Middle East

In the months before and during the 1948 war, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from what is now Israel. Many expected to return. Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 war. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, and in 2007, Hamas claimed the tiny strip from the Palestinian Authority after a violent coup.

Palestinian officials said 10,569 Gaza residents had been killed as of Wednesday, about 40 per cent of them children, while a humanitarian crisis has gripped the enclave, with basic supplies running out and buildings demolished by unrelenting Israeli bombardments.

With the war now entering its second month, UN officials and G7 nations stepped up appeals for a humanitarian pause in the hostilities to help alleviate the suffering in Gaza, where buildings have been flattened and basic supplies are running out. Palestinian officials say more than 10,000 people have been killed, 40 per cent of them children.

Since October 7, Israeli bombardment has killed more than 10,200 Palestinians, around 40 per cent of them children, according to counts by health officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The Israeli military on Monday released video of tanks moving through bombed-out streets and groups of troops moving on foot. It says it has surrounded Gaza City, cutting off northern parts of the narrow coastal strip from the south.

The situation remains dire in the north. Some 800,000 people have heeded Israeli military orders to flee to southern Gaza, even though Israel had continued airstrikes in the area. Strikes in central and southern Gaza – the purported safe zone – killed at least 53 people on Sunday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to meet Turkey’s foreign minister in Ankara, hours after hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian protest tried to storm an air base that houses US troops in southern Turkey.

Airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza overnight, killing at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said. It said first responders and residents were still digging through the rubble, hoping to find survivors.

The sharp decline could have major consequences for the economy in a country where around two-thirds of the population are already in need of humanitarian aid, the report said.