You are not the victim. You are the occupator who stole the land.
- Israel continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip overnight, hitting residential buildings and reportedly killing at least two Palestinian journalists.
- The bombing came as Israel announced a “total blockade” on Gaza, including a ban on admitting food and fuel, amid increasing indications of a possible ground operation. Such a siege by the Israeli army, with the intent to starve a population, is a war crime under United Nations statutes.
- Israel carried out heavy bombardments across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday for the fifth day as more than 2 million Palestinians lost electricity after Israel put the territory under full siege, following an infiltration by Hamas militants into Israel in one of the deadliest attacks ever on the country.
- Witnesses have described widespread destruction of entire neighborhoods in Gaza City from Israeli strikes overnight, as residents shared videos online showing children pulled wounded or dead from under the rubble.
- It all comes as Israel and Gaza experience one of the most dramatic escalations in violence in recent memory, with concerns the chaos could spread to the occupied West Bank and different countries in the Middle East.
- The number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli forces since the weekend has now surpassed 1,000, according to officials in Gaza, with more than half those killed women and children.
- The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said 11 of its employees were killed in the Gaza Strip.
- Hamas, which governs Gaza, said earlier Wednesday that the territory would be plunged into "complete darkness" within the day. Hours later, Gaza's main power plant shut down. Israel has put Gaza under complete siege, barring the entry of fuel, food, water, medicine and more into the territory.
- Tasneem Ahel, a dental student sheltering in her uncle's home after her house was destroyed in Gaza, said she had been wounded in a previous war with Israel. She said adults are rationing food so that the children sheltering in the home are not hungry.
- "We don't have water. We don't have food. We don't have anything to live," Ahel said.
- She said feels like she's facing death at any moment from Israeli warplanes.
- "They steal my dreams and our dreams again," Ahel said.
- The Biden administration said there are talks to create a safe corridor for civilians, echoing a call from the U.N. World Food Programme to create emergency humanitarian corridors. The Palestinian Health Ministry is also calling for the same to allow medication and medical teams in, as well as to allow those with complex wounds out of Gaza to seek emergency treatment elsewhere.
- All of the Gaza Strip's borders are closed, leaving Palestinian civilians with nowhere to escape or seek safety. Around one-tenth of Gaza's population of about 2.3 million people is internally displaced. Many have sought shelter in U.N.-run schools.
- In addition to the more than 1,000 Palestinians killed, over 5,000 people have been wounded by Israeli bombs since Saturday, officials in Gaza said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday that it is rationing services due to the electricity crisis.
- Doctors Without Borders' head of mission in the Palestinian territories, Léo Cans, said in a statement that hospitals are overwhelmed in Gaza. He said that among the complex cases that doctors are trying to treat was that of a 13-year-old boy whose body was almost completely burned after a fire broke out from a bomb that fell next his house.
- "The declaration of war must not, under any circumstances, lead to collective punishment of the population of Gaza," Cans said, adding that not even ambulances and hospitals have been spared damage from the airstrikes.
- The International Committee of the Red Cross' spokesperson in Gaza, Hisham Mhanna, explained that water and sewage treatment plants also need electricity to function. "And we fear that hospitals may turn into graveyards if they are not fed with electricity," he told NPR, adding that there are also patients struggling to receive treatment for other ailments and needs.
- "We're talking about sick children, chronic diseases patients, elderly people, pregnant women who may have no access to any medical supply or aid or service in the next few hours or days," Mhanna said.
