Our retaliation will ‘reverberate for generations’ Israel vows as strikes hit UN buildings and schools in Gaza
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Israel vows retaliation against Hamas in Gaza city will ‘reverberate for generations’ as death toll hits over 1,600
Israel vows retaliation against Hamas in Gaza city will ‘reverberate for generations’ as death toll hits over 1,600.
Israel pounded Gaza City with relentless bombardments on Tuesday as it vowed a retaliation against the Hamas militant group that would “reverberate … for generations”.
The war — which began after Hamas militants stormed into Israel on Saturday, bringing gunbattles to its streets for the first time in decades — has already claimed at least 1,600 lives.
Israel said that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza are also holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians hostage.
The bodies of roughly 1,500 Hamas militants, meanwhile, were found on Israeli territory, the military said.
It was not immediately clear whether those numbers overlapped with deaths previously reported by Palestinian authorities.
That, along with the airstrikes and a formal declaration of war on Sunday, pointed to Israel increasingly shifting to the offensive against Hamas, threatening greater destruction in the densely populated, impoverished Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said it struck hundreds of targets in Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood, a densely populated, upscale district that is home to ministries of the Hamas-run government, as well as universities, media organisations and the offices of aid organisations.
After hours of non-stop strikes, some residents left their homes at daybreak to find buildings torn in half by strikes, while others were reduced to mounds of concrete and rebar.
Cars were flattened and trees burned out in moonscapes that had been residential streets.
“We have only started striking Hamas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationally televised address late on Monday.
“What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
The devastation in Rimal signalled what could be a new Israeli tactic: warning civilians to leave certain areas and then hitting those areas with airstrikes of unprecedented intensity.
If these types of bombardments continue, Gaza’s civilians will have fewer and fewer places to shelter as more neighbourhoods become uninhabitable.
The heavy bombardments and Israel’s threats to topple the group sharpened questions about Hamas’ strategy and objectives.
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Meanwhile, Hamas leaders have not spoken publicly about whether they anticipated Israel’s ferocious retaliation — and the potential risk of losing much of the group’s government infrastructure — when they launched the weekend attack.
In a briefing on Tuesday, army spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht suggested Palestinians should try to leave through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Asked if Israel considered Hamas’ civil government, such as parliament and ministries, legitimate targets, Lt Col Hecht said “if there’s a gunman firing rockets from there, it turns into a military target”.
In response to Israel’s aerial attacks, the spokesman of Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Obeida, said that the group will kill one Israeli civilian captive any time Israel targets civilians in their homes in Gaza “without prior warning”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen warned Hamas against harming any of the hostages, saying, “This war crime will not be forgiven.”
The UN said that more than 187,000 of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have left their homes — the most since a 2014 air and ground offensive by Israel uprooted about 400,000 people.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, is sheltering more than 137,000 people in schools across the territory. Families have taken in some 41,000 others.
According to a statement by United Nations Human Rights chief on Tuesday, Israeli air operations struck residential buildings, including large tower blocks, as well as schools and UN buildings across Gaza, resulting in civilian casualties.
“International humanitarian law is clear: the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects remains applicable throughout the attacks,” Volker Turk said in a statement.
In response to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s announcement of a tightened blockade for the Gaza strip, Turk said that “sieges” that endanger the lives of civilians are prohibited under international law.
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