‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 4: “You wanted hell, you will get hell”, Israeli army chief says, calling Palestinians “human animals”

Key developments:

• COGAT head Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian issues genocidal threat to Palestinians: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
• National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announces plans to arm Jewish “civilian security teams” in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Palestinian areas in ‘48
• Israel bombs Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt for second time, after army spokesperson tells Gazans to flee to Egypt
• Israeli army spokesperson says, “our focus is on (creating) damage, not on precision” in Gaza attack
• Gaza Health Ministry: 13 Palestinian families have been massacred since Saturday; most “still under the rubble” 
• UN: At least 200,000 Gazans have been internally displaced due to Israeli airstrikes 
• Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim to be holding 130 Israeli captives in Gaza
• 124 Israeli soldiers, 41 police officers among dead in Israel
• Israel claims to have killed 1,500 Palestinian fighters inside Israeli territory
• Gaza hospitals overwhelmed; WHO calls for humanitarian corridor into Gaza to deliver medical aid

Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip entered its fourth day on Tuesday, October 10. Since Hamas fighters in Gaza launched their multi-prong offensive on Saturday, thousands have been killed. 

The death toll inside Gaza surpassed 770, with more than 4,000 injuries as a result of airstrikes. Among the dead are at least 140 children, according to Palestinian health sources in Gaza. Over a dozen Palestinians have also been shot and killed in the West Bank, primarily during confrontations with Israeli forces.

Israeli airstrikes continued to pound Gaza between Monday and Tuesday. Among the areas hit was the densely populated al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, a largely commercial and residential area with apartment buildings, businesses, and shops. 

Two Palestinian journalists were killed in airstrikes early Tuesday morning. They were identified as Mohammed Subuh and Saeed Al-Taweel. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, six Palestinian journalists have been killed, and two others are missing since Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip began Saturday. 

Video footage from Gaza has shown on at least one occasion Israeli airstrikes targeting Palestinian ambulances, though local reports indicate that ambulances and medical personnel were targeted on more than one occasion. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have also targeted seven hospitals and health centers, killing at least five healthcare personnel and injuring ten others. 

In addition to the Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Israel claims it has killed around 1,500 Palestinian fighters inside Israel, presumably those who broke through the Israeli barrier on Gaza’s border early Saturday morning. If the numbers are correct, that would bring the total death toll of Palestinians killed since Saturday to more than 2,270 people. 

Meanwhile, the death toll in Israel from Hamas’ offensive, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, surpassed 900. Of the 900 who were killed, the Israeli army has named 124 soldiers, while the police have listed 41 police officers. It is expected that in the coming days, the toll of Israeli military and security personnel who were killed in the operation will rise. 

On Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that “we are just getting started” and that Israel’s current military operations in Gaza will “change the Middle East.”

“What Hamas will experience will be difficult and terrible; we are already in the campaign, and we are just getting started … The state will leave no stone unturned to help all of you,” Netanyahu said, speaking to local mayors in southern Israel. 

“I ask that you stand steadfast because we are going to change the Middle East.” 

Following what was one of the fiercest rounds of airstrikes on Gaza on Monday, Abu Obaida, spokesperson of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, released a statement Monday night threatening to kill an Israeli hostage if Israel continued to target Palestinian civilians “without warning.”

Mondoweiss Gaza correspondent Tareq Hajjaj said that there was a noticeable decrease in Israeli airstrikes on the strip following Hamas’ threats but that airstrikes were continuing into Tuesday afternoon. 

Rocketfire from Gaza into Israel continued on Tuesday, with Abu Obaida releasing a statement Tuesday afternoon warning of an impending rocket attack on the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. 

“In response to the enemy’s crime of displacing our people and forcing them to flee their homes in several areas of the Gaza Strip, we give the residents of the occupied city of Ashkelon a deadline to leave before 5 p.m.,” Abu Obaida said in a statement via Telegram. 

Ground updates from Mondoweiss Gaza correspondent Tareq Hajjaj

I want to say that I’m somewhere safe, but I can’t. Every place in the Gaza Strip is on the edge of collapse. It looks like over 2.3 million people in Gaza are trapped in a cage, and Israel continues to pummel it day and night.

After my family and I evacuated our home, we settled into a place farther from the border areas, where the airstrikes are usually most intense, and where we thought we would be safe, but every place in Gaza has become a hotspot. 

People in Gaza are all too familiar with Israeli terror. But this time is different. This time Israel wants to impose a complete blackout on Gaza and cut it off from the outside world.

