Oct 12 (Reuters) - Israel said on Thursday there would be no humanitarian exceptions to its siege of the Gaza Strip until all its hostages were freed.
Washington urged it to protect civilians and the Red Cross warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave. The United Nations World Food Programme warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low in Gaza after Israel imposed a total blockade.
CONFLICT * U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Israeli government showed him photographs and videos of Hamas atrocities, including of a baby riddled with bullets, soldiers beheaded and young people burned. "It's simply depravity in the worst imaginable way. It almost defies comprehension." * Israel's public broadcaster Kan said the Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1,300. Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza; Israel says it has identified 97 of them. * Gaza authorities said more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded. Ten Palestinian medics were among the dead. * Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned violence against civilians. "We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law," Wafa news agency Wafa quoted him as saying. * Egypt said it was directing international aid flights for Gaza to an airport in Sinai near the Gaza border. Egypt signalled that any exodus of Gazans across its border would be unacceptable. * The Palestinian prime minister said he was working with Egypt to open corridors to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and to put an immediate end to what he called "crimes committed by the Israeli army and settlers." * Russia's foreign ministry urged Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza to allow in food and medicine and criticised "indiscriminate" bombing of the Gaza Strip. * Israel's El Al Airlines said it would operate flights this Saturday from the United States and Asia to bring back reservists, breaking a 40-year policy of not flying on the Jewish Sabbath.
HUMAN IMPACT * Israeli air strikes have made major cemeteries in Gaza dangerous to reach so mourning families are burying their dead in informal graveyards dug in empty lots. "As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk," said the ICRC's regional director. * An Israeli family fears for an ailing grandmother driven off by Hamas gunmen. "She has heart issues. She watched her husband die right in front of her. And right after they got her on (a) motorcycle and she had to hold the terrorist who just murdered her husband," a family member said. * When Israel called up its reservists and declared war this week, the response was swift and overwhelming."This is different, this is unprecedented, the rules have changed," said one. * How an Israeli kibbutz 'paradise' turned into hell. Corpses strewn on streets. Body bags lined up on a basketball court. The stench of death everywhere.
INTERNATIONAL * Britain is deploying two Royal Navy ships and surveillance aircraft to the eastern Mediterranean to support Israel and reinforce regional stability. * What have U.S. presidential candidates said about Hamas' attack on Israel? * Former U.S. President Donald Trump said Netanyahu "was not prepared and Israel was not prepared" for the attack. A White House spokesman called the comments "dangerous and unhinged". * Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told the German chancellor that a sovereign Palestinian state should be established for a lasting solution to the conflict, the Turkish presidency said. * French police used teargas and water cannon to break up a banned rally in support of the Palestinian people in Paris. The interior minister said such gatherings were "likely to generate disturbances to public order". * China's top diplomat and foreign minister Wang Yi said the Palestinian issue is the core of the Middle East conflict, and that crux of the matter was that "justice" had been denied to the Palestinian people. * Iran's foreign minister accused Israel of seeking "genocide" by enforcing a siege against Gaza, according to Iranian state TV. * Governments around the world have arranged repatriation flights from Israel. Here is a list.
INSIGHTS * An Israeli invasion of Gaza will face an enemy that has built a formidable armoury and dug a vast tunnel network to evade attackers. Israel's generals will look to lessons learned from past ground offensives, Yet Hamas has till now emerged a tougher opponent each time. * A factbox on the Gaza Strip, devastated by conflict and economic blockade. * The war falls under a complex international system of justice that has emerged since World War Two. * The conflict hinges on statehood, land, Jerusalem and refugees, pitting Israeli demands for security against Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own. * "He is elusive. He is the man in the shadows." The secretive Hamas mastermind behind the assault: Mohammed Deif. * The Israel-Hamas war upends Biden's two-pronged Mideast strategy: brokering Israeli-Saudi detente and containing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
MARKETS AND BUSINESS * Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said the conflict added to already high uncertainty over the global economic outlook, which has made it difficult for the central bank to navigate monetary policy. * Israel's parliamentary finance committee approved a plan to provide a state guarantee of $6 billion to cover insurance against war risks to Israeli airlines. * Airlines wrestled with the safety risk of evacuation operations, Carriers including Dutch KLM cancelled flights while sister airline Air France mounted a special relief flight chartered by the French foreign ministry. The U.S. State Department will begin offering charter flights to Europe to help Americans leave Israel if they want starting Frida * Cypriot carrier Cyprus Airways said it has suspended its Larnaca-Tel Aviv route, effective immediately. It had in recent days added extra flights to deal with increasing demand. * International airlines have suspended hundreds of flights to and from Tel Aviv following the attack by Hamas militants on Israel. Here are airlines that have temporarily halted flights. * What are global firms with a presence in Israel doing after the Hamas attack? * The iShares MSCI Israel exchange-traded fund (EIS) suffered substantial outflows this week after its price hit a three-year low amid the conflict. * Israel has raised $200 million in diaspora bonds since the war with Hamas began, Israel Bonds said. * International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva said the "heartbreaking" Israel-Hamas conflict threatened to darken an already murky global economic outlook. "We are closely monitoring how the situation evolves, how it is affecting, especially oil markets," Georgieva said.
(Reporting by Stephen Farrell)
