Is­rael pound­ed the Gaza Strip with airstrikes on Thurs­day, in­clud­ing in the south where Pales­tini­ans were told to take refuge, and the coun­try’s de­fense min­is­ter told ground troops to “be ready” to in­vade, though he didn’t say when.

Gaza’s over­whelmed hos­pi­tals tried to stretch out ebbing med­ical sup­plies and fu­el for gen­er­a­tors, as au­thor­i­ties worked out lo­gis­tics for a de­liv­ery of aid from Egypt. Doc­tors in dark­ened wards across Gaza stitched wounds by the light of mo­bile phones, and oth­ers used vine­gar to treat in­fect­ed wounds.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary has re­lent­less­ly at­tacked Gaza in re­tal­i­a­tion for a dev­as­tat­ing Hamas ram­page in south­ern Is­rael al­most two weeks ago. Even af­ter Is­rael told Pales­tini­ans to evac­u­ate the north of Gaza and flee south, strikes ex­tend­ed across the ter­ri­to­ry, height­en­ing fears among the ter­ri­to­ry’s 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple that nowhere was safe.

Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tants fired rock­ets in­to Is­rael on Thurs­day from Gaza and Lebanon, and ten­sions flared in the Is­raeli-oc­cu­pied West Bank.

Why Egypt and oth­er Arab coun­tries are un­will­ing to take in Pales­tin­ian refugees from Gaza

In a fiery speech to Is­raeli in­fantry sol­diers on the Gaza bor­der Thurs­day, De­fense Min­is­ter Yoav Gal­lant urged the forces to “get or­ga­nized, be ready” for an or­der to move in. Is­rael has massed tens of thou­sands of troops along the bor­der.

“Who­ev­er sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the in­side ... I promise you,” he said. “It might take a week, a month, two months un­til we de­stroy them,” he added, re­fer­ring to Hamas.

Is­rael’s con­sent for Egypt to let in food, wa­ter and med­i­cine pro­vid­ed the first pos­si­bil­i­ty for an open­ing in its seal­ing off of the ter­ri­to­ry. Many of Gaza’s res­i­dents are down to one meal a day and drink­ing dirty wa­ter.

Is­rael did not list fu­el as a per­mit­ted item, but a se­nior Egypt­ian se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cial said Egypt was ne­go­ti­at­ing for the en­try of fu­el for hos­pi­tals. The of­fi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause he was not au­tho­rized to talk to the press. The first trucks of aid were ex­pect­ed to go in Fri­day, Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qa­hera news re­port­ed.

With the Egypt-Gaza bor­der cross­ing in Rafah still closed, the al­ready dire con­di­tions at Gaza’s sec­ond-largest hos­pi­tal de­te­ri­o­rat­ed fur­ther, said Dr. Mo­hammed Qan­deel of Nass­er Hos­pi­tal in the south­ern town of Khan You­nis. Pow­er was shut off in most de­part­ments to save it for in­ten­sive care and oth­er vi­tal func­tions, and staff mem­bers were us­ing mo­bile phones for light.

At least 80 wound­ed civil­ians and 12 dead flood­ed in­to the hos­pi­tal Thurs­day morn­ing af­ter wit­ness­es said a strike hit a res­i­den­tial build­ing in Khan You­nis. Doc­tors had no choice but to leave two of the in­com­ing to die be­cause there were no ven­ti­la­tors left, Qan­deel said.

“We can’t save more lives if this keeps hap­pen­ing, mean­ing more chil­dren ... more women will die,” he said.

The Gaza Health Min­istry plead­ed with gas sta­tions to give what­ev­er fu­el they had left to hos­pi­tals. The U.N. agency for Pales­tin­ian refugees gave some of its last re­main­ing fu­el sup­plies to hos­pi­tals, spokesper­son Juli­ette Touma said.

The agency’s do­na­tion to Gaza City’s Shi­fa Hos­pi­tal, the ter­ri­to­ry’s largest, would “keep us go­ing for an­oth­er few hours,” hos­pi­tal di­rec­tor Mo­hammed Abu Selmia said.

The Gaza Health Min­istry said 3,785 peo­ple have been killed in Gaza since the war be­gan, the ma­jor­i­ty of them women, chil­dren and old­er adults. Near­ly 12,500 oth­ers were in­jured, and an­oth­er 1,300 peo­ple were be­lieved buried un­der the rub­ble, health au­thor­i­ties said.

More than 1,400 peo­ple in Is­rael have been killed, most­ly civil­ians slain dur­ing Hamas’ dead­ly in­cur­sion on Oct. 7. Rough­ly 200 oth­ers were ab­duct­ed. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said Thurs­day it had no­ti­fied the fam­i­lies of 203 cap­tives.

More than 1 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans, rough­ly half of Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion, have fled their homes in Gaza City and oth­er places in the north­ern part of the ter­ri­to­ry since Is­rael told them to evac­u­ate. Most have crowd­ed in­to U.N.-run schools-turned-shel­ters or the homes of rel­a­tives.

