Israel’s defense minister said the authorities would block deliveries of food, water and fuel into the already blockaded enclave. A spokesman for Hamas’s military wing threatened to execute a hostage each time an Israeli airstrike hits Gazans in their homes.
Israel ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip on Monday as it retaliated for the largest and deadliest incursion into its territory in decades, while Hamas threatened to respond to the Israeli bombing campaign by executing civilians its fighters took hostage in Israel.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of Israel said that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into Gaza, the crowded and impoverished coastal territory that is already under a 16-year blockade by Israel and Egypt. Israeli warplanes struck hundreds of sites in Gaza, which is controlled by the militant group Hamas, including mosques and a marketplace, while Israeli troops battled to regain control of towns overrun on Saturday by Hamas gunmen.
At least 800 people have been killed in Israel and more than 2,600 wounded since the incursion began early Saturday, and Hamas gunmen were holding about 150 hostages, the Israeli government said. The spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, said the group would execute a civilian hostage every time an airstrike hit “our civilians in their homes without warning.”
At least 687 Palestinians were killed and at least 3,726 injured, the authorities in Gaza said. The death toll is believed to include not only the casualties in Gaza, but also some of the assailants who were killed in the attack on Israel, though it was not immediately clear how many.
Israel mobilized 300,000 military reservists, an enormous number for a country of 9 million people, amid signs that it could be preparing for a major ground invasion of Gaza and the possible opening of another front against the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah in the north.
In a televised address on Monday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has warned of a long war ahead, vowed to “eliminate” Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu, who leads the most right-wing government in his nation’s history, called on the opposition to “immediately establish a national emergency government without preconditions.”
