Death toll soars in Gaza and Israel

Tel Aviv [Israel], October 12: The Israeli air force continued to pound the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in retaliation for the weekend's attacks by Hamas, as the death toll soared on both sides.
Israel is also enforcing a blockade of energy supplies for around 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. The sole power plant there has ceased its normal production, the operator said, with electricity now generated from solar power. But it would only be enough for about 10 hours of electricity per day.
Dozens of jets attacked more than 200 targets in the Al-Furqan area, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, with media reports saying the Palestinian neighbourhood had been razed to the ground.
"This is the third counterstrike in the area during the last 24 hours, in which 450 targets were struck," the IDF statement said.
The Israeli military said Al-Furqan, in the north of the coastal strip, is used by Hamas as a base for attacks against Israel.
In total, the number killed in retaliatory Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip since Saturday rose to at least 1,050 on Wednesday. Around 5,200 other people have been injured, the Health Ministry in Gaza said.
The number of people killed in Israel during large-scale attacks by Hamas which began on Saturday has now risen to at least 1,200, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.
The Israelis also said they had bombed the Islamic University of Gaza because it was being used by Hamas as a training site for military intelligence personnel and for the development and production of weapons. A radar system used by Hamas was also destroyed, they said.
The strikes meanwhile have killed the brother of senior Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, Hamas-affiliated media in the enclave said.
Israeli jets bombed the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent too, the rescue service said, while the United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said it has lost nine of its employees since the start of the airstrikes on Gaza.
The Israeli raids have displaced about 264,000 Palestinians in total in the Gaza Strip, another UN humanitarian relief agency said.
Turkish President RecepTayyip Erdogan said he opposes the "indiscriminate" bombardments of Gaza and Irish premier Leo Varadkar said Israel cutting utilities to Gaza was wrong and that Israel would lose the sympathy of the West if the siege is "disproportionate."
IDF spokesman Conricus said the "overwhelming majority" of Israeli fatalities were civilians, characterizing the number as "staggering" and "unimaginable." More than 2,700 people were injured.
"Sadly, something tells me that these numbers are not the final numbers," the spokesman added.
In the midst of the massacres the heavily divided Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party, has reached an agreement with leading opposition politician Benny Gantz to form an emergency government, several ministers from the ruling Likud party confirm to Israeli media.
Hamas had caused the worst bloodshed among civilians since the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, Israel says. Media reports say it is the biggest single cause of death of Jews since the Holocaust.
Hamas also kidnapped over 100 people from Israel on Saturday and took them back to Gaza.
Pope Francis has appealed to the group. "I ask that the hostages be released immediately," the head of the Catholic Church said at his audience in St Peter's Square in Rome.
Source: Qatar Tribune