The death toll from the battle between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli regime that rages on for a third day has topped 1,200, with the US sending a carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean in support of Tel Aviv.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported on Monday that 510 Palestinians were killed, including 91 children and 61 women, and 2751 others injured amid intensified Israeli strikes.
The ministry also urged the international community to exert pressure on Israel to resume electricity supply to the besieged strip as a power outage has left hospitals and medical facilities in a tight spot, amid a shortage of medicines and medical equipment.
According to rights groups, Israel killed multiple members of several families in Gaza when it pounded their homes.
The Israeli strikes have also led to the displacement of more than 123,000 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations.
“Over 123,538 people have been internally displaced in Gaza, mostly due to fear, protection concerns and the destruction of their homes,” the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said on Monday.
According to the report, more than 73,000 are sheltering in schools, some of which have been designated emergency shelters.
Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said he expected the numbers to increase further.
Gaza, home to over two million Palestinians, has been under Israeli siege since June 2007. The tight blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said more than 700 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on Saturday, but the news outlet Yediot Ahronot said early Monday that it estimated there were 1,000 deaths at present.
Hamas said the surprise, unprecedented operation came in response to Israel’s crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories, its 16-year-old blockade of Gaza and the regime’s violations at al-Aqsa Mosque.
The group fired thousands of missiles toward Israel and managed to take control of a vast area near Gaza, where Israeli troops are fighting with resistance fighters in an attempt to seize it.
The secretary general of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement, Ziad al-Nakhala, has said the number of Israeli forces and settlers that have been captured by the resistance fighters and taken into Gaza amounts to “dozens and more.”
In support of Israel, the United States announced that it was sending additional weapons and munitions to Israel and moving an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean closer to the occupied territories.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday he has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist the occupying regime.
Hamas slammed the US aid as an “aggression” against Palestinians.
A senior official with Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement, Hashem Safieddine, also warned that the move will lead to a regional escalation.
