GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) Hallways filled with screaming voices. A terrible stench in the air. Wounded people streaming through the doors. Lifeless bodies and bags of body parts arriving in bedsheets.

The scene at Shifa Hospital was a grisly reflection of the chaos around it. Even as workers mopped up blood and relatives rushed children with shrapnel wounds into surgery, explosions thundered in central Gaza City .

Over the last five days , Israeli warplanes have pummeled the blockaded strip with an intensity that its war-weary residents had never experienced. The airstrikes have killed over 1,100 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Officials have not said how many civilians are among the dead, but aid workers warn that Israels decision to impose a complete siege on the crowded enclave of 2.3 million people is spawning a humanitarian catastrophe that touches nearly every one of them.

The airstrikes have transformed lively neighborhoods into wastelands of rubble strewn with bodies. There is no clean water. And there is darkness the territorys only power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday, leaving only generators that wont last long.

This is an unprecedented scope of destruction, said Miriam Marmur, a spokeswoman for Gisha, an Israeli human rights group. Israeli decisions to cut electricity, fuel, food and medicine supplies severely compound the risks to Palestinians and threaten to greatly increase the toll in human life.

The Israeli bombardment has escalated in retaliation for Hamas militants unprecedented multifront attack Saturday. The Israeli military says more than 1,200 were killed and dozens more abducted, and the government declared war, promising a punishing campaign to destroy Hamas military capabilities .

But Palestinians say Israel has largely unleashed that fury on civilians a population that has lived for 16 years under a crippling blockade imposed by Israel and through four devastating wars and other hostilities.

The strikes across Gaza, from its farming villages on the northern border to upmarket towers in the heart of Gaza City, have killed 171 women and at least 326 people under 18, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Eight journalists have been killed, local media organizations said, and six medics, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees reports 11 of its staffers among the dead.

During past wars, news of a single shattered neighborhood could shake the international community. This time, Israeli airstrikes are rapidly laying waste to vast swaths of Gaza, and casualties are mounting too fast for anyone to keep up.