The Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that have followed Hamas’ deadly Saturday terror attack have caused widespread devastation throughout the enclave.

Satellite and aerial imagery both before and after the strikes on the Shati refugee camp in Gaza on Monday show just how powerful these bombardments can be.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said a “large number” of people were killed. Palestinian authorities accused Israel of targeting the “entire neighborhood” near the camp.

Photographs above Gaza City’s Yassin Mosque, which was destroyed in an airstrike as well, show the structure’s dome obliterated.

Israel says its attacks are targeting Hamas, but Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Civilians, including children, are often killed in the bombardments.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Al Gharbi Mosque.

A pristine asteroid sample that could serve as a time capsule from the early days of our solar system has finally been revealed.

The rocks and dust contain water and a large amount of carbon, said NASA administrator Bill Nelson, which suggests that asteroids may have delivered the building blocks of life to Earth. The sample is nearly 5% carbon by weight, making it one of the highest concentrations of carbon to be studied in an asteroid, according to Dr. Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“Far exceeding our goal of 60 grams, this is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to Earth,” Nelson said. “The carbon and water molecules are exactly the kinds of material that we wanted to find. They’re crucial elements in the formation of our own planet. And they’re going to help us determine the origin of elements that could have led to life.”

The sample, collected from the 4.5 billion-year-old near-Earth asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, arrived on Earth in a capsule on September 24, dropping from the spacecraft and landing in the Utah desert.

Since then, scientists have been hard at work studying the wealth of material — more than they expected — just inside the top of the canister to conduct an early analysis. The results of that analysis, and the first look at the sample, were shared during a live NASA broadcast from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday. It’s the largest asteroid sample returned to Earth.

There was so much “bonus” material when the scientists opened the canister that the team has yet to open the bulk sample.

A ‘treasure chest of extraterrestrial material’

Over the past two weeks, the science team analyzed some of the rocks and dust using a scanning electron microscope, taking infrared measurements and conducting a chemical element analysis. They also used X-rays to create a 3D model of one of the particles to reveal its composition, revealing a “scientific treasure” of carbon and water content, said OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta.

“The first analysis shows samples that contain abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals, and they contain carbon as both minerals and organic molecules,” Nelson said.

The team shared detailed images of the particles revealing the water-bearing clay minerals.

“That is how we think water got to Earth,” said Lauretta, who is also a University of Arizona Regents Professor of Planetary Sciences. “The reason that Earth is a habitable world, that we have oceans and lakes and rivers and rain, is because these clay minerals landed on Earth 4 billion years ago to 4 and a half billion years ago, making our world habitable. So we’re seeing the way that water got incorporated into the solid material.”

The analysis also revealed sulfide minerals, “a critical element for planetary evolution and biology,” iron oxide minerals called magnetite that react to magnetic fields, and other minerals that could be important for organic evolution, Lauretta said.

The science team was excited to detect organic matter and a wealth of carbon, which is an essential element for all life, said Dr. Daniel Glavin, OSIRIS-REx sample analyst and senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“We’re just beginning here, but we picked the right asteroid, and not only that, we brought back the right sample,” Glavin said. “This stuff is an astrobiologist’s dream.”

Going forward, the team will look to see just how much chemistry evolved on Bennu to determine whether the building blocks of life created peptides, or chains of amino acids that form proteins, Glavin said.

Meanwhile, still waiting inside of the canister is “a whole treasure chest of extraterrestrial material,” Lauretta said.

What the sample could reveal

When the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft closely approached Bennu three years ago, it extended a Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism head, or TAGSAM, toward the asteroid and fired a blast of nitrogen gas. The burst of gas lifted rocks and dust all the way from 19 inches (50 centimeters) beneath the space rock’s surface. That debris flowed into the TAGSAM head.

The TAGSAM also had 24 surface contact pads that touched the asteroid and trapped fine-grained material.

The device has been removed from the capture ring, sort of like removing a boot from a ski, Lauretta said. During the removal, material slipped out of the TAGSAM flap, a check valve designed to keep material inside the sample collector. The flap struggled to close due to some rocks that kept it open after collecting the sample in 2020. The rocks measure a couple of centimeters at the longest, he added.

Over the next couple of weeks, the curation team will continue to carefully disassemble the TAGSAM head to reach the bulk sample within. Once they do, the team expects to have a good estimate of the entire mass of the sample.

Together, the dust and rocks collected from Bennu’s surface and its interior could reveal the history of how the asteroid formed and evolved over time. These insights will also shed light on the space rock’s overall composition, which could help NASA determine how it might deflect the asteroid, which has a chance of impacting Earth in the future.

The much-anticipated reveal has been seven years in the making, from the OSIRIS-REx mission’s launch in 2016 to the capsule landing last month. Some have looked forward to the moment for even longer. Lauretta, who helped develop the mission during its earliest stages, has waited nearly 20 years to see the sample and glean the insights it might reveal about our solar system.

