Gaza’s health ministry said Thursday that 1,417 people had been killed and 6,268 wounded in the strikes. The sole electric power station has been switched off and hospitals are running out of fuel for emergency generators.

“The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent, and I implore the sides to reduce the suffering of civilians,” Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement on Thursday.

‘Situation is unprecedented’: rescuing hostages in Gaza would be a daunting task

“As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk. Kidney dialysis stops, and X-rays can’t be taken. Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.”

Nato countries on Thursday told Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant after his video briefing to them that they stood by Israel but urged his forces to respond with “proportionality”.

Israel’s Energy Minister Israel Katz said there would be no exception to the siege without freedom for Israeli hostages.

“Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be lifted, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And nobody should preach us morals,” Katz posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

It has called up hundreds of thousands of reservists in preparation for what could be a ground assault on Gaza. Military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht said Thursday that the army was “waiting to see” what the political leadership decides” but was “preparing for a ground manoeuvre if it is decided”.

Israel’s national airline El Al announced it would operate special free flights to bring back reserve soldiers on the Jewish day of rest, a rare move for the carrier.

“El Al will operate special flights from New York and Bangkok on Friday” to retrieve reservists, rescuers, medics and members of the security forces “whose arrival into the country is vital”, the airline said. The flights would be financed by El Al with “major US financial institutions”, it added.

A ground offensive in Gaza, the first since the 2014 war, would likely bring even higher casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting.

The latest strikes overnight were focused on Hamas’ “Nukhba Force”, which spearheaded Saturday’s attacks, Hecht said. Palestinian gunmen were still trying to infiltrate Israel by sea and the military was still working to secure the Gaza fence, he added.

Hamas media said 15 Palestinians had been killed and several wounded in the latest Israeli air strikes. Witnesses reported Israeli aircraft heavily bombarding Gaza city and Gazan authorities also reported an air strike on the Jabalia refuge camp in northern Gaza.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel on Thursday on a trip to the region to help prevent the war spreading.

He said he was also there “as a Jew”, explaining that his grandfather fled Russian pogroms and his stepfather survived the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp.

Blinken vowed that the US will “always” back Israel but also said Hamas “doesn’t represent the Palestinian people, or their legitimate aspirations to live with equal measures of security, freedom, justice, opportunity and dignity”.

Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said on X that Blinken would meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan on Friday.

Gaza’s civilians paying the price as Israel strikes back against Hamas

Abbas’s Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but lost control of the Gaza Strip to its rivals Hamas, an Islamist militant group backed by Iran, in 2007.

The war has overturned the plans of diplomats in the region, coming as Israel was preparing to reach an agreement to normalise ties with Saudi Arabia, the richest Arab power, and months after Riyadh resumed ties with its regional rival Iran, sponsor of Hamas.

Tehran has celebrated the Hamas attacks but denied being behind them.

US President Joe Biden said his deployment of military ships and aircraft closer to Israel should be seen as a signal to Iran, which backs Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

“We made it clear to the Iranians: be careful,” Biden said.

Israel’s leaders on Wednesday formed a unity government, promising to put bitter political divisions aside to focus on the fight against Hamas.

Former defence minister Benny Gantz, a centrist opposition leader, spoke live on Israeli television alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant after forming a war cabinet focused entirely on the conflict.

“Our partnership is not political, it is a shared fate,” said Gantz. “At this time we are all the soldiers of Israel.”

Netanyahu said the people of Israel and its leadership were united. “We have put aside all differences because the fate of our state is on the line,” he said.

Is Iran exploiting Israel-Hamas war to boost its Middle East influence?

Some 340,000 of Gaza’s population have been displaced due to the war, and around 65 per cent of them have sought safety in shelters or schools, the UN said.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation. Hamas seized power in the enclave in 2007 and Israel and Egypt have subjected the territory to a blockade ever since that has created conditions Palestinians say are intolerable.

Washington said it was talking with Israel and Egypt about safe passage for civilians from Gaza, with food in short supply.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse