Israel death toll rises to 1,200: military

More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson said Wednesday, up from 1,000 previously reported.

“The death toll is a staggering 1,200 dead Israelis,” IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said in a video message, adding that “the overwhelming majority of them” were civilians.

Residents of the Gaza Strip scrambled to find safety Wednesday, as Israeli warplanes hammered neighborhood after neighborhood in the tiny coastal enclave, retaliating for weekend attack by Hamas militants.

As Gazans crowded into U.N. schools and a shrinking number of safe neighborhoods, humanitarian groups pleaded for the creation of corridors to get aid into Gaza, warning that hospitals overwhelmed with wounded people were running out of supplies.

Israel has stopped entry of food, fuel and medicine into Gaza, and the sole remaining access from Egypt shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing.

In an unprecedented attack Hamas militants gunned down civilians while dragging many of them into captivity.

According to reports, Hamas hold around 150 soldiers and civilians’ hostage.

Israeli ground assault

A looming question is whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza — a 40-kilometer-long (25-mile) strip of land wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to 2.3 million people and has been governed by Hamas since 2007.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said the explosion of violence between Israel and the Palestinians showed the US policy had failed in the Middle East and taken no account of the needs of the Palestinians.

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin was in touch with both warring sides and would seek to play a role in resolving the conflict. Peskov warned that the conflict risked spilling over into other regions.

“I think that many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East,” Putin said.

Putin said Washington had sought to “monopolise” efforts at forging peace, and accused it of failing to seek workable compromises. The United States, he said, had ignored the interests of Palestinians, including their need for their own independent Palestinian state.