“Our labs were ready for whatever Bennu had in store for us,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “We’ve had scientists and engineers working side-by-side for years to develop specialized gloveboxes and tools to keep the asteroid material pristine and to curate the samples so researchers now and decades from now can study this precious gift from the cosmos.”

Scientists will analyze the rocks and soil for the next two years at a dedicated clean room inside Johnson Space Center. The sample will also be divided up and sent to laboratories around the globe, including OSIRIS-REx mission partners at the Canadian Space Agency and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. About 70% of the sample will remain pristine in storage so future generations with better technology can learn even more than what’s now possible.

“Rocks tell you a story,” Lauretta said. “The greatest mystery that we’re facing right now is, how do you go from a ball of mud to something that’s alive? When do you make that transition? The deepest desire is that we’re going to make some progress in trying to figure out why is it that we’re here in this universe.”

Gaza’s only power station has stopped working after the fuel needed for generating electricity ran out on Wednesday, Gaza officials said.

The power plant’s shutdown comes two days after the Israeli government said it would order a “complete siege” of the Palestinian enclave, closing off access to electricity, food, fuel and water in response to the surprise attack launched by Hamas on Israel that killed at least 1,200 people.

People in Gaza still use power generators for electricity, but with a blockade on all sides of the border, the fuel needed for generators to work is running out, Ismail said.

The Palestinian health ministry warned that hospitals are set to run out of fuel on Thursday, leading to “catastrophic” conditions.

The Hamas-controlled coastal enclave has been hammered by Israeli airstrikes that have killed 1,055 people and wounded 5,184 others, according to the health ministry. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it is targeting Hamas terrorists, but the dense population of Gaza – 2 million people living in 140 square miles – means that civilians are often caught in the crossfire.

The result has been a humanitarian crisis that has displaced more than 236,000 Gazans, according to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). That number is expected to rise further.

At least 11 employees working with the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have been killed in Gaza airstrikes since Saturday, according to the agency.

“Citizens need protection,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesdau, adding “we want to see a humanitarian corridor.”

Israel also seems to have removed some of its previous guardrails on its rules of engagement meant to protect civilians. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday that he had “released all restraints” on the IDF in their fight against Hamas.

Further Palestinian casualties are feared as Israel maintains its bombardment for a fifth day and the “complete siege” ordered by Gallant on Monday takes effect.

Dozens of Israeli fighter jets struck more than 70 targets in the Daraja Tuffah area of Gaza Wednesday, where the IDF claimed “a large number of terror attacks against Israel are directed.” The IDF also said it had struck Hamas naval targets in Gaza early Wednesday, which it claimed were used to carry out attacks on the Israeli coastline.

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior Affairs said residential areas in the eastern part of Jabalia and the Qizan al-Najjar region of Khan Yunis had come under intense airstrikes, with attacks targeting civilians’ homes and roads, resulting in “direct injuries among citizens,” the ministry said.

OCHA said that imposition of sieges that endanger civilians by depriving them of essential goods “is prohibited under international humanitarian law.”

“These risks (are) seriously compounding the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the capacity of medical facilities to operate, especially in light of the increasing number of injured people,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said Tuesday.

Cutting off the water supply to Gaza “affects over 610,000 people and will result in severe shortage of drinking water,” UN OCHA’s Jens Laerke added.

Destruction of infrastructure and streets by Israeli bombs is also hampering efforts by medical teams to reach victims, according to the UN.

Officials with the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said 11 of its employees had died as a result of airstrikes on Gaza and at least 14 of their facilities there have been damaged directly or indirectly.

The agency has been unable to bring any aid into Gaza since Saturday, according to UNRWA director of communications Juliette Touma.

Israel controls the movement of residents from Gaza into Israel through two crossings, Erez and Kerem Shalom, both of which have been shut.

The only border crossing between Gaza and Egypt was struck by Israeli warplanes Tuesday, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Interior Ministry Eyad al-Bozom said. The tightly controlled Rafah crossing is the only one available to Gazans looking to flee.

The IDF said it struck the Rafah area Tuesday, including an underground tunnel used for “smuggling weapons and equipment.”

At least 11 United Nations employees have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since the weekend, the UN said Wednesday, even as it called for emergency funding to continue humanitarian work in the embattled Palestinian enclave.

The UN staffers who were killed paid “the ultimate price,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a brief statement to press on Wednesday.

Among the dead are five teachers, a gynecologist, an engineer, a psychological counselor and three support staff, according to Jenifer Austin, UNRWA’s Deputy Director in Gaza, who added that some were “killed in their homes with their families.”

Thirty students at UN schools have also been killed, the organization said.

Gaza has been hammered by Israeli airstrikes for days, in response to a surprise attack launched by Hamas over the weekend that killed at least 1,200 people in Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces says it is targeting Hamas, which controls the coastal enclave. But the dense population of Gaza – 2 million people living in 140 square miles – means that civilians are often caught in the crossfire. Air strikes have so far killed 1,100 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Heightening humanitarian concerns is the Israel’s government’s order for a “complete siege” of Gaza, closing off access to electricity, food, fuel and water. The area’s only power station ran out of fuel on Wednesday.