This was made clear when Israel bombed the central company that provides internet to Gaza City. We immediately lost our internet connections in several places across the city. We can still make phone calls. I called many colleagues in Gaza, asking them about any place I could go to connect and keep reporting and sending stories about the unfolding situation. They said they didn’t have internet access either. All journalists are unable to report on what’s happening, and it’s intentional. A day in a war without the internet means we aren’t able to know what is happening around us, but it also means that the world can’t see any of Israel’s crimes.

I went down the street in the neighborhood we’re staying and asked people about any source of internet I could find. “Go home before they kill you. They killed four of your colleagues so far,” one neighbor told me. 

I kept looking for internet in the area, but people were too busy with more important things, like getting enough food, bread, and milk for their children. The reason is that, in addition to water and electricity, Israel has also cut off Gaza’s food supply.

Markets are empty, and hundreds of people are lining up in front of bakeries, pharmacies, supermarkets, and small shops. But most of these shops are closed now, and most people who have not prepared for a war are unable to get enough food to meet their needs.

Israeli media has reported that Israel sent a message to Egypt, saying that if it tries to send aid to Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Israel would target it. A serious food crisis is now beginning to unfold in Gaza. 

I called a farmer in Rafah City, Jaber Abu Mallouh, who has large vegetable farms near the border, to ask about the situation. “On normal days the situation is hard for our farms, as they are on the borders, because we’re attacked by Israel. And now we’re in the middle of a war, and we won’t even think of going to our farms,” Abu Mallouh said.

“The situation is tough. We are bombed every second. Our homes are not safe. The UNRWA schools are not safe. The streets are not safe,” Abdullah Abed, a Gaza resident, said. “Yet we still have to try to go out to get food. We can’t stand watching our children go hungry. I went to the market despite the critical situation. I walk and think every second that I will be targeted. But if I don’t find what I need, and if we don’t get killed by Israel’s bombs, we may die of starvation. This is what Israel wants.”

Netanyahu coalition greenlights possible emergency government, Ben-Gvir arms civilian militias

The Israeli army claimed on Monday that it had “fully secured” and regained control over the border towns that were captured in full or in part by Palestinian fighters over the weekend, though reports from Palestinian media and Hamas officials indicated that gunfights in certain areas were still ongoing between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters.

As of Tuesday morning, Al Jazeera quoted Israeli military sources as saying that there is a possibility that Hamas fighters “are still at large” in certain areas in southern Israel. 

On Tuesday morning, Israeli military tanks and troops continued to accumulate in large numbers along the Gaza border, which has been fully evacuated of Israeli civilians. While Israel has not yet announced plans for a ground invasion, the build-up forces and the calling up of 360,000 reservists have many worried that further escalation is on the horizon.

After days of debate on forming an emergency unity government, all members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition approved on Tuesday a proposed expansion of the government to include members of the opposition, Reuters reported. The approval moves Israel’s government one step closer to forming an emergency war government.

According to Israeli media reports, one reported condition to establishing an emergency unity government set forth by former Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party, was that any emergency war cabinet not include two members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition – far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. 

On Tuesday afternoon, far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced that his ministry would be purchasing 10,000 rifles in order to “arm civilian security teams,” specifically those in border towns close to the Gaza Strip, as well as illegal settlers in the West Bank, and in “mixed Jewish-Arab cities” in Israel. 

Israeli media quoted Ben-Gvir as saying that 4,000 assault rifles have already been purchased from an Israeli weapons manufacturer and “will be distributed immediately.” “We will turn the world upside down so that towns are protected. I have given instructions for massively arming the civilian security teams,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

Ben-Gvir has been a staunch proponent of establishing a National Guard in Israel, which rights groups say would effectively serve as a “private militia” of armed, ideological, and nationalistic Jewish Israelis, serving under the discretion of Ben-Gvir, a settler and former terror-convict himself. Earlier this year, Netanyahu agreed to push forward plans for establishing a National Guard, in exchange for Ben-Gvir putting a temporary pause on controversial judicial reforms. 

Meanwhile, in a threatening video message to Gazan residents and Hamas leadership, an Israeli army chief and head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said “Kidnapping, abusing and murdering children, women and elderly people is not human. There is no justification for that. Hamas has turned into ISIS, and the residents of Gaza, instead of being appalled, are celebrating.”

“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell,” Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian added. 

Alien’s statements echoed similar dehumanizing remarks by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant one day prior when he said in a statement that he “ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”