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, after the Red Cross pleaded for fuel to be allowed in to prevent overwhelmed hospitals from "turning into morgues."
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip in retribution for the deadliest attack on Jewish civilians since the Holocaust.
CONFLICT * U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv to show solidarity with Israel, help prevent the conflict from spreading and try to free hostages. Standing beside him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Thank you, America, for standing with Israel, today, tomorrow and always." European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused the Israeli government on Tuesday of breaking international law by imposing a total blockade of Gaza in response to the attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel. * The British government ordered families of its diplomats in Israel to leave the country, after advising against all non-essential travel to Israel. * Egypt said it was directing international aid flights for Gaza to an airport in northern Sinai near the Gaza border. Egypt said it is trying to enable the delivery of relief but also signaled that any exodus of Gazans south across the border would be unacceptable. * 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. * 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 * U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reassured Israel of Washington's support during a trip to the Middle East that aims to prevent the conflict with Hamas from spreading.
After Israel, Blinken will head to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He is likely to continue on to other Arab countries, U.S. officials say. * NATO defense ministers watched stunned as their Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant showed them "shocking" and "horrific" video from the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, diplomats said. * 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. * Turkey is prepared to send humanitarian aid to Palestinians but it is hard to deliver it under the current circumstances, a Turkish defense ministry official said. * France has no formal trace implicating Iran in the Hamas attacks on Israel, a spokesperson of the French foreign ministry said. * The X social media platform has removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content since the militant group's attack on Israel, its chief executive Linda Yaccarino said.
INSIGHTS * 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 * What are global firms with a presence in Israel doing after the Hamas attack? * 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. * 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. (Reporting by Stephen Farrell)