US and Israeli officials are working to figure out a potential humanitarian corridor that would allow civilians to leave and humanitarian supplies to enter – a step that the UN says is already overdue.

“Crucial life-saving supplies – including fuel, food and water – must be allowed into Gaza. We need rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access now,” Guterres said.

In the meantime, UN staffers are working 24 hour days as dozens of UN-operated schools provide shelter for civilians fleeing the bombardment. In total, 220,000 people are seeking refuge from air strikes, according to the organization.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Wednesday that it has only enough money to continue its work until the end of the month, and is “urgently seeking” $104 million in new funding.

Asked whether Gazans should use an eventual humanitarian corridor to flee the area, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said safe shelter for civilians within Gaza was the priority.

“Civilians need to be protected. We do not want to see a mass exodus of Gazans and many of them have already been displaced from other parts,” he said.

The UN’s powerful Security Council will meet on Friday afternoon to discuss the situation in Israel and Gaza.

The United Nations says it is “deeply concerned” by reports that civilians, including women and children, were killed and injured in a bombing at a camp for internally displaced people in Myanmar.

At least 30 people, including 13 children, died and more than 50 were injured in the attack on the camp near the country’s border with China on Monday, according to Myanmar’s government-in-exile, the National Unity Government.

That would make it one of the deadliest attacks on civilians since military leader Min Aung Hlaing seized control of the country in a coup more than two years ago, a move that has since led to a mass displacement of civilians and spawned a resistance movement across the Southeast Asian nation.

The bombing on Monday took place near the town of Laiza, in northern Kachin state. Laiza is home to the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, which has been locked in a conflict with Myanmar’s military for decades.

The National Unity Government’s parliamentary wing, the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), has blamed the bombing on the junta, but the military’s spokesperson Zaw Min Tun on Tuesday denied this and claimed instead that rebel groups were behind the explosion.

The UN in Myanmar said Tuesday in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that it was “deeply concerned by initial reports from Kachin that civilians, including women and children, have been killed and injured in a bombing that impacted an IDP (internally displaced people) camp near Laiza last night.”

“IDP camps are places of refuge, and civilians, no matter where they are, should never be a target,” it added.

The British embassy in Myanmar also said it was “appalled by” the reports of innocent civilians being killed.

“In the past year, at least 3,857 civilians have been killed by the military and at least 1.2 million have had to flee their homes due to violence,” Head of Mission Ken O’Flaherty said on X Tuesday.

Calling the attack “unacceptable”, he added, “We reiterate that the Myanmar military must stop its brutal campaign against the Myanmar people.”

Myanmar’s military seized power in February 2021 after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and numerous top government figures, dashing hopes for a more democratic future for the country.

Since then, human rights groups have warned of crackdowns on anti-coup protests, arrests of journalists and political prisoners and executions of several leading pro-democracy activists.

Suu Kyi has received multiple lengthy prison sentences following a series of secretive trials, though the junta has since pardoned her on five charges. It is not clear how many more years she will remain in jail.

The country remains mired in violence and instability. Many teenagers and fresh graduates, whose lives and ambitions have been upended by a conflict with no end in sight, have joined rebel groups to take the fight to the military.

On Saturday, an annular solar eclipse will create a scintillating “ring of fire” in the skies across the Americas.

Astronomers are encouraging everyone within the 125-mile-wide (201-kilometer-wide) eclipse path stretching over North, Central and South America to enjoy this rare sight for the last time until 2046 — but only if they can do so safely. And sunglasses won’t be enough to protect your eyes for this celestial event.

The “ring of fire” nickname comes from the appearance of annular solar eclipses. They are like total solar eclipses, except the moon is at the farthest point in its orbit from Earth, so it can’t completely block the sun. Instead, the sun’s fiery light surrounds the moon’s shadow, creating the so-called ring of fire.

Weather permitting, a crescent-shaped partial solar eclipse, where only part of the sun is covered by the moon, will also be visible in all 49 continental US states, including Alaska, according to NASA.

Regardless of whether your location affords a view of the annular or partial solar eclipse, some of the sun’s powerful light will always be visible. And any glimpse of the sun’s brightness with the naked eye is not only uncomfortable, it’s dangerous.

Why you shouldn’t look directly at the eclipse

The only time it’s safe to view the sun without eye protection is during the “totality” of a total solar eclipse, or the brief moments when the moon completely blocks the light of the sun, according to NASA. A total solar eclipse will cut a path across North America on April 8, 2024.

“There are different types of eclipses, which means there are different types of safety that need to be paid attention to,” said Dr. Carrie Black, National Science Foundation program officer for the National Solar Observatory. “During an annular eclipse, because the surface of the sun is not completely covered, you must wear glasses or view indirectly at all times.”

