Death toll of martyred Palestinians soars to over 2200 n UN warns situation in Gaza is ‘matter of life and death’ n Says 2 million people need clean water n Israel forces kill women, children fleeing Gaza City, say health officials n Rockets target central Israel n Hezbollah fires 30 mortars amid clashes on Lebanon border n Iran warns Israel of a huge earthquake of resistance.

 

GAZA/TEL AVIV   -  The Israel Defense Forc­es said Saturday it was completing preparations for a “significant ground operation” in the Gaza Strip, as it continued to conduct widespread air­strikes on Hamas targets in the enclave.

The death toll of mar­tyred Palestinians soars to over 2200 in Gaza. More than 320 Pales­tinians were martyred in the past 24 hours, in­cluding many women and children killed in Israeli air raids on con­voys fleeing Gaza City, according to health offi­cials. In a statement, the IDF said it was readying to “expand the offen­sive” by implementing a “wide range of offen­sive operational plans,” which it said include a “joint and coordinated attack from the air, sea and land.”

The IDF has been pounding the Strip in the week since Hamas launched an unprece­dented assault on Israe­li border communities, 

 killing 1,300 people, and taking 150-200 hostages to Gaza. The Hamas attack, the worst in Is­rael’s history, shocked the coun­try and Israeli leaders declared their intention to end Hamas’s rule of the territory.

The Israeli military clashed with the Lebanese Hezbollah group on Saturday in the lat­est skirmishes on the northern frontier, which came amid fears a second front could open up as Israel wages war on terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

According to the Israel De­fense Forces, the clashes Satur­day afternoon began after some 30 mortars were launched at military positions in the con­tested Mount Dov area on the Lebanon border.

Hezbollah claimed respon­sibility for the attack, saying it had launched mortars and anti-tank guided missiles at the sites. Iran has warned Is­rael to immediately halt its “war crimes” against Gaza or it could face “a huge earthquake” of resistance.

The number of martyred Palestinians has risen to over twenty-two hundred and over ninety-eight hundred have been injured in Israeli air at­tacks on Gaza and West Bank so far. The number of people killed in Israel has reached thirteen hundred, with more than 3,000 wounded.

According to media reports, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip for the eighth day in a row as the besieged Palestinian en­clave faces a growing humani­tarian catastrophe.

Israel had ordered 1.1 mil­lion people to move to south­ern Gaza within 24 hours, rais­ing fears that an Israeli ground operation is imminent. 

The World Health Organi­zation has warned that Ga­za’s health system has reached breaking point and there is little time to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Rockets launched from the Gaza Strip in the lat­est barrage cause damage in the southern city of Ashkelon and the central city of Bat Yam.

The Fire and Rescue Services says it is scanning the scene of a rocket impact between two homes. Footage from Bat Yam shows damage to a wall near stores in the central city.

Gazan hospitals flooded with injured people as death toll climbs above 2,000, Palestin­ian officials say Injured per­sons are continuing to stream into hospitals in central Gaza as the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced Saturday that more than 2,000 civilians in the Gaza Strip have been killed in the hostilities.

In video obtained by CNN on Saturday, scores of injured peo­ple can be seen being rushed into the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospi­tal in Deir al Balah. Emergen­cy services at the hospital are seen rushing frantically to carry stretchers of people of all ages in need of medical assistance. 

In an update Saturday, the Pal­estinian Ministry of Health said 2,215 civilians, including 724 children and 458 women, have been killed since the conflict broke out one week ago. 

The health ministry also said that 8,714 citizens have been injured in Gaza with varying degrees of injuries sustained. Among the injured are 2,450 children and 1,536 women.

126 ISRAELIS HELD CAPTIVE IN GAZA

There are 126 Israelis being held captive in Gaza, an Israeli military spokesman says.

Hamas said it captured more than 100 people and seeks the release of all Palestinian prison­ers in Israeli jails – about 4,500 detainees – in exchange for the Israeli captives.

Other than Israelis, other na­tionalities being held include Americans, Italians and Ger­mans. Hamas said Israel’s air strikes have killed 22 hostages, including foreigners, so far. It did not provide their nationali­ties. The Israeli military denied the claim.

‘MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH’

The United Nations has de­scribed the situation in the Gaza Strip as a matter of “life and death,” warning that the clean water supply for the 2 million people there is running danger­ously low. The UN also warned of increasing risks of water­borne diseases. 

“It has become a matter of life and death. It is a must; fuel needs to be delivered now into Gaza to make water available for 2 million people,” Commis­sioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNR­WA) Phillippe Lazzarini said in a statement Saturday. 

Lazzarini highlighted the dev­astating impact of the blockade on Gaza, which has received no fresh humanitarian aid for one week now. “Clean water is run­ning out in the Gaza Strip, after its water plant and public wa­ter networks stopped working. People are now forced to use dirty water from wells, increas­ing risks of waterborne diseas­es. Gaza has also been under an electricity blackout since 11 Oc­tober, impacting the water sup­ply,” the statement said. 

The UNRWA was forced to move its central operations from Gaza City to a location in southern Gaza following the Is­raeli evacuation order issued Friday. The agency warned that water is now “also run­ning out” at its new location, as thousands of displaced civil­ians from northern Gaza contin­ue to arrive. “Only in the past 12 hours, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. 

ISRAEL SAYS 1 KILLED, 11 WOUNDED IN LATEST HAMAS ATTACKS 

Israel’s only national blood and medical emergency ser­vice, Magen David Adom (MDA), has treated 12 casu­alties from Hamas attacks be­tween late Friday and Satur­day, according to a statement from the organization. One of those wounded, a 20-year-old, has died. The injuries suffered by the other people treated by MDA ranged in cause from rocket shrapnel to stress.

The service’s teams remain on high alert Saturday across the country and have deployed around 1,400 ambulances, in­cluding bulletproof vehicles, as well as “ambulances and mobile intensive care units (MICUs) that arrived from the United States.”