By Al-Fassel and AFP | 2023-10-12

Palestinian civilians are paying a heavy price for Hamas's Saturday (October 7) attack on Israel, with the reprisals triggering massive displacement, endangering civilians and depriving the Gaza enclave of food, water and fuel.

As a result of the militant group's actions, the lives of many Palestinians -- in the Gaza strip and the West Bank, where Hamas does not hold sway -- have been upended and endangered.

The repercussions of the multi-pronged Hamas attack were swift and punishing.

As many of the militant group's hideouts are in densely populated urban areas, civilians are at extreme risk of being caught up in the retaliatory fire.

By late Wednesday night, the United Nations (UN) said the retaliatory campaign had forced more than 338,000 people to flee their homes in the enclave, with more than 2,500 homes destroyed or rendered uninhabitable.

'In a ghost town'

In Gaza City, streets are clogged with rubble and littered with shards of glass.

Mazen Mohammad and his family slept on the ground floor of their Gaza City apartment block, huddling together as explosions rang out around them.

The neighborhood they woke up to was ravaged beyond recognition: buildings had crumbled to the ground and debris carpeted the streets.

"We felt like we were in a ghost town, as if we were the only survivors," said Mohammad, a 38-year-old father of four who lives in the city's al-Rimal neighborhood.

"We could not... stay in the apartment because it was on the 10th floor," he said.

Meanwhile medical supplies, including oxygen, are running low at Gaza's overwhelmed Al-Shifa hospital, said Mohammed Ghonim, a doctor in the emergency room.

Outside Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest medical complex, men burst into tears after receiving news that their loved ones had died in the air strikes.

Gaza's health ministry warned that a shortage of medical supplies and medications would lead to a "catastrophic situation" in the Gaza strip.

Eight hospitals were "not sufficient to meet the needs" of the Gaza strip, which has a population of 2.3 million, the ministry said.

The death toll in the enclave has risen to at least 1,354, the health ministry in Gaza said, with dozens killed since Thursday morning.

The number of displaced people inside of Gaza "represents the highest number of people displaced since the 50-day escalation of hostilities in 2014," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

"Meeting basic needs is becoming increasingly challenging for those who have not been displaced," it warned.

The only power plant in the Gaza strip shut down Wednesday after it ran out of fuel, said the Palestinian enclave's electricity authority.

Stranded in West Bank

Abderrahman Balata and numerous other Gazans who had been working in Israel now find themselves stranded in the West Bank, where residents are hunkered down and there has been a run on food and essential supplies.

Balata, 42, said he decided to leave Tel Aviv where he worked as an electrician, fearing retaliation.

"With three other workers we left Israel in a taxi," he said. "There is no way to get to Gaza," which is under total siege, "which is why we went to the West Bank."

"I don't know anyone here," Balata said. "No one took us in, so we went to the governorate building, and they put us in this hotel."

The Palestinian Labor Office, which is responsible for Palestinian workers in Israel, reported the "expulsion of tens of Palestinian workers from their workplaces since the beginning of the fighting."

Food shortages in Gaza

Most businesses in Gaza, including grocery stores, have closed their doors. Only a few have remained open to cater for urgent needs.

Gaza's economy ministry has said that stocks of most basic commodities could last eight months.

There is enough flour to last until the end of the year, it said in a statement.

On Tuesday long queues formed outside bakeries as Gazans sought to buy bread, but at one of them a man was rebuffed by an employee when he ordered five loaves. He was allowed only two.

The World Food Program (WFP) said Tuesday it was targeting food help for a further 600,000 people in Gaza and the West Bank.

The WFP is appealing for $17.3 million in the next four weeks to address the "critical situation" in the Palestinian territories.

The WFP said that on Monday, working with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), it had distributed ready-to-eat food to 73,000 people.

It is also beginning to distribute cash-based transfers to 164,000 people in Gaza and the West Bank, electronic vouchers that can be redeemed for food in local shops, it said -- even while expressing fears that local supplies are running out.

With no signs of the violence abating, many have tried to escape via Gaza's sole border crossing with Egypt, the only entry point not controlled by Israel, but violence there forced many to turn back.

Trapped in Gaza, they have no choice but to live with the consequences of Hamas's actions -- regardless of whether or not they support the militant group.