Directly staring at the sun can result in blindness or disrupted vision. During the 2017 total solar eclipse, a young woman was diagnosed with solar retinopathy, retinal damage from exposure to solar radiation, in both eyes, after viewing the eclipse with what doctors believed were eclipse glasses not held to the safety standard.

There is no treatment for solar retinopathy. It can improve or worsen, but it is a permanent condition.

Using eclipse glasses and solar viewers

To view the annular eclipse, wear certified eclipse glasses or use a handheld solar viewer. Separately, you can observe the sun with a telescope, binoculars or camera that has a special solar filter on the front, which acts the same way eclipse glasses would.

“You need certified ISO 12312-2 compliant solar eclipse glasses. There are plenty of safe sellers online,” said Alex Lockwood, strategic content and integration lead for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters. “We cannot stress enough how important it is to obtain a pair of safe certified solar eclipse glasses in order to witness this annular event.”

Sunglasses won’t work in place of eclipse glasses or solar viewers, which are 100,000 times darker and held to an international safety standard.

The lenses of solar eclipse glasses are made of black polymer, or resin infused with carbon particles, that blocks nearly all visible, infrared and ultraviolet light, according to The Planetary Society. Sunglasses don’t block infrared radiation.

For safe manufacturers and resellers of eclipse glasses and filters for optical devices, including cameras and smartphones, check out the list curated by the American Astronomical Society.

Put on your eclipse glasses before looking up and remember to turn away from the sun before you remove them again. Always keep an eye on any children wearing eclipse glasses to make sure they don’t remove them while looking at the sun.

If you normally wear eyeglasses, keep them on and put eclipse glasses over them or hold a handheld viewer in front of them, according to the American Astronomical Society.

Don’t look at the sun through any unfiltered optical device — camera lens, telescope, binoculars — while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer, according to NASA. Solar rays can still burn through the filter on the glasses or viewer, given how concentrated they can be through an optical device, and can cause severe eye damage.

It’s also possible to use welding filters to safely view the eclipse because the international safety standard was partially derived from using such filters to view the sun.

Welding filters made of tempered glass or metal-coated polycarbonate and with a shade number of 12 or higher allow for safe viewing, but many find shade 13 or 14 to be the best and similar to wearing eclipse glasses, according to the American Astronomical Society. Just know that the sun will appear green instead yellowish-orange or white. These filters aren’t usually on the shelf at supply stores, but they might be available online.

Auto-darkening or adjustable welding helmets aren’t recommended because they may not darken quickly enough to view the sun.

Prepare for the next eclipse

As long as the eclipse glasses or solar viewers you’re using comply with the ISO 12312-2 safety standard and aren’t torn, scratched or damaged in any way, they don’t “expire” and can be used indefinitely. Also, there is no limit on how long you can view the sun while wearing them.

Some glasses and viewers carry outdated warnings about using the glasses for more than three minutes at a time or recommend throwing them away after more than three years, but these do not apply to ISO 12312-2-certified viewers, according to the American Astronomical Society.

Save your eclipse glasses and viewers for the total solar eclipse in April by storing them at room temperature in an envelope or their original packaging to avoid scratches.

Never use water, glass cleaner, baby wipes or other wet wipes to clean eclipse glasses — the moisture could cause the carboard frames to detach from the lenses. Instead, carefully wipe the lenses clean with a tissue or cloth.

Indirect viewing of the eclipse

If you don’t have certified glasses on hand, eclipses can also be viewed indirectly using a pinhole projector, such as a hole punched through an index card. These work when you stand with your back to the sun and hold up the card. The pinhole projects an image of the crescent or ring-shaped sun on the ground or other surfaces.

But never face the sun and look directly at it through the pinhole.

Other pinhole projectors you may already have on hand include colanders, straw hats or anything with small holes in it. Or you can simply hold up your hands, space out your fingers and cross them over each other to create a waffle pattern. The small space between will reflect the sun’s crescent during a partial eclipse or a ring during the annular eclipse.

Standing by a leafy tree? The small spaces between leaves will dapple patterns of the eclipse phase on the ground.

When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Beijing in June, China vowed to contribute “Chinese wisdom, Chinese strength” to resolve the long-standing conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.

That pledge, coming on the heels of a Beijing-brokered rapprochement between bitter rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, was widely seen as part of China’s ambition to expand its diplomatic clout in the Middle East – a region traditionally dominated by US power.

A few months on, Beijing’s offer to broker peace in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts is being tested by a fresh outbreak of war between Israel and Gaza, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel.

So far, China’s response to the crisis – which has left at least 1,200 Israelis dead alongside 950 Palestinians and thousands more wounded or displaced – has been a bland call for restraint from both sides, with no condemnation of Hamas for a rampage that unleashed the killing of civilians and kidnapping of hostages, including children and the elderly.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who touted a Beijing-led security initiative for the Middle East as an alternative to the US-led system when he last visited the region in December, has yet to make any public statement on the conflict.

Experts say this initial response may expose Beijing’s limited influence in the region, despite official propaganda talking up China as the world’s new peacemaker.

“China doesn’t really have the experience or expertise in the region to make a meaningful change” on the long-running, complex Palestine-Israel conflict, said Jonathan Fulton, an Abu Dhabi-based senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“You don’t see governments in the region saying ‘what’s China’s solution to this’ because they’re not seen as a credible actor here yet.”

China’s response

As condemnations against Hamas poured in from the United States, Europe and much of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Beijing refrained from calling out the group and sought to present itself as a neutral party in the conflict.

In a brief statement Sunday, China’s Foreign Ministry called on “relevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities.” It repeated Beijing’s support for a “two-state solution” to establish an independent State of Palestine as a way out of the conflict.

Beijing’s muted reaction to Saturday’s rampage by Hamas has drawn pushback from Israel. Yuval Waks, a senior official at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, said his country expected a “stronger condemnation” of Hamas from China.

“When people are being murdered, slaughtered in the streets, this is not the time to call for a two-state solution,” Waks told reporters Sunday, according to Reuters.

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who was in Beijing for a bipartisan congressional visit, also expressed his disappointment with China’s response during a meeting with Xi on Monday.

“I say this with respect but I’m disappointed by the foreign ministry’s statement showing no sympathy or support for the Israeli people during these tragic times,” Schumer said, echoing criticism he had made earlier while meeting with China’s foreign minister.

Following the criticism, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning went a little further at a regular news briefing later on Monday, saying China was “deeply saddened by the civilian casualties” and condemns “any acts that harm civilians.”

But she sidestepped a question about whether Beijing considers Hamas’ attacks on civilians as terrorist acts and reiterated the message of neutrality, calling China “a friend to both Israel and Palestine.”

Throughout its statements, Beijing has stopped short of naming Hamas, describing the crisis vaguely as an “escalation of tensions and violence between Palestine and Israel.”

The closest reference to Hamas came from Zhang Jun, Beijing’s permanent representative to the United Nation, who said “intense clashes” had broken out between Israel and “armed groups in Gaza.”

Like Russia and most Arab countries, China views Hamas as a resistance organization, not a terrorist group as designated by the US and European Union.

China’s reluctance to name or condemn Hamas has drawn comparison to its response to the Ukraine war. There, Beijing has refused to condemn Russia’s aggression or even refer to it as an “invasion.”

And Beijing’s ambiguous stance on Hamas’ violence stands in stark contrast to its “zero-tolerance” approach to terrorism in the western region of Xinjiang, where authorities unleashed a years-long security crackdown that saw the mass internment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

State media coverage

Despite its claims of neutrality, coverage of the conflict on China’s state-run television appears more slanted.

Hamas fighters’ brutal killing of Israeli civilians was given little air time on the country’s most watched news program on state broadcaster CCTV. Instead, the prime-time show focused primarily on Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza – and the scenes of devastation they created there.

“You can plainly see China play sides,” said Phil Cunningham, a media consultant who tracks and analyzes CCTV’s nightly news program, noting it follows a similar pattern of the network’s pro-Russian coverage of the Ukraine war.

Chinese state media were also quick to blame the US for the conflict now raging in the heart of the Middle East.

In an editorial Monday, the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, criticized Western countries – especially the US – for “taking sides” on the issue and “fanning the flames rather than cooling down the situation.”

“This is a consistent pattern for Western countries in many conflict regions, where they often create substantial obstacles to crisis resolution,” it said.

That evening, CCTV’s news segment on the conflict aired file footage of the USS Ford aircraft carrier, citing the US Defense Secretary as saying it had been deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean amid an increased presence of the US Air Force in the region. It then said a Hamas spokesperson had “condemned the US for its involvement in the invasion against the Palestinian people.”

On China’s heavily censored social media, many users have voiced support of the Palestinians and criticized Israel – often with a direct or veiled swipe at the US.

While some expressed shock and outrage over Hamas’ brutal killings of Israeli civilians, the deluge of anti-Israel posts is a telling sign of what kind of narrative is allowed to prevail in the country’s heavily curated online opinion.

Limited role

As the conflict escalates, Beijing finds itself in a tricky spot.

Fulton, the analyst at the Atlantic Council, said China’s response was consistent with its traditional lean toward the Palestinians on the issue with Israel.

When the Gaza conflict last flared up in 2021, Beijing – which held the presidency of the UN Security Council at the time – voiced support for the Palestinians and presented China as an alternative to the US on the issue.

China has long been friendly with Palestinian leaders.

Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank – which lost control of Gaza to its rival Hamas in 2007 – has visited Beijing five times in his nearly two decades in power. During his latest trip in June, Xi and Abbas announced an upgrade in bilateral relations to a “strategic partnership.”

But China has also deepened economic ties with Israel in recent years, ramping up trade and investment in sectors from technology to infrastructure. Israel has participated in Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, which saw the construction of a new port in Haifa, the busiest shipping hub in the country, by a Chinese state-owned company.

