Netanyahu describes Hamas atrocities in Israel

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Hamas beheaded soldiers and raped women in their attack on Israel, and he vowed that Israel would “crush and destroy” the militant group.

Speaking in a late-night televised address as Israeli planes pounded Gaza, Netanyahu said every Hamas member was a “dead man.”

“We will crush and destroy it,” he said of Hamas.

He said boys and girls were shot in the head by the invaders, and that people had been burned alive.

At least 1,200 Israelis were killed in the attack, which set off fierce Israeli response in the Gaza Strip that has left more than a thousand dead. An estimated 150 people, including children and senior citizens, are being held captive in Gaza by Hamas.

Netanyahu was speaking after forming a war-time Cabinet that included his top political rival, Benny Gantz, a former defense minister. The new Cabinet establishes a degree of unity after years of bitterly divisive politics, and as the Israeli military appears increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive into Gaza.

Still, Israel’s political divisions remain. The country’s chief opposition leader, Yair Lapid, was invited to join the Cabinet but did not immediately respond to the offer. It appeared that the rest of Netanyahu’s existing government partners, a collection of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, would remain in place to handle non-war issues.

Israel’s increasingly destructive airstrikes in Gaza have flattened entire city blocks and left unknown numbers of bodies beneath debris. A ground offensive in Gaza, whose 2.3 million residents are densely packed into a tiny, coastal strip, would likely result in a surge of casualties for fighters on both sides.

Hamas launched a fresh barrage of rockets into Israel Wednesday aimed at the southern town of Ashkelon.

Some 250,000 people have fled their homes in Gaza, most crowding into U.N. schools. Others sought the shrinking number of safe neighborhoods in the strip of land only 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

After nightfall, Palestinians were plunged into pitch blackness in large parts of Gaza City and elsewhere after the territory’s only power station ran out of fuel and shut down Wednesday. Only a few lights from private generators still glowed.

Israel on Sunday halted the entry of food, water, fuel and medicine into the territory. The sole remaining crossing from Egypt was shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit nearby.

The Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, only has enough fuel to keep power on for three days, said Matthias Kannes, a Gaza-based official for Doctors Without Borders. The group said the two hospitals it runs in Gaza were running out of surgical equipment, antibiotics, fuel and other supplies. “We consumed three weeks worth of emergency stock in three days,” Kannes said.

Ghassan Abu Sitta, a reconstructive surgeon at al-Shifa said he had 50 patients waiting to go to the operating room as more critical wounded are treated. “We’re already beyond the capacity of the system to cope,” he said. The health system “has the rest of the week before it collapses, not just because of the diesel. All supplies are running short.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent said other hospitals’ generators will run out in five days. Residential buildings, unable to store as much diesel, likely will go dark sooner.

Egypt and international groups have been calling for humanitarian corridors to get aid into Gaza. Convoys stood loaded with fuel and food Wednesday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, but were unable to enter Gaza, an Egyptian security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Earlier in the day, President Joe Biden said that he and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone on Wednesday with Netanyahu.

Biden sought to connect the weekend attacks by Hamas to decades of antisemitism and violence endured by Jews around the world.

“This attack has brought to the surface the painful memories and scars left by a millennium antisemitism and genocide against the Jewish people. And this moment we have to be crystal clear: There is no justification for terrorism, no excuse and the type of terrorism that was exhibited here is just beyond the pale. Beyond the pale,” he said.

It was at least the fourth call between Biden and Netanyahu since Saturday’s attack.