As Israel kept bombing Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a political rival announced an emergency government for the duration of the conflict.
The veteran right-wing leader was joined by the centrist Benny Gantz, a former Defence Minister, in the government and war Cabinet as both put aside bitter political divisions that have roiled the country and sparked mass protests.
Their joint announcement came after Israeli soldiers sweeping battle-torn southern towns said they had found 1,200 victims five days after the Islamist militants’ onslaught, the worst attack in Israel’s 75-year history.
Gaza officials reported more than 1,000 people killed in Israel’s withering campaign of air and artillery strikes on the crowded Palestinian enclave, where black smoke billowed into the sky and entire city blocks lay in ruins.
Israel has massed forces, tanks and other heavy armour around Gaza in its retaliatory operation against what Mr. Netanyahu labelled “an attack whose savagery ... we have not seen since the Holocaust”.
Amid the crisis that has been labelled “Israel’s 9/11”, Mr. Netanyahu struck the political deal with Mr. Gantz and pledged to freeze for now his government’s flashpoint judicial overhaul plan that has sparked an unprecedented wave of mass protests since the start of the year.
Mr. Netanyahu’s extreme-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies will remain in government, however. Opposition leader Yair Lapid has not joined the temporary alliance, although the joint statement said a seat would be “reserved” for him in the war Cabinet.
As the war has raged, fears have been intense in Israel for the fate of at least 150 hostages -- mostly Israelis but also including foreign and dual nationals -- being held in Gaza by Hamas.
The militant group has claimed that four of the captives died in Israeli strikes and has threatened to kill other hostages if civilian targets are bombed without advance warning from Israel.
Concern has mounted over the worsening humanitarian crisis in war-torn Gaza, where Israel had levelled over 1,000 buildings and imposed a total siege, cutting off water, food and energy supplies for 2.3 million people.
The enclave’s sole power plant shut down on Wednesday after running out of fuel, Gaza’s electricity provider said.
More than 260,000 Gaza residents have been forced from their homes, a UN aid agency said, while the EU called for a “humanitarian corridor” to allow civilians to flee the enclave’s fifth war in 15 years.
