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Israel formed an emergency unity government Wednesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Hamas “worse than ISIS” and the country’s defense minister vowed to destroy the militant group.
Ground troops, artillery and other equipment is stationed outside of Gaza, which Hamas controls, the military said.
Forces are “making preparations for the next stage of the war, which will come when the timing is opportune and fit for our purposes,” said Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. He said that Hamas leadership is being targeted by strikes in Gaza when they are identified.
Gaza has 2.2 million people and is one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
Mohamed Mughisib, a Palestinian doctor and a deputy coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, said in a telephone interview from Gaza that the strikes that have flattened buildings have involved collateral damage.
“We are all civilians, normal doctors, nurses, teachers, students. We’re not Hamas,” Mughisib, said in a telephone interview from Gaza. “It’s the children who are dying,” he said.
Israel has been launching airstrikes in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks. At least 1,200 people in Israel have been killed, according to the Israeli military, and in Gaza the Palestinian Health Ministry has said 1,100 people have been killed.
Twenty-two Americans are known dead and 17 are known to be unaccounted for, officials in the U.S. said. Some Americans are believed to be held hostage, but a number has not been released.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday the. number of people believed to be held hostage is “very small,” but he noted more information is learned every day.
Families of Israel music festivalgoers are beginning to learn their loved ones are among the dead
For four days Hannie Ricardo held out hope that her daughter Oriya was in hiding after Hamas terrorists descended upon a music festival in the Israel desert Saturday morning, killing hundreds of people.
“That’s what kept me going,” Ricardo said today in a telephone interview.
Ricardo said Oriya’s boyfriend drove yesterday to the site of the festival to search the area of her last cellphone ping. He found her body there.
Hope has given way to frustration and anger as families wait for the more than 260 massacred at the Supernova music festival to be identified and for their remains to be returned for burial.
Supporters rally to provide milk for an Israeli infant whose mother is missing after Hamas festival attack
TEL AVIV — The last thing Ido Nagar heard his wife say was “soldiers are coming.”
It was Saturday morning, and Celine Ben David Nagar had been on her way to join the music festival in Israel that turned into a massacre when Hamas terrorists descended onto the event, killing at least 260 people and taking dozens hostage.
Heartbroken, Nagar, 33, immediately faced a problem very close to home — how to care for the couple’s 6-month-old baby, Ellie, whom Ben David Nagar, 32, had been breastfeeding.
That’s when his community rallied.
Gaza hospitals 'are flooded with patients and injured people'
After Hamas’ terror attack, Israeli airstrikes have reduced entire neighborhoods in Gaza, including hospitals, to soot. The remaining clinics and emergency units have been operating without power and supplies.
"Our hospitals are flooded with patients and injured people, and we have to deal with casualties that are arriving on a daily basis at our emergency department,” Marwan Abu Seeds, deputy director of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said as ambulances brought in one casualty after another.
Now, as Israel’s forces prepare for a possible ground invasion, doctors and aid workers say the health care system in Gaza is about to collapse.
“The situation is really catastrophic,” said Sarah Chateau, Paris-based desk manager for Doctors Without Borders, which has 300 staff members in Gaza. “We barely can operate in Gaza. The bombing is almost nonstop.”
Parents urged to delete social media apps to prevent kids from seeing Hamas atrocities
American and Israeli parents say they have received messages from schools, temples, synagogues and peers after the Hamas terrorist attack urging them to delete social media applications from their kids’ phones.
The warning came after the military wing of Hamas threatened to kill an Israeli hostage with every Israeli “targeting” of civilians in Gaza and then broadcast the executions “in audio and video.”
“It has come to our attention that deeply disturbing videos, including footage of hostages, may be spread across social media in the near future,” a principal at a public school in New York City said in an email this week
The exact number of Israelis abducted by Hamas gunmen remained unclear Wednesday afternoon. Hamas militants have claimed more than 100 people were captured; the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that 60 people were held by Hamas in Gaza.
‘I have not given up hope’ on hostages, Biden says
Biden said today that “there’s a lot we’re doing” to try to bring Americans held hostage by Hamas home, but he did not go into specifics.
“The press is going to shout to me, and many of you are: What are you doing to get these folks home? If I told you, I wouldn’t be able to get them home,” Biden told reporters at a roundtable with Jewish community leaders.
“Folks, there’s a lot we’re doing. A lot we’re doing. I have not given up hope on bringing these folks home,” Biden said.
Officials have said Americans are being held hostage after Hamas attacked Israel, but they have not disclosed a number.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said earlier today that the number is believed to be “very small” but that that could change and more information is being learned every day.