Oct 11 (Reuters) -
Israeli warplanes
bombed Gaza repeatedly
ahead of a possible ground offensive in the Palestinian coastal strip, while U.S. President Joe Biden described the Palestinian militant group's surprise assault on Israel as 'sheer evil'.
1,055 people
have been killed
and 5,184 wounded in the Gaza Strip since Saturday, the heath ministry there said. Israel's military said the death toll in Israel was now 1,200 and 2,700 wounded.
CONFLICT
* The Israeli military said dozens of its fighter jets struck more than 200 targets overnight in a neighbourhood of Gaza City.
* Hamas militants holding Israeli sosoldiersnd civilians hostage have threatened to execute a captive for each home in Gaza hit wiwithout warningbut despite Israel razing sections of Gaza and more airstrikes ovovernighthere was no indication Hamas had carried out its threat.
* Israeli
shelling hit southern Lebanese towns
in response to a fresh rocket attack Hezbollah, as cross-border violence extended into a fourth day.
* To many of Gaza's 2.3 million residents Israel's
mobilisation and intense bombardment
look ominously familiar: the prelude to a ground invasion that may match or even eclipse any in recent years.
* Governments around the world have arranged
repatriation flights
from Tel Aviv as the Israel-Hamas war ecalates. * How this round of the conflict began: on Saturday, Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip rampaged through parts of southern Israel, in the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israel's history.
* "Hamas wanted a change and it will get one. What was in Gaza will no longer be. We started the offensive from the air, later on we will also come from the ground," said Israeli Defence Minister Yoavv Gallant, speaking to soldiers near the Gaza fence. * Israel has called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists, as Israeli airlines added flights to bring reservists back to the country.
* The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Israeli strikes had since Saturday destroyed more than 22,600 residential units and 10 health facilities and damaged 48 schools.
INTERNATIONAL REACTION
* Pope Francis called for the
release of all hostages
taken by Hamas militants. He said Israel has a right to defend itself after seeing "a feast day turn into a day of mourning" but was "very worried by the total siege in which Palestinians live in Gaza." * President Joe Biden called the attacks by Hamas "an act of sheer evil" and at least 14 U.S. citizens were killed. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will arrive in Israel on Thursday, in a show of solidarity. * Gaza's border crossing into Egypt remained shut as Egypt tries to avert a mass exodus of Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment. Egypt has urged Israel to provide safe passage for civilians rather than encouraging them to flee into Egypt.
* EU humanitarian support to the Palestinian people
"is not in question,"
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said, but the bloc must review its financial assistance.
* Former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal called for protests across the Arab world on Friday in support of Palestinians, in a recorded statement seen by Reuters. "(We must) head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday, the Friday of Al Aqsa Flood," said Meshaal, who is currently the leader of Hamas's diaspora office.
* Top US diplomat Antony Blinken heads to Israel to deliver "a message of solidarity and support," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was talking also with Israel and Egypt about the idea of creating a safe passage for civilians out of Gaza.
* Seventeen British nationals including children are
dead or missing
in Israel after the Hamas attacks, the BBC reported, citing an official source.
HUMAN IMPACT * A 21-year-old Israeli woman said she had "no tears left" after her father, sister, grandmother and cousin went missing on Saturday and video showed her 12-year-old brother being taken by gunmen. * Gazan rescuers pulled the body of a 4-year-old girl and other dead from the rubble of a municipal building where she and many others were sheltering. "They tried to escape death only to find it," said volunteer Mohammad al Najjar.
* Israeli volunteers
helped gravediggers
at Israel's main military cemetery as burials began for slain soldiers "I decided that I'm going to do something for the people of Israel" said one.
* Hundreds of cars abandoned in the scramble to flee a massacre at an Israeli music festival where Hamas gunmen killed 260 people and took captives back into Gaza
underline the scale
of the deadliest attack on Israel in decades.
INSIGHTS/EXPLAINERS * How a secretive Hamas commander masterminded the attack on Israel. A survivor of seven Israeli assassination attempts, the most recent in 2021, Mohammed Deif rarely speaks and never appears in public so when Hamas's TV channel announced he was about to speak on Saturday, Palestinians knew something significant was afoot. * Hamas waged a campaign of deception to pull off its stunning attack. * Biden finds himself thrust into a crisis likely to reshape his Middle East policy, and into an uneasy alliance with far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. * Palestinian statehood, Jerusalem and refugees lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
MARKETS AND BUSINESS *Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world's top two oil exporters, will discuss the situationon the oil market and oil prices on Wednesday amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, a Russian oil official said.
* U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stuck to her view that the American economy is headed for
a soft landing
. "Of course the situation in Israel causes additional concerns. I'm not saying soft landing is an absolutely sure thing. But I continue to think it's the most likely path."
* BP says a
bid to acquire a stake
in Israel's NewMed remains on track. (Editing by Stephen Farrell, Gerry Doyle, Andrew Cawthorne, Lisa Shumaker and Michael Perry)
