Israel has formally declared war on Hamas, setting the stage for a major military operation in Gaza as fighting continues to rage on Israeli soil.
Tanks and personnel carriers could be seen on the move near the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday, after Hamas – an Islamist militant group – launched an unprecedented and highly coordinated surprise assault this weekend that has so far killed over 700 Israelis.
Saturday was the deadliest day in decades for Israel and came after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis, with the long-running conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory.
Questions remain over how the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.
Hamas claims to be holding “over 100” Israeli hostages, including high-ranking officers, and continued to fire rockets into Israel throughout Sunday. Another Palestinian armed group, called Islamic Jihad, said on Sunday it is holding at least 30 hostages in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation, warning his country would take “mighty vengeance” and was readying for “a long and difficult war.”
He urged Palestinians living in Gaza to “leave now.”
Over 400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as Israel responds with airstrikes in the densely-inhabited enclave.
Hamas launches surprise air and ground attack from Gaza
Early Saturday, militants from Gaza fired a deadly barrage of rockets and sent gunmen into southern Israeli territory in one of the deadliest days in decades between the two sides. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed “mighty vengeance” on Hamas, and Israeli forces are battling militants in southern Israel and have been pounding Gaza with airstrikes.
Throughout the bloody weekend, Hamas launched thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel – making direct hits on multiple locations inside the country including Tel Aviv – while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.
Photos released by the Israeli foreign ministry showed dozens of bodies in the aftermath of a Hamas attack on a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, which emergency responders said left at least 260 dead.
As Israeli forces clashed on the ground with Hamas fighters, Israeli airstrikes blasted what it said were Hamas-associated locations.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had struck over 400 targets in the small enclave, including 10 towers that it said were used by Hamas and “a number of terrorist squads in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip.”
Palestinian authorities say 78 children are among the dead, and 2,300 others wounded.
According to Netanyahu, Israel’s “first phase” of retaliation has ended with the “destruction of the majority of the enemy forces that penetrated our territory.” It will be followed by an “offensive formation,” he said.
His government has decided to stop the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.
Hamas has warned against measures in Gaza, alluding to hostages held in the area.
In a recorded audio message Saturday, Abu Obaida spokesman for the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said: “What happens to the people of the Gaza Strip will happen to them and beware of miscalculation.”
Civilians taken hostage include “not only soldiers but civilians, children, grandmothers,” Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told a briefing on Sunday. “We have lost soldiers, we have lost commanders, we have lost a lot of civilians.”
It has been more than 17 years since an Israeli soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in an assault on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, towns and kibbutzim since town-by-town fighting in the 1948 war of independence.
On Sunday, Hecht, the IDF spokesman, said Israeli forces had neutralized most of the significant battles that took place in the settlement of Otef, but there are still ongoing operations in numerous other parts of the country.
The IDF’s goal for the next 12 hours is to “end the Gaza enclave … and kill all the terrorists in our territory,” he said.
The IDF is evacuating more than 20 communities adjacent to the Gaza security fence, and searching the area for any Hamas militants left. It is also seeking to control breaches in the fence.
Asked by a journalist about the intelligence failure that had allowed such a large scale attack to occur, Hecht said: “This is not a question for now … I am sure that will be a big discussion down the road.”
‘No warning of any kind’
The highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
We had no warning of any kind, and it was a total surprise that the war broke out this morning,” Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Service, told CNN.
The number of rockets fired by Palestinian militants was at a scale “never seen before,” Halevy said, and this was “the first time” that Gaza has been able to “penetrate deep into Israel and to take control of villages.”
