Israel still reels from Hamas attacks as toll soars

SDEROT, Israel: Israel, reeling from the deadliest attack in half a century, formally declared war on Hamas Sunday as the conflict’s death toll surged above 1,000 after the Palestinian militant group launched a massive surprise assault from Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steeled the shocked and grieving nation for a “long and difficult” war after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Israel on Saturday and sent a wave of fighters who gunned down civilians and took at least 100 hostages.

The bloody escalation sharply heightened Middle East tensions and killed more than 700 people on the Israeli side, the country’s worst losses since the 1973 Israel still reels from Hamas attacks as toll soars Arab-Israeli war when it came under attack from a coalition led by Egypt and Syria.

“Israel was caught flat-footed by the unprecedented attack,” said Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. “I’ve heard multiple comparisons to 9/11, and many Israelis are struggling to understand how this could have happened.”

In Gaza — which was hammered by Israeli air strikes on 800 targets ahead of what many feared may be a looming ground invasion — officials reported at least 413 deaths, with thousands more wounded across the war zone.

Tens of thousands of Israeli forces were deployed to battle holdout Hamas fighters in the south, where the bodies of civilians had been found strewn on roads and in town centres. Israel’s military was bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area, a spokesperson said.

“The enemy is still on the ground,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari as a second night fell after the attack, adding that Israel was reinforcing its military strength near the Gaza Strip.

“We’ll reach each and every community until we kill every terrorist in Israel,” vowed Hagari, a day after Hamas fighters launched their shock offensive and surged into Israel using vehicles, boats and motorised paragliders.

Gun battles raged Sunday between Israeli forces and hundreds of Hamas fighters in multiple locations, including at a police station in Sderot where police and special forces “neutralised 10 armed terrorists”, police said. “A lot of people have been killed,” said another army spokesman, Richard Hecht, after the military released the names of 26 fallen soldiers. “We lost soldiers, lost commanders and lost a lot of civilians. We are completing efforts to retake full control of Israeli territory from Hamas,” he added, reporting that the army had struck 426 Hamas targets including Gaza tunnels, buildings and other infrastructure.

On Sunday, militants fired more rockets from Gaza, hitting a hospital in the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon, said senior hospital official Tal Bergman. Video provided by Barzilai Medical Center showed a large hole punched into a wall and chunks of debris scattered on the ground of what appeared to be an empty room and a hallway. The military said patients had been evacuated from Barzilai before the strike.

After one Israeli strike, a Hamas rocket barrage hit four cities, including Tel Aviv and a nearby suburb. Throughout the day, Hamas fired more than 3,500 rockets, the Israeli military said.

A news report said more than 250 bodies have reportedly been removed from the site of a music festival in southern Israel which came under attack. That number comes from search and rescue organisation Zaka.

Shock and dismay gripped Israel after at least 100 citizens were captured by Hamas and abducted into Gaza, with images circulating on social media of bloodied hostages, and distraught relatives pleading for the state to rescue them. Yifat Zailer, 37, said she was horrified to see online video footage from Gaza that showed her female cousin and the woman’s children, aged nine months and three years.

“That’s the only confirmation we have,” she told AFP, her voicing breaking with emotion, and adding there was no information on her cousin’s husband and her elderly parents.

“After the army took control of the kibbutz, they weren’t at home,” she said. “We assume they were kidnapped ... We want to know what their condition is, we want them to return safe. They’re innocent civilians.”

Israel also came under attack from the north when Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched guided missiles and artillery shells Sunday “in solidarity” with the unprecedented Hamas offensive, without causing any casualties.

Israel responded with artillery strikes across the UN-patrolled border. “We recommend Hezbollah not to come into this,” said army spokesman Richard Hecht. “If they come, we are ready.”Israel was stunned when Hamas launched their multi-pronged offensive on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, raining down at least 3,000 rockets as fighters infiltrated towns and kibbutz communities and stormed an outdoor rave party. Panicked Israeli residents phoned media outlets as they hid in their homes from militants going door to door and shooting civilians or dragging them away.

US President Joe Biden ordered “additional support for Israel in the face of this unprecedented terrorist assault by Hamas,” the White House said.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions”.

Austin also said he had directed the USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, and its accompanying warships to the eastern Mediterranean, and that Washington was augmenting fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.

Several foreign countries have reported nationals killed, abducted or missing in the fighting, among them Brazil, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Nepal, Thailand, Ukraine and the United States.

US Secretary of state Antony Blinken told CNN “we have reports that several Americans were killed” and others missing and “we’re working to verify those reports”.

Two Thai nationals were among those killed, and other Asian nationals, many of whom work as farm labourers in the region, were believed to be among the hostages.

In the Egyptian city of Alexandria a police officer opened fire “at random” on Israeli tourists Sunday, killing two of them and their Egyptian guide before he was arrested.

Netanyahu, who leads a hard-right coalition government but has received pledges of support from political opponents during Israel’s national emergency, has vowed to turn Hamas hideouts “to rubble” and urged Palestinians there to flee.

“We are embarking on a long and difficult war that was forced on us by a murderous Hamas attack,” Netanyahu wrote on X, formerly Twitter, pledging no “respite”. Schools were closed nationwide and many flights were cancelled to Ben Gurion airport amid the fighting, as the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s main TA-35 index fell 6.47 percent on Sunday.

Hamas has labelled its attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and called on “resistance fighters in the West Bank” and “Arab and Islamic nations” to join the battle. Its attack came half a century after the outbreak of the 1973 conflict called the Yom Kippur war in Israel, sparking bitter recriminations on what was widely seen as an enormous intelligence failure.

“There was a very bad failure here,” said Sderot resident Yaakov Shoshani, 70. “The Yom Kippur War was small compared to it, and I was a soldier in the Yom Kippur War.”

Sderot resident Yitzhak, 67, said he now expected the army to “conquer Gaza house by house, clean the area there properly, and not leave Gaza until they get the very last rocket out of the ground.”

Israeli attacks have reduced several Gaza residential towers to rubble, and another strike completely destroyed a mosque in Gaza’s Khan Yunis.

Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, leading to Israel’s blockade of the impoverished enclave of 2.3 million people, and the two sides have fought several wars since.

Many Gaza residents voiced defiance. “We will not give up, and we are here to stay,” said Mohammed Saq Allah, 23. “This is our land, and we will not abandon our land.”

Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

“Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message. He said the attack was only the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight.

A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.

Hamas said it had planned for a potentially long fight. “We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh Al-Arouri, told Al-Jazeera TV. “We are ready to do whatever is necessary for the dignity and freedom of our people.”

Israel and Hamas have fought several wars since, with the latest large-scale military exchange in May killing 34 Palestinians and one Israeli. The Hamas offensive follows months of rising violence, mostly in the occupied West Bank, and tensions around Gaza’s border and at contested holy sites in Jerusalem.

Before Saturday, the conflict so far this year had killed at least 247 Palestinians, 32 Israelis and two foreigners, including combatants and civilians, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Meanwhile, Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani on Sunday, expressing solidarity with Palