A top op­po­si­tion Is­raeli politi­cian says he has reached an agree­ment to en­ter a wartime uni­ty gov­ern­ment with Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu.

Ben­ny Gantz, a for­mer de­fense min­is­ter and mil­i­tary chief of staff, re­leased what he said was a joint state­ment with Ne­tanyahu.

The state­ment said they would form a five-mem­ber “war-man­age­ment” Cab­i­net. It will con­sist of Ne­tanyahu, Gantz, cur­rent De­fense Min­is­ter Yoav Gal­lant and two oth­er top of­fi­cials serv­ing as “ob­serv­er” mem­bers.

It said the gov­ern­ment would not pass any leg­is­la­tion or de­ci­sions that are not con­nect­ed to the war as long as the fight­ing con­tin­ues. It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear what would hap­pen to Ne­tanyahu’s ex­ist­ing gov­ern­ment part­ners, a col­lec­tion of far-right and ul­tra-Or­tho­dox par­ties. —JERUSALEM (AP)

THIS IS A BREAK­ING NEWS UP­DATE. AP’s ear­li­er sto­ry fol­lows be­low.

Israeli tanks are stationed near the border with Lebanon, Wednesday, October 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Pales­tini­ans in the sealed-off Gaza Strip strug­gled to find any safe area Wednes­day, as Is­raeli strikes de­mol­ished en­tire neigh­bour­hoods, hos­pi­tals ran low on sup­plies and the ter­ri­to­ry’s on­ly pow­er plant ran out of fu­el, deep­en­ing the mis­ery of a war sparked by a stun­ning and dead­ly as­sault by Hamas mil­i­tants.

Airstrikes smashed en­tire city blocks to rub­ble in the tiny coastal en­clave and left un­known num­bers of bod­ies be­neath mounds of de­bris. The bom­bard­ment raged on even though mil­i­tants are hold­ing an es­ti­mat­ed 150 peo­ple snatched from Is­rael — sol­diers, men, women, chil­dren and old­er adults.

Is­rael has vowed un­prece­dent­ed re­tal­i­a­tion against the Hamas mil­i­tant group rul­ing the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ry af­ter its fight­ers stormed through the bor­der fence Sat­ur­day and gunned down hun­dreds of Is­raelis in their homes, on the streets and at an out­door mu­sic fes­ti­val. Since then, mil­i­tants have con­tin­ued to fire rock­ets at Is­rael, in­clud­ing a heavy bar­rage at the south­ern town of Ashkelon on Wednes­day.

The war, which has al­ready claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides, is ex­pect­ed to es­ca­late — and com­pound the mis­ery of peo­ple liv­ing in Gaza, where ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties and elec­tric­i­ty were al­ready in short sup­ply.

Af­ter the at­tack, Is­rael stopped the en­try of food, wa­ter, fu­el and med­i­cine in­to the ter­ri­to­ry — a 40-kilo­me­ter-long (25-mile) strip of land wedged among Is­rael, Egypt and the Mediter­ranean Sea that is home to 2.3 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans. The sole re­main­ing ac­cess from Egypt was shut down Tues­day af­ter airstrikes hit near the bor­der cross­ing.

As Pales­tini­ans crowd­ed in­to U.N. schools and a shrink­ing num­ber of safe neigh­bour­hoods, hu­man­i­tar­i­an groups plead­ed for the cre­ation of cor­ri­dors to get aid in, warn­ing that hos­pi­tals over­whelmed with wound­ed peo­ple were run­ning out of sup­plies.

“There is no safe place in Gaza right now,” jour­nal­ist Hasan Jabar said af­ter three Pales­tin­ian jour­nal­ists were killed in the bom­bard­ment of a down­town neigh­bour­hood home to gov­ern­ment min­istries, me­dia of­fices and ho­tels. “I am gen­uine­ly afraid for my life.”

Gaza’s on­ly pow­er plant ran out of fu­el Wednes­day af­ter­noon, forc­ing it to shut down af­ter Is­rael cut off sup­plies, the En­er­gy Min­istry said. That leaves on­ly gen­er­a­tors to pow­er the ter­ri­to­ry — but they al­so run on fu­el that is in short sup­ply.

The U.N.’s World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion said that sup­plies it had pre-po­si­tioned for sev­en hos­pi­tals have al­ready run out amid the flood of wound­ed. Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders said sur­gi­cal equip­ment, an­tibi­otics, fu­el and oth­er sup­plies were run­ning out at two hos­pi­tals it runs in Gaza.

In one, “we con­sumed three weeks’ worth of emer­gency stock in three days, part­ly due to 50 pa­tients com­ing in at once,” Matthias Kannes, the aid group’s head of mis­sion in Gaza, said Wednes­day. He said the ter­ri­to­ry’s biggest hos­pi­tal, Al-Shi­fa, on­ly has enough fu­el for three days.

Is­rael has mo­bi­lized 360,000 re­servists and ap­pears in­creas­ing­ly like­ly to launch a ground of­fen­sive in­to Gaza, with its gov­ern­ment un­der in­tense pub­lic pres­sure to top­ple Hamas, which has ruled the ter­ri­to­ry since 2007 and re­mained firm­ly in con­trol through four pre­vi­ous wars.

That would like­ly re­quire a pro­longed ground as­sault and re­oc­cu­py­ing Gaza, at least tem­porar­i­ly. Even then, Hamas has a long his­to­ry of op­er­at­ing as an un­der­ground in­sur­gency in ar­eas con­trolled by Is­rael.