However, the realization that Israel is always going to be in the US camp remains a major concern for Beijing, especially as its global rivalry with Washington heats up.

“China looks at Israel as an opportunity to get points with the broader Arab world and the rest of the developing world. If you criticize Israel, you get 20-odd Arab countries’ support in international fora. And that’s been very helpful in things like declarations on the situation in Xinjiang where a lot of Muslim-majority countries have voiced support for China’s approach,” Fulton said.

“I think in most issues, the Israel-Palestine conflict doesn’t really impact China directly. I think they use it as a tool for its own domestic and foreign policy objectives.”

Resolving the conflict will be a far cry from the peace deal China helped broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia, where both governments were looking for an exit ramp from bilateral tensions to focus on their own domestic challenges.

In that case, the heavy-lifting had already been done with the year-long effort by local actors Iraq and Oman – and China stepped in at the last minute to offer great power support, Fulton noted.

Following Abbas’s trip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in June he had also received an invitation for an official visit to China. But that trip is unlikely to take place now, Fulton said.

“The Israeli government is probably not in the same place as either the Saudis and the Iranians were for any kind of resolution. They’re probably going to want to ensure that Hamas can’t attack them like this again,” he said.

“I just don’t think there’s much chance for a country like China that doesn’t have deep experience in the conflict to play much of a role.”

Israel has stepped up its offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ weekend assault as soldiers who retook villages from the Islamist group’s fighters unveiled the brutality that had been meted out to civilians.

At least 1,200 people were killed in Israel and thousands more injured in Hamas’ October 7 onslaught when armed militants poured over the heavily-fortified border into Israel, raiding homes, rampaging through farms and communities and taking as many as 150 hostages back to Gaza.

Less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, the farming community Be’eri was among the worst-hit, with more than 100 bodies recovered and eyewitnesses describing assailants going door to door, breaking into homes and executing civilians.

In retaliation for the atrocities, Israeli jets have been pounding Gaza – the densely-inhabited coastal strip that Hamas controls – with hundreds of airstrikes, reducing homes and neighborhoods to rubble and a “complete siege” has trapped residents, with many cut off from food and electricity.

Hamas warned Wednesday that its electricity generator “will completely stop within hours,” limiting the ability to provide basic services.

“All basic services in Gaza depend on electricity, and it will not be possible to partially operate them with generators due to the prevention of fuel supplies through the Rafah gate,” the government media office said in a statement.

The IDF has also bolstered troops and tanks along the border as speculation of a possible Israeli ground incursion into Gaza grows.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he has “released all restraints” for the IDF in their fight against Hamas, saying the response will permanently change Gaza.

“They will regret this moment – Gaza will never return to what it was,” Gallant said.

That has deepened fears that Palestinian civilian casualties will continue to rise in the days ahead as Israel responds to the worst attack on its territory in decades.

Airstrikes have killed at least 1,055 people in Gaza, including hundreds of children, women, and entire families, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. It said 5,184 had been wounded.

Dozens of Israeli fighter jets struck more than 70 targets in the Daraja Tuffah area of Gaza Wednesday, where the IDF claimed “a large number of terror attacks against Israel are directed.” The IDF also said it had struck Hamas naval targets in Gaza early Wednesday, which it claimed were used to carry out attacks on the Israeli coastline.

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior Affairs said residential areas in the eastern part of Jabalia and the Qizan al-Najjar region of Khan Yunis came under intense airstrikes, with attacks targeting civilians’ homes and roads, resulting in “direct injuries among citizens,” the ministry said.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday pledged that the US would make sure Israel has the tools needed to defend itself and is surging military assistance to it.

Part of that includes ammunition and interceptors to replenish the Iron Dome anti-missile system. The first supply of US weapons since Hamas’ attack arrived in Israel late Tuesday evening, according to the IDF.

Biden also confirmed that 14 Americans are among the dead and that American citizens are among those held hostage by Hamas. He called the attacks by Hamas “pure, unadulterated evil” that bring “to mind the worst rampages of ISIS.”

Humanitarian crisis

Civilians in Gaza are facing a deepening humanitarian crisis as Israel ramps up its bombardment for a fifth day and what the Israeli government said would be a “complete siege” of the enclave starts to take effect.

The siege, ordered by the Israeli Defense Minister on Monday, would include the halting of supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel, which Israel mainly controls.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said imposition of sieges that endanger civilians by depriving them of essential goods “is prohibited under international humanitarian law.”

“These risks (are) seriously compounding the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the capacity of medical facilities to operate, especially in light of the increasing number of injured people,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said Tuesday.

Cutting off the water supply to Gaza “affects over 610,000 people and will result in severe shortage of drinking water,” UN OCHA’s Jens Laerke added.

The strikes have already damaged Gaza’s medical infrastructure, say Palestinian officials, and have forced more than 263,000 Palestinians to flee their homes, the United Nations said.

Destruction of infrastructure and streets by Israeli bombs is hampering efforts by medical teams to reach victims, according to the UN.

