Israel today continues to relentlessly pound the Gaza Stripsince vowed to “crush” and “destroy” the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamasresponsible for the deadliest attack in history against the Jewish state.

According to sixth day of the war between the two enemies that has already cost thousands of lives, Israeli strikes continued overnight against the Gaza Strip, from where barrages of rockets were fired into southern Israel. All this while, as reported by Reuters, he arrived a while ago the head of US diplomacy Anthony Blinken for a support visit to the US ally.

“Every member of Hamas is a dead man”the Israeli prime minister said yesterday, Wednesday Benjamin Netanyahu during his first official speech as part of the emergency government he also formed yesterday with Benny Ganj, one of the main opposition leaders.

“Hamas is ISIS (s.b.: the jihadist organization Islamic State) and we will crush it and destroy it like the world destroyed Daesh”he added after calling the attack “atrocity unprecedented since the Holocaust.”

On Saturday, October 7, a day of rest for the Jews, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israel by vehicle, air and sea, and killed more than 1,000 civilians in the street, in their homes or at a rave party, sowing terror under a barrage of rockets.

Pile of corpses

At the entrance of Kibbutz Beeriless than five kilometers from the border with Gaza, a pile of corpses shows the extent of the attack inside the villagemore than a hundred of whose inhabitants were killed, according to the army.

“The devastation here is enormous”, says Doron Spielman, a spokesman for the Israeli military. “And this without counting the numerous members of the kibbutz who were taken hostage and driven into Gaza”added another military spokesman, Jonathan Cornicus.

During this extremely violent attack that has shocked the country, Hamas militants have kidnapped dozens of Israeli and foreign hostages, whom the Islamist movement is threatening to execute.

Among the hostages are included youths taken hostage during a music festival that Palestinian militants attacked on Saturday, killing 270 people, authorities said.

The army spoke of 1,200 dead in Israel, most civilians. A military spokesman said today that among them are at least 220 soldiers. Inside the Gaza Strip, at least 1,200 people, including many civilians, have been killed by devastating Israeli retaliatory airstrikesaccording to local authorities.

The Israeli army also announced that it had collected the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters who had infiltrated locations near the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

Gaza under siege

Near the Gaza border, AFP correspondents saw yesterday, Wednesday, decomposing corpses presented as those of Hamas attackers.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said today it is in contact with Hamas to work on the release of the hostages.

The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan also started a process of negotiations with the Islamist organizationan official source told AFP yesterday evening.

The Israeli authorities are talking about 150 hostageswhile hundreds of people are still considered missing and bodies have not yet been identified.

Israel has deployed tens of thousands of troops around the Palestinian enclave and on its northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, regularly launches rocket attacks.

The Gaza Stripan impoverished enclave of 2.3 million inhabitants that has been under land, air and sea blockade since 2006, is now in a state of siegeas Israel has cut off water, electricity and food supplies.

The enclave’s only power station stopped working yesterday afternoon due to lack of fuel, and hospitals are overcrowded and have shortages of materials.

Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC Regional Director for the Near and Middle East Region, asked the two camps to “reduce the suffering of civilians” and especially those in the Gaza Strip.

“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues”he said in a statement, saying he fears mainly for newborns in incubators and for patients on mechanical support or on blood transfusions.

Fewer rockets

“We are preparing for the next stages. We hit a lot of goals”the spokesman of the Israeli army, Jonathan Kornicus, said this morning.

During the last 24 hours, “fewer rockets” launched towards Israel and “that is always a good sign”he pointed out.

The shelling hit dozens of apartment buildings, factories, mosques and shops, according to Hamas. Women, with their children in their arms, walked among the wreckage.

“It’s like an image of Apocalypse or an earthquake (…) (The Israelis) came to destroy, as if these people don’t deserve to live. As if they are not human,” says a resident of the Karama neighborhood in Gaza, who did not want to give his name, amid the rubble.

More than 338,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN.

Besides, since Saturday 29 Palestinians have been killed in violence in the West Bank.

Troop buildups at the border are raising fears of a ground attack on the enclavefrom which Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005 and which since 2007 has been ruled by Hamas.

Blinken in Israel

On a diplomatic level, the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is expected in Israel today for a solidarity visit. “We are determined to ensure that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself,” he said before his departure.

US President Joe Biden, however, asked Israel to respect “the law of war” in his response against Gaza.

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iranian President Ibrahim Raisiwhose country applauded the Hamas attack, they were contacted by phone yesterdayWednesday.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince told the Iranian president that Riyadh is “communicating with all international and regional parties to end the current escalation,” according to the official Saudi news agency SPA. He also underlined “the kingdom’s firm stance in favor of the Palestinian cause.”

Brazil, which currently chairs the UN Security Council, called a new meeting of this body for tomorrow, Friday. During their previous extraordinary session on 8 October, Security Council members had failed to agree on a unanimous condemnation of the Hamas attack.