More than 2 million people in Gaza are trapped in a humanitarian disaster

• More than 2 million people live in the Gaza Strip, which is facing a punishing counterattack from Israel.
• Experts say Gaza is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, and people are running out of basic supplies.

Israel's response to the militant group Hamas' attack on Saturday has been an all-out assault on the Gaza Strip, a sliver of land that butts up against the Mediterranean Sea and has been under Israeli and Egyptian blockade for 16 years.

Buildings, apartment towers, mosques, and more are being toppled by aerial strikes; access to electricity, fuel, medicine, and food is being cut off by Israeli officials; and hospitals are running on backup generators with only days of power left. Israel is also likely gearing up for a ground assault.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has pleaded with the global community to send humanitarian aid to the region, and the World Health Organization is working with the Egyptian government to get health supplies delivered to the area.

So far, thousands have been killed or injured in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank and in Israel.

"The people of Gaza were already in a weakened state as a result of 16 years of living under closure, restrictions on access to freedom of movement, and the opportunities for employment as well as trade," Akshaya Kumar, the director of Crisis Advocacy at Human Rights Watch, told Insider. "And now they are losing even what little access they had."

Human-rights experts who spoke to Insider said the already devastated Gaza Strip — a nearly 140-square-mile territory about the size of Philadelphia that's controlled by Hamas — is being ravaged by Israel's military response, and they said it could get much worse. Groups are begging for the establishment of humanitarian corridors to bring in much-needed supplies to the trapped region.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that a humanitarian corridor was being discussed, according to CNN, and a UN spokesperson has called for one saying, "Citizens need protection."

On Wednesday, White House spokesman John Kirby said that the US was in active talks with Israel and Egypt.

"Civilians are not to blame for what Hamas has done," Kirby said. "They didn't do anything wrong, and we continue to support safe passage."

'People are just living in absolute dread'

Using what Kumar described as dehumanizing language, Israel's defense minister Yoav Gallant on Monday announced a total cutoff of the Gaza Strip, which is home to more than 2 million people, nearly half of whom are under 18.

"We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly," Gallant said, according to the Times of Israel.

The use of collective punishment is a war crime, Kumar said.

"There's a clear calculation as to how many days people in Gaza could last by using fuel for generators to run their pumping stations or their electricity plants," Kumar said. "And that projection is chilling, actually to know that not only are the Israeli authorities aware of this, they are counting on it to impose their siege conditions."

On the ground, people in Gaza — nearly half of whom already live in poverty — are feeling the effects of the cutoff.

Insider previously spoke with Ivan Karakashian, the head of advocacy in Jerusalem for the NGO Norwegian Refugee Council, who said workers on the ground estimated on Tuesday that essentials, including food, could run out in Gaza in four to six days.

Kumar said her colleagues in Gaza have seen ambulances and refugee camps struck by missiles, and they've described dire conditions at overcrowded clinics that lack access to proper medical supplies to treat the injured.

Kumar said attempts to deliver much-needed supplies are so far failing.

"I think people are just living in absolute dread and fear, and these are people who have been through this in the past but they don't know what to expect, because the intensity of the bombardment and the statements from Israeli officials are truly menacing," she said.

Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told Insider that he's heard similar stories from friends and colleagues. He said friends in the US are desperately trying to keep up with family in the region.

"I got a tidbit from a colleague in Houston, whose family is in Gaza," Abuznaid said. "Normally, they're telling my friend like, 'Hey, don't worry about it, we'll be fine. We'll be fine.' And they weren't really able to muster out that statement. This time, they're not really sure."

'This has been 75-plus years'

Since the current conflict began on Saturday, much of the US focus has been on supporting the Israeli government's response to Hamas, which targeted civilian populations and left at least 1,200 dead in its most recent attack sagainst Israel.

President Joe Biden sharply condemned the attacks and it is unclear if he asked Israel to practice restraint in its military campaign.

"We know that Israel will take all of the precautions that it can, just as we would, and again that's what separates us from Hamas and terrorist groups that engage in the most heinous kind of activities," Blinken said on Wednesday.

A State Department spokesperson told Insider that Biden would be supporting Israel with whatever it needs at the moment and said the US provides humanitarian assistance to Gaza and the West Bank through trusted partners and in coordination with Israeli officials.

Experts who spoke to Insider said that Israel's human-rights violations against the Palestinian territories have contributed to the decades-old conflict in the region.

Israeli officials have been pushing for a judicial overhaul that would, according to Vox, among other things, make it easier to annex more land from Palestinian territories. Earlier this year, citizens in Huwara were targeted by settlers in what one Israeli military commander called a "pogrom," and raids by Israeli forces in places like Jenin, a densely populated refugee camp, resulted in civilian injuries, according to CNN.

"This has been 75-plus years," Abuznaid said. "People need to understand that this issue didn't come about just in the last three days. They also need to understand that the Palestinian people again have been denied their rights and their right to self-determination. There is no military force that's defending the Palestinian people."