Satellite images reveal Gaza devastation after Israel retaliates against Hamas attack

The Israel-Hamas war continued to claim the lives of thousands early Wednesday as Israel conducted relentless airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and bombarded the Palestinian territory. 

Hamas kept launching rockets into Israel, some of which broke through the nation’s Iron Dome air defense system, and aid it will not negotiate for the release of hostages while Gaza is under siege. The militant group, which carried out a highly coordinated terror attack that took Israel by surprise on Saturday and prompted immediate retaliation from Israeli officials, has taken more than 100 hostages, including women, children and some Americans, according to Israeli officials.

Saturday’s attack by Hamas prompted immediate retaliation from Israel, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We are at war.” Photographs from Gaza City and nearby Jabalia show harrowing scenes of smoke plumes and fireballs billowing up from the ground, with partially collapsed buildings lining charred streets and others reduced to huge piles of rubble. Satellite images, provided by Maxar Technologies to the Associated Press, capture the scope of the devastation across the Gaza Strip.

Israeli airstrikes attacked hundreds of targets in Gaza on Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said in a social media post. Israel has said it is targeting weapons storage centers and infrastructure used or occupied by Hamas militants, but the United Nations reports that at least a dozen health facilities in the territory have also been hit in the bombings.

Death tolls across Israel and Palestine continued to rise on Wednesday, five days after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive and brutal attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, a narrow enclave that runs for about 25 miles along a stretch of the Mediterranean Sea between Israel and Egypt, which has been blockaded by the Israeli military since Hamas took over in 2007. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places in the world and houses about 2.3 million people.

At least 950 people, including at least 140 children, have been killed by Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes in the Gaza Strip since Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At least 5,000 others, most of whom are women and children, were wounded in Gaza, the health ministry said in a social media post.

Israel’s latest round of bombings in the blockaded Palestinian territory came on the fourth consecutive day of hostilities between Israel and Hamas. As Israel bombarded the territory on Tuesday and stationed 35 battalions in the surrounding areas in preparation for a possible ground invasion, according to military officials, the country has also cut off electricity, fuel, food and water into Gaza.

Many of its residents have been unable to escape the bombardments, Palestinian journalist Hassan Jaber told CBS News. “There is no safe place in Gaza,” he said, adding that many Palestinians do not have access to bomb shelters and some could face starvation within days. Jaber said there was no electricity or water.

“There are no shelters or bunkers or safe routes or safe zones in Gaza,” Gaza resident Omar Ghraieb told CBS News over the phone on Tuesday.

“We are a family of five people and these unfortunate events unfolded so very fast… We didn’t really have enough time to actually stock up enough on food, medicine and water,” Ghraeib said. “We are having three to four hours of electricity every 24 hours.” 

More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israel since Hamas attacked early Saturday, and at least 2,700 more were injured, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said on Wednesday. Most of the dead were civilians although the toll also included members of the military. Israeli military and civilian officials confirmed reports to CBS News on Wednesday of “a massacre” on a kibbutz near the border with Gaza. An emergency responder said he witnessed victims within the kibbutz being beheaded, some of whom were children.

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it can “confirm the deaths of at least 22 U.S. citizens” amid the violence in Israel and Gaza. 

President Joe Biden called the weekend assault by Hamas “an act of sheer evil” and has pledged U.S. support to Israel, saying that at least 14 Americans were dead and 20 were unaccounted for. The State Department did not issue any new  information about unaccounted for Americans. American citizens are also among those being held hostage by Hamas, Mr. Biden said. 

“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected,” a State Department spokesperson told CBS News.