Wider conflict warning as Israel prepares Gaza ground offensive
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “demolish Hamas” with the military preparing ground operations in Gaza to root out the militant group, as US officials warn the conflict could escalate across the Middle East.
Israel has urged Gazans to evacuate south, which hundreds of thousands have already done in their Hamas-controlled enclave that is home to 2.2 million people, about half in Gaza City.
Inside besieged Gaza, where conditions are deteriorating and deaths from Israeli air strikes rising, civilians said they had nowhere to flee and were not safe anywhere.
Hamas has asked them to stay put.
With fears of the conflict spilling over, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued his rapid tour of Middle East states, seeking to prevent escalation and secure the release of 126 hostages Israel says were taken by Hamas back into Gaza.
Arab leaders stressed the need to protect Gaza civilians.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, which has the only viable border crossing into Gaza, said he was in talks to enable aid deliveries and called Israel’s action collective punishment.
The violence in Gaza has been accompanied by the deadliest clashes at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since 2006.
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In a call with his French counterpart, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned about further escalation if Israel attacked the Gaza Strip, Iranian state media reported.
Netanyahu convened Israel’s expanded emergency cabinet, including former opposition MPs, for the first time on Sunday.
“Hamas thought we would be demolished. It is we who will demolish Hamas,” he said, adding that the show of unity “sends a clear message to the nation, the enemy and the world”.
Israel is carrying out the most intense bombardment Gaza has ever seen in response to the killing of 1300 people when Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns on October 7. They shot men, women, children and soldiers and seized hostages in the worst attack on civilians in Israel’s history.
Israel’s military said 279 of its soldiers had died.
Graphic video of the attacks, and reports from medical and emergency services of atrocities in the overrun towns and kibbutzes, deepened Israelis’ sense of shock.
Authorities in Gaza said more than 2300 people had been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes so far, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded. Hospitals are running short of supplies and struggling to cope with the flow of injured.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said early on Sunday that 300 people had been killed and 800 more injured in Gaza during the last 24 hours.
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The Israeli military on Friday told residents of the northern half of the Gaza Strip – which includes Gaza City’s more than one million residents – to move south immediately.
“Residents of Gaza City, I call upon you again: Hamas is trying to prevent your evacuation. We will enable it southward. Leave Gaza City and all the surrounding areas for the sake of your personal security,” reiterated chief Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari on Sunday.
Some Palestinians who went south said they were heading back north because they were attacked wherever they went.
The World Health Organization said Israel’s orders for the evacuation of 22 Gaza hospitals were a “death sentence for the sick and injured”.
Hamas has said dozens of people were killed in strikes on cars and trucks carrying refugees south on Friday. Reuters could not independently verify this claim.
Iran has lauded the Hamas attack on Israel but denied any involvement.
“If the crimes of the Zionist regime, including the massacre of people and the siege of Gaza, do not stop, the situation will become more complicated and it will escalate,” Iran’s Raisi told France’s Emmanuel Macron in a call, state media said on Sunday.
Hamas said in a statement on Saturday it and Iran had “agreed to continue co-operation”.
Meanwhile, top US officials warned the war between Israel and Hamas could escalate into a wider conflict across the Middle East, saying they were worried the Lebanese group Hezbollah could attack Israel’s north or that Iran might get involved.
Iran has spoken of “far reaching consequences” if Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” are not stopped. The message came late on Saturday after Axios reported that Tehran had told Israel – in a message sent via the UN – that it would have to respond if Israel carries out its expected ground offensive.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told US broadcaster CBS that “there is a risk of an escalation of this conflict, the opening of a second front in the north and, of course, Iran’s involvement.”
The comments were echoed by White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who told Fox News that the White House was worried about “a potential escalation or a widening of this conflict.”
Sullivan also discussed a new weapons package for Israel and Ukraine whose value he said would be “significantly higher” than $US2 billion ($A3.2 billion). He told CBS that US President Joe Biden planned to have intensive talks on the package with Congress, which has been hobbled by Republicans’ struggles to pick a new speaker of the House of Representatives.
Sullivan and others also say they are working to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Biden in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter, said: “We must not lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas’ appalling attacks, and are suffering as a result of them.”
-with AAP