“We will not al­low a re­al­i­ty in which Is­raeli chil­dren are mur­dered,” Is­raeli De­fense Min­is­ter Yoav Gal­lant said in a meet­ing with sol­diers near the south­ern bor­der on Tues­day. “I have re­moved every re­stric­tion — we will elim­i­nate any­one who fights us and use every mea­sure at our dis­pos­al.”

Is­raeli airstrikes late Tues­day struck the fam­i­ly house of Mo­hammed De­if, the shad­owy leader of Hamas’ mil­i­tary wing, killing his fa­ther, broth­er and at least two oth­er rel­a­tives in the south­ern town of Khan You­nis, se­nior Hamas of­fi­cial Bassem Naim told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

De­if has nev­er been seen in pub­lic and his where­abouts are un­known.

Ex­changes of fire over Is­rael’s north­ern bor­ders with mil­i­tants in Lebanon and Syr­ia, mean­while, point­ed to the risk of an ex­pand­ed re­gion­al con­flict.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden on Tues­day warned oth­er coun­tries and armed groups against en­ter­ing the war. The U.S. is al­ready rush­ing mu­ni­tions and mil­i­tary equip­ment to Is­rael and has de­ployed a car­ri­er strike group to the east­ern Mediter­ranean as de­ter­rence.

On Wednes­day, the Lebanese mil­i­tant group Hezbol­lah fired an­ti-tank mis­siles at an Is­raeli mil­i­tary po­si­tion and claimed to have killed and wound­ed troops. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary con­firmed the at­tack but did not com­ment on pos­si­ble ca­su­al­ties. The Is­raeli army shelled the area in south­ern Lebanon where the at­tack was launched.

In a new tac­tic, Is­rael is warn­ing civil­ians to evac­u­ate whole neigh­bour­hoods —rather than just in­di­vid­ual build­ings — then in­flict­ing dev­as­ta­tion, in what could be a pre­lude to a ground of­fen­sive.

“The ob­jec­tive is for this war to end very dif­fer­ent­ly from all of the pre­vi­ous rounds. There has to be a clear vic­to­ry,” said Chuck Freilich, a for­mer deputy na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er in Is­rael. “What­ev­er has to be done to fun­da­men­tal­ly change the sit­u­a­tion will have to be done.”

Hamas of­fi­cials have said they planned for all pos­si­bil­i­ties, in­clud­ing pun­ish­ing Is­raeli es­ca­la­tion. Des­per­a­tion has grown among Pales­tini­ans, many of whom see noth­ing to lose un­der un­end­ing Is­raeli mil­i­tary oc­cu­pa­tion and in­creas­ing set­tle­ments in the West Bank, a 16-year-long block­ade in Gaza and what they see as the world’s ap­a­thy.

The Hamas-run In­te­ri­or Min­istry said Is­raeli airstrikes de­stroyed the en­tire al-Kara­ma neigh­bour­hood in Gaza City, with a “large num­ber” of peo­ple killed or wound­ed. It said med­ical teams were un­able to reach the area be­cause all roads to it were de­stroyed. Res­cue of­fi­cials say they have strug­gled to en­ter oth­er ar­eas as well.

In an­oth­er neigh­bour­hood on Tues­day, Pales­tin­ian Civ­il De­fense forces pulled Ab­dul­lah Musleh out of his base­ment to­geth­er with 30 oth­ers af­ter their apart­ment build­ing was flat­tened.

“I sell toys, not mis­siles,’’ the 46-year-old said, weep­ing. “I want to leave Gaza. Why do I have to stay here? I lost my home and my job.”

On Wednes­day, an AP re­porter wit­nessed waves of rock­ets rain down on Ashkelon, with shrap­nel slam­ming in­to the street and Is­rael’s Iron Dome mis­sile de­fense sys­tem in­ter­cept­ing at least one over­head. Res­i­dents screamed and wept as they heard the ex­plo­sions.

On Tues­day night, a group of mil­i­tants en­tered an in­dus­tri­al zone in Ashkelon, spark­ing a gun­bat­tle with Is­raeli troops, the mil­i­tary said. Three mil­i­tants were killed, and troops were search­ing the area for oth­ers.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said more than 1,200 peo­ple, in­clud­ing 155 sol­diers, have been killed in Is­rael, a stag­ger­ing toll un­seen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syr­ia that last­ed weeks. In Gaza, 1,055 peo­ple have been killed, ac­cord­ing to au­thor­i­ties there; Is­rael says hun­dreds of Hamas fight­ers are among them. Thou­sands have been wound­ed on both sides.

The bod­ies of rough­ly 1,500 Hamas mil­i­tants were found on Is­raeli ter­ri­to­ry, the mil­i­tary said. It wasn’t clear whether those num­bers over­lapped with deaths re­port­ed by Pales­tin­ian au­thor­i­ties.

Days of clash­es be­tween rock-throw­ing Pales­tini­ans and Is­raeli forces in the West Bank have left 15 Pales­tini­ans dead. The vi­o­lence al­so spread in­to east Jerusalem, where Is­raeli po­lice said they killed two Pales­tini­ans who hurled stones at po­lice late Tues­day.

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. Dam­age to three wa­ter and san­i­ta­tion sites have cut off ser­vices to 400,000 peo­ple, the U.N. said.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple in south­ern Is­rael have been evac­u­at­ed since Sun­day.

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Sto­ry by JOSEPH KRAUSS & WAFAA SHU­RAFA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Wafaa Shu­rafa re­port­ed from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Amy Teibel and Is­abel De­Bre in Jerusalem and Ka­reem Chehayeb in Beirut con­tributed to this re­port.