More than one million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip in the last week, the UN said Sunday, after sustained Israeli bombardment and warnings about a ground attack against Hamas commanders.
“No one can guarantee the control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflicts” if Israel sends its soldiers into Gaza, said Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Iran has praised the Hamas attacks but insisted it was not involved. However the United States, which has sent two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean in a show of support for Israel, is wary.
The army has told 1.1 million Palestinians in the north of the Gaza Strip — nearly half of its 2.4-million population — to head south to safety.Military spokesmen Lieutenant Richard Hecht and Daniel Hagari said any ground offensive would be triggered by a “political decision”. The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said on Sunday that some one million people had already been displaced in the first week of the conflict.
Israel had cut off water, fuel and food supplies to Gaza for the duration of the conflict. Local hospitals are becoming overwhelmed with increasing numbers of dead and injured.But electricity outages threatens to cripple life-support systems, from sea water desalination plants to food refrigeration and hospital incubators.