As Israel wages war in Gaza over Hamas' terror, one Palestinian tells CBS News, "They're wiping us out"
Metula, northern Israel — Israel is warning of a "prolonged" war in Gaza as it prepares to launch a ground invasion of the densely populated Palestinian territory. If ordered by the country's leaders, it would be Israel's first ground offensive in Gaza in almost a decade, but its aerial attacks have already been relentless for six days, and the grim reality for the roughly 2.3 million people trapped in the region is becoming clear.
Many of those paying the ultimate price for the brutal weekend terror attack on Israel by Gaza's Hamas rulers are the youngest Palestinians. Hospitals and clinics struggling to keep their lights on since Israel imposed a complete blockade, cutting electricity supplies to the Palestinian enclave, are full of tiny bodies covered in blood and exhausted doctors trying desperately to save their lives.
Israel says it's targeting Hamas militants and command centers and that several of the group's leaders have already been killed. But as Israel vows to wipe Hamas out completely, many, including experts at the United Nations who have accused Israel of answering Hamas' war crimes with its own, are asking at what cost.
Officials in Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surged past 1,300 on Thursday, just six days into Israel's retaliatory attacks. On nearly every street in the 25-mile-long strip of land there have been scenes of anguish as rescue workers gather the remains of the dead.
Despite fierce international criticism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government ordered a complete blockade of Gaza almost immediately after Hamas' attack, vowing that Israel would not allow food, fuel, water or electricity in until Israeli hostages are returned home.
The blockade has amplified the misery of the millions of people who live in the densely packed enclave. More than half of Gaza's inhabitants are under the age of 18 — children who, like most in the territory, had no say in Hamas' brutal assault on southern Israel.
"They're wiping us out. This is a genocide," Gazan university student Efaf al-Najar told CBS News. "It's not even an attack anymore. They keep saying, 'leave the Gaza Strip.' Where? They've bombed everything, even the only border we can leave through."
Israel has repeatedly told residents to evacuate their homes, but the Rafah crossing from the far south of Gaza into Egypt is the only functioning route to escape, and it has been hit repeatedly by the Israeli military, leaving the vast majority of Palestinians trapped in the region, fearing what's to come.
Al-Najar told CBS News she lived in Gaza City's Tel el-Hawa neigborhood, "which has been completely destroyed and wiped out by the Israeli airstrikes."
She said when Israel started bombing Gaza her mother feared their neighborhood would be targeted, so they moved to a hotel, "because it's supposed to be safer, because it has U.N. clearance. But obviously, no place in the Gaza Strip is safe. Even the schools that people have sought shelter in, UNRWA schools have been attacked, hospitals and ambulances, educational institutions, our mosques, every place in the Gaza Strip. So really. nowhere is safe."
The young woman, who moved back to Gaza with her family in 2018 after years spent in Malaysia, cast no blame at Hamas for the suffering of Palestinians, calling the group labeled a terrorist organization by Israel and the U.S. "a political party but at the same time, they are Palestinian resistance."
"They keep saying this is an attack [on Israel] and this was not provoked. What about more than 75 years of [Israeli] occupation? More than 17 years of siege on the Gaza Strip? This is not an attack, this is merely a response to the years of occupation and the years of oppression that they've been subjecting the Palestinian people to, not only in the Gaza Strip but in the West Bank as well."
"I don't know. We have memories. We have dreams," sobbed al-Najar. "I don't know what to do."
As the Israeli military's war on Gaza intensifies, the situation along Israel's northern border with Lebanon was also growing more tense.
For the past five days, Israel has traded fire with the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon.
There have been a handful of deaths reported on both sides, and Israel is taking no chances. CBS News witnessed a massive mobilization of Israeli tanks and soldiers along the border amid mounting fear that a second front could open there. Given Hezbollah's resources and links with Iran and other governments, such an escalation could engulf the entire region in war.
CBS News' Marwan al-Ghoul in Gaza City contributed to this report