tuesday.
"We call on the international humanitarian institutions and the international community to intervene urgently to stop the aggression, allow the entry of relief materials, and restore electricity and water, because the Gaza Strip is facing a major humanitarian catastrophe," he said.
Can people get out of Gaza?
More than 175,000 Gazans have fled their homes since Saturday, according to the United Nations. Some aid agencies in Gaza say the conditions are the worst they can remember even after repeated conflicts and 16 years of an Israeli blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007 following a brief civil war with forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction.
"The civilian loss this time ... is unprecedented," said Hisham Muhanna, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza.
In his address to the nation Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told residents of Gaza, “Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”
Israeli military phone messages have warned people to leave some areas, indicating a new ground attack that could eclipse previous bouts of destructive warfare in the dense concrete townships that grew up in Gaza's original tented refugee camps.
“Where should we go? Where should we go?” asked 55-year-old Mohammad Brais.
He had fled his home near a possible front line to shelter at his shop – only for that to get hit in one of the hundreds of air and artillery strikes already pounding Gaza.
UN schools have become the main places of shelter for Gazans who have fled their homes, with families crowded into classrooms, some sleeping on mattresses, others on blankets. At one school in Gaza City, the sound of blasts frightened the children, keeping them and their parents awake. Many people sat outside in the open, scared they'll be buried by airstrikes that pancake concrete buildings.
In Khan Younis, an ambulance stood at the end of an alleyway with its siren blaring, a man sat inside cradling his young daughter, their eyes staring wide from faces covered in dust. "Don't be scared, don't be scared," he whispered over and over.