Officials with the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said four of its employees have died as a result of airstrikes on Gaza and at least 14 of their facilities there have been damaged directly or indirectly.

The agency has been unable to bring any aid into Gaza since Saturday, according to UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma.

Israel controls the movement of residents from Gaza into Israel through two crossings, Erez and Kerem Shalom, both of which have been shut.

The only border crossing between Gaza and Egypt was struck by Israeli warplanes Tuesday, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Interior Ministry Eyad al-Bozom said. The tightly controlled Rafah crossing is the only one available to Gazans looking to flee.

The IDF said it struck the Rafah area Tuesday, including an underground tunnel used for “smuggling weapons and equipment.”

Plea for hostages

Several countries are evacuating their citizens from Israel as the conflict threatens to escalate. The US State Department said it has “been in conversation” with various airlines to “encourage them to consider resuming travel in and out of Israel” so that people can leave.

Mexico’s foreign ministry said 135 citizens were evacuated on a military flight from Israel on Tuesday evening. Germany said it will evacuate citizens from Israel on Thursday and Friday, and the French government is in contact with Air France to organize a flight Thursday to evacuate French citizens, according to the foreign minister.

There are also rising fears of the Lebanon-based Shia militant faction Hezbollah entering the conflict, potentially opening a second front in the war. The IDF said Tuesday that it has added tens of thousands of additional troops to its northern border with Lebanon in anticipation of an attack by the Iran-backed group.

Three Israeli soldiers were killed in an attack on the border with Lebanon on Monday, according to the IDF.

In a briefing on Wednesday, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said that Hezbollah in southern Lebanon fired anti-tank missiles and rockets at Israeli positions and soldiers. “There has already been an attempt by Islamic jihad terrorists to infiltrate into Israel – that attempt was successfully thwarted by the IDF, sadly at the cost of the life of a senior officer and two additional soldiers,” he said.

Rockets were also launched from Syria into Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday, adding that they landed in open areas.

Families in Israel are left with little information about their missing loved ones, as Hamas warned it will start executing hostages if strikes on Gaza continue.

Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog on Tuesday strongly urged the international community to pressure Hamas to unconditionally release people taken as hostages.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the US has special operators who “are going to help” the Israeli military “with intelligence and planning” for potential operations regarding hostages taken by Hamas.

An Israeli woman and her daughter survived Hamas’ 12-hour siege of their kibbutz by barricading themselves into a safe room using a vacuum cleaner and a rolling pin.

But she soon realized the room, used previously as a bomb shelter, was ill-equipped to keep out the advancing militants – because it didn’t even have a lock.

All Israeli buildings erected after 1993 are required to have bomb shelters – reinforced rooms with concrete walls and heavy steel doors.

But these safe rooms are designed to withstand a rocket attack, not an armed incursion. The doors are heavy, but they don’t have locks – they are not supposed to be lockable, for safety reasons.

As fighting erupted around her, Lahav feverishly reached out to her family and other residents of the kibbutz for advice.

“Everywhere endless, endless, endless shooting and grenades. So I’m trying to figure out what to do. Are they going to maybe break into our door? How can I make sure it’s locked? And I started texting and calling people from the kibbutz how to lock the door, and nobody knew,” Lahav said.

Salvation came from an unlikely place – when her brother sent her a picture of how he had locked his door “with two broomsticks.”

“I thought, I don’t have any brooms. How would I do that? But then I remembered I had a rolling stick and I took that and then I took my Dyson vacuum,” Lahav said.

“It’s hard to imagine how, you know that you’re just going to die if they break in. And I was just tying these things to the door,” Lahav said. “It’s just fear, fear, fear.”

As she was assembling the makeshift barricade, Lahav said she could hear men’s voices screaming and “banging everything.”

“There was nothing we could do except we were hugging, my daughter and I, under the table, hiding in the dark,” Lahav said.

“We started saying to each other, ‘I love you’. My daughter says ‘Mom, I love you, I really appreciate everything you did for me.’ And I told her how much I love her. We thought we were just going to die and they kept banging the door trying to open. And I was sure that whatever I did, the vacuum cleaner and the rolling stick wouldn’t hold, but it did.”

Lahav said she and her daughter felt lucky when after “eight or 10 minutes of trying and screaming and shooting everything” the attackers left their house. But the relief was short-lived, as more fighters returned approximately an hour later, “trying to break into the door” once more, she said.

Lahav estimates that 30% of those living in the kibbutz either died or were kidnapped during Saturday’s surprise attacks.

Nir Oz kibbutz was one of several kibbutzim, or small farming enclaves, that bore the brunt of Hamas’ ground assault.

Kibbutzim predate the founding of Israel, when small groups of people set up communities based on the idea of communal living. About 125,000 people live across approximately 250 kibbutzim in Israel, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel.

‘I just covered myself with dead people’

Hamas fighters also gunned down and took hostage revelers at the Nova music festival in a rural farmland area near the Gaza-Israel border.