The deal to get aid in­to Gaza through Rafah, the ter­ri­to­ry’s on­ly con­nec­tion to Egypt, re­mained frag­ile. Is­rael said the sup­plies could on­ly go to civil­ians in south­ern Gaza and that it would “thwart” any di­ver­sions by Hamas. U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said the de­liv­er­ies “will end” if Hamas takes any aid.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were po­si­tioned at or near Rafah, ac­cord­ing to Khalid Za­yed. the head of the Red Cres­cent for North Sinai.

Un­der an arrange­ment reached be­tween the Unit­ed Na­tions, Is­rael and Egypt, U.N. ob­servers will in­spect the trucks car­ry­ing aid be­fore en­ter­ing Gaza. The U.N., work­ing with Egypt­ian and Pales­tin­ian Red Cres­cent, will en­sure aid goes on­ly to civil­ians, an Egypt­ian of­fi­cial and Eu­ro­pean diplo­mat told the AP. A U.N. flag will be raised on both sides of the cross­ing as a sign of pro­tec­tion against airstrikes, they said.

The of­fi­cial and the diplo­mat spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to brief me­dia.

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear how much car­go the cross­ing could han­dle. Waleed Abu Omar, spokesman for the Pales­tin­ian side, said work has not start­ed to re­pair the road be­tween the two gates dam­aged by Is­raeli strikes.

Asked if for­eign­ers and dual na­tion­als seek­ing to leave would be let out of Gaza, Egypt­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Sameh Shoukry told Al-Ara­biya TV: “As long as the cross­ing is op­er­at­ing nor­mal­ly and the (cross­ing) fa­cil­i­ty has been re­paired.”

Is­rael had pre­vi­ous­ly said it would let noth­ing in­to Gaza un­til Hamas freed the hostages tak­en from Is­rael. Rel­a­tives of some of the cap­tives re­act­ed with fury to the aid an­nounce­ment.

“The Is­raeli gov­ern­ment pam­pers the mur­der­ers and kid­nap­pers,” the Hostage and Miss­ing Fam­i­lies Fo­rum said in a state­ment.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary re­port­ed Thurs­day that it killed a top Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant in Rafah and hit hun­dreds of tar­gets across Gaza, in­clud­ing mil­i­tant tun­nel shafts, in­tel­li­gence in­fra­struc­ture and com­mand cen­tres. It said it al­so hit dozens of mor­tar-launch­ing posts, most of them im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter they were used to fire shells at Is­rael. Pales­tini­ans have launched bar­rages of rock­ets at Is­rael since the fight­ing be­gan.

Is­rael has said it is at­tack­ing Hamas mil­i­tants wher­ev­er they may be in Gaza. It has ac­cused the group’s lead­ers and fight­ers of tak­ing shel­ter among the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion, leav­ing Pales­tini­ans feel­ing in con­stant dan­ger.

Af­ter Thurs­day’s strikes in Khan You­nis, sirens wailed as emer­gency crews rushed to res­cue sur­vivors from the crushed apart­ment build­ing. Many res­i­dents were be­lieved trapped un­der twist­ed bed frames, bro­ken fur­ni­ture and ce­ment chunks. A small, soot-cov­ered child, dan­gling in the arms of a res­cue work­er, was tak­en out of a dam­aged build­ing.

Gaza’s Hamas-led gov­ern­ment said sev­er­al bak­eries in the ter­ri­to­ry were hit in the overnight strikes, mak­ing it even hard­er for res­i­dents to get food.

Vi­o­lence was al­so es­ca­lat­ing in the West Bank, where Is­rael car­ried out a rare airstrike Thurs­day, tar­get­ing mil­i­tants in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

Is­raeli troops raid­ed the camp the pre­vi­ous night and were still bat­tling Pales­tin­ian fight­ers in­side. Six Pales­tini­ans were killed in the camp, the Pales­tin­ian Health Min­istry said, and the Is­raeli mil­i­tary said the strike killed mil­i­tants. Ten Is­raeli of­fi­cers were wound­ed when fight­ers threw ex­plo­sives at the troops. More than 74 Pales­tini­ans have been killed in the West Bank since the war start­ed.

Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants in Lebanon on Thurs­day said they fired mis­siles in­to north­ern Is­rael, hit­ting a kib­butz. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said no one was in­jured and re­spond­ed with shelling on bor­der ar­eas in Lebanon. Hamas mil­i­tants al­so fired 30 rock­ets from south­ern Lebanese to­ward Is­raeli towns. Vi­o­lence on the bor­der comes amid fears the Hamas-Is­rael con­flict could spread across the re­gion. —KHAN YOU­NIS, Gaza Strip (AP)

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Sto­ry by NA­JIB JOBAIN, SAMYA KUL­LAB AND RAVI NESS­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Ness­man re­port­ed from Jerusalem and Kul­lab from Bagh­dad. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Amy Teibel and Is­abel De­bre in Jerusalem; Samy Magdy and Jack Jef­frey in Cairo; and Ashraf Sweil­am in el-Ar­ish, Egypt, con­tributed to this re­port.