All you need to know on fifth day of Israel-Palestine war

Jerusalem: The war between Israel and the militant group Hamas raged for a fifth day on Wednesday, as Israeli warplanes hammered neighbourhood after neighbourhood in the Gaza Strip, reducing buildings to rubble and sending people scrambling to find safety.

Humanitarian groups pleaded for the creation of corridors that would allow them to deliver aid, saying hospitals were overwhelmed with wounded people and running out of supplies.

Israel has stopped entry of food, fuel and medicines into Gaza in response to Hamas' bloody incursion into Israel on Saturday. The sole remaining access from Egypt shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing.

The war, which has claimed at least 2,100 lives on both sides, is expected to escalate. New exchanges of fire over Israel's northern borders with militants in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday pointed to the risk of an expanded regional conflict.

The Israeli military said more than 1,200 people, including 155 soldiers, have died in Israel since Saturday's incursion. In Gaza, 900 people have been killed, including 260 children and 230 women, according to authorities there. Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are among them. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.

In Israel and beyond, the families of more than 150 people kidnapped by Hamas and other militant groups feared for the lives of their loved ones. The armed wing of Hamas has warned it will kill one of the hostages every time Israel's military bombs civilian targets in Gaza without warning.

Here are some key takeaways from the war:

What else is happening on the ground?

A looming question is whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza a 40-kilometer-long (25-mile) strip of land wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to 2.3 million people and has been governed by Hamas since 2007.

Israel stepped up its offensive on Tuesday, expanding the mobilization of reservists to 360,000. Israel's military said it had regained effective control over areas Hamas attacked in its south and of the Gaza border.

In a new tactic, Israel is warning civilians to evacuate neighborhood after neighborhood, and then inflicting devastation, in what could be a prelude to a ground offensive. On Tuesday, the military told residents of the al-Daraj neighbourhood to evacuate. New explosions soon rocked it and other areas, continuing into the night.

Fighter jets returned multiple times to another neighbourhood, al-Furqan, striking 450 targets in 24 hours, the Israeli military said.

In Gaza, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes, the U.N. said, the most since a 2014 air and ground offensive by Israel uprooted about 400,000. The vast majority are sheltering in schools run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

The head of Doctors Without Borders for the Palestinian Territories said he was concerned the humanitarian medical group's team in Gaza would soon run out of medical supplies.

What has been the response from the US and other nations?

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday again condemned the attack by Hamas, calling it an act of "pure unadulterated evil."

"In this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel," he said.

Biden warned adversaries not to take advantage of the crisis. "I have one word: Don't. Don't."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is travelling to Israel on an urgent mission to show support for Israel, the State Department said Tuesday.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone earlier on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the situation on the ground.

The Ford carrier strike group has arrived in the far Eastern Mediterranean, within range to provide a host of air support or long-range strike options for Israel if requested, but also to boost the U.S. military presence to prevent the now 4-day-old war with Hamas from spilling over into a more dangerous regional conflict, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the arrival ahead of an official announcement.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized Israel's blockade of Gaza, saying cutting off electricity and water is against the Palestinians' human rights.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Tuesday, Erdogan criticized U.S. plans to send an aircraft carrier to the region, saying the deployment could lead to "massacres."

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, whose government maintains ties with Israel and Hamas, on Tuesday called for a cease-fire in the war.

What are some of the war's ripple effects?

The war threatened to delay or derail a country-by-country diplomatic push by the United States to improve relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

The so-called normalization push, which began under former President Donald Trump's administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords, is an ambitious effort to reshape the region and boost Israel's standing in historic ways. But critics have warned that it skips past Palestinian demands for statehood.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Hamas attacks may have been driven in part by a desire to scuttle the United States' most ambitious part of the initiative: the sealing of diplomatic relations between rivals Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Middle East's two greatest powers share a common enemy in Iran, a generous military and financial sponsor of Hamas.

What is the status of foreign citizens in Israel?

Foreign governments tried to determine how many of their citizens were dead, missing or in need of medical help or flights home from Israel.

U.S. President Joe Biden has confirmed that 14 U.S. citizens have been killed and that Americans are among the hostages captured by Hamas. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that at least 20 U.S. citizens are unaccounted for.

Russia has reported the deaths of four citizens, while France says at least eight of its citizens were killed. Germany, meanwhile, has opened an investigation into the kidnappings of German citizens.

Eighteen Thais were feared dead based on reports from employers, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kanchana Patarachoke said Tuesday.

The Austrian government said three Austrian-Israeli dual citizens may be among the people kidnapped by Hamas during its attack on Israel. Italy's foreign minister said an Italian-Israeli couple living on the Be'eri Kibbutz had been missing since the incursion and were "probably taken hostage."

What prompted Hamas' attack on Israel?

Hamas, which seeks Israel's destruction, says it is defending Palestinians' right to freedom and self-determination.

But the devastation following Hamas' surprise attack on Saturday has sharpened questions about its strategy and objectives. Hamas officials have said they planned for all possibilities, including a punishing Israeli escalation. Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending Israeli control and increasing settlements in the West Bank, a 16-year-long blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world's apathy.

On Tuesday, the militant group rejected U.S. President Joe Biden's latest condemnation of its attack on Israel, calling it a cover-up for what they view as criminal acts by Israel in Gaza and other occupied territories.

"We, in the Hamas movement, call on the American administration to review its biased position, and to move away from the policy of double standards when it comes to the Zionist occupation, and we affirm the right of our Palestinian people to defend themselves, their land, and their Islamic and Christian sanctities ... until their legitimate aspirations ... are achieved to establish a Palestinian state with its capital (in) Jerusalem."

In addition to citing long-simmering tensions, Hamas officials cite a long-running dispute over the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque that is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.

Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians escalated with recent violent Palestinian protests. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the blockade on the Gaza Strip and help halt a worsening financial crisis. (AP)