Among the audience that day was Rafael Zimerman, who survived by hiding in a bunker and covering himself with bodies to avoid detection.

He was near the back of the bunker as he was one of the first of the 50 or so people to get there, but could hear police fighting the attackers at the entrance.

Zimerman said that at one point gas was thrown into the bunker.

“With the gas, you cannot breathe,” he said. “It’s impossible to breathe after 30 seconds.”

Following the gas, the attackers entered the bunker and began shooting and throwing flash-bang grenades.

“I just covered myself with dead people, a lot of dead people,” he said. “So I stayed there inside like for hours, like just waiting to die, you know? I just wanted to die in peace because I suffered so much from the gas.”

Zimerman, who has shrapnel wounds from the attack, said he was one of six people to get out of the bunker alive.

“I’m a miracle. I’m a survivor and I have to be glad,” Zimerman added.

Taking refuge in bushes

Amir Ben Natan, another festival goer, survived by hiding in a bush.

“I saw a bush on my left side and I thought that maybe I could hide there, and I decided it is the best option, so I went inside of this bush,” Natan said.

“About after one hour, two policemen arrived and I was there with a few other people and the policemen told us to move from there,” Natan added.

“I did not feel safe, so shortly (after) I decided to hide again in another bush. While I was in the second bush, I heard like war outside. I knew that at any time a bullet or a grenade or something can fall on me. And then after a while, it was silence and I heard the terrorists talking right nearby and I just prayed that they would not discover us.”

Israeli rescuers counted about 260 bodies near the site of the Nova festival following the slaughter.

A humanitarian crisis is swiftly unfolding in Gaza, as trapped residents, many cut off from food and electricity, face a fourth day of Israeli airstrikes in response to Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel, during which it has killed at least 1,000 people and taken up to 150 hostages.

Nadine Abdul Latif, 13, of Gaza City’s Al Rimal neighborhood, said she and her family were told by neighbors and relatives to leave on Monday after Israel said it would target the area. But they decided to stay as “we have no safe place to go to,” she said.

Her father Nihad has been missing since Saturday. He had been working in Israel, but after Hamas’ Saturday attack, the family lost touch with him.

The Gaza strip – the coastal enclave that Hamas controls – has been pummeled by airstrikes since Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” on the area, including halting supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel to the enclave. “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly,” Gallant said.

Israeli fighter jets struck more than 200 targets in Gaza overnight, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. The death toll in Gaza now stands at over 900 people according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The Palestinian interior ministry said most of the targets were “towers, residential buildings, civil and service facilities, and many mosques.” Hamas denied that it used any of the targeted towers.

Tariq Al Hillu, a 29-year-old resident of Al Sudaniya in northern Gaza, described complete chaos when airstrikes struck his neighborhood Sunday morning.

His neighbors were trapped under the rubble, and he could hear their calls for help, he said.

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it has turned 83 of its schools in Gaza into makeshift shelters but on Monday they were already at 90% capacity, with more than 137,000 people taking cover from Israeli strikes.

Unlike cities in Israel’s south, the territory doesn’t have dedicated bomb shelters or bunkers that shield civilians from airstrikes.

Situation to ‘deteriorate exponentially’

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, where some two million people live in an area of 140 square miles. More than half of its residents are food insecure and live under the poverty line, according to the UNRWA.

Israel, which controls most of Gaza’s electricity, its water, fuel and some of its food, already imposes a strict land, sea and air blockade on Gaza, but used to allow some trade and humanitarian assistance through the two crossings that it controls.

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was already “extremely dire before these hostilities” and “now it will only deteriorate exponentially.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized Gallant’s call for a complete siege as a form of “collective punishment” and a “war crime.”

Shakir also condemned Hamas’ attacks on Israel, saying the “deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate attacks, and taking of civilians as hostages” also “amount to war crimes under international humanitarian law.”

The Gaza Strip has been the target of Israeli airstrikes in multiple conflicts since Israeli forces withdrew from the territory in 2005. The fighting has often taken place between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

A potential Israeli ground invasion, if it were to happen, could significantly worsen the humanitarian situation there.

Israel controls the movement of residents from Gaza into Israel through two crossings, Erez and Kerem Shalom, both of which have been shut.

Some goods, food and fuel also enter Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, but Eyad al-Bozom, spokesperson for the Palestinian Interior Ministry, said on Tuesday that Rafah had been struck.

In previous wars between Hamas Gaza and Israel, Egypt has allowed aid to enter through the Rafah crossing and helped the wounded exit for treatment.

The World Food Programme said Sunday that while most shops in the territory maintain “one-month stocks of food,” these stocks “risk being depleted swiftly as people stock up in fear of a prolonged conflict.” Repeated electricity cuts also risk food spoilage, it said.

The situation remains desperate for Nadine and her family.

“We have no water; it was cut off yesterday (Monday). We barely get electricity or internet, and we can’t leave the house to buy food as it’s getting more and more dangerous.” Whenever she hears aircraft, she said, “we hide under the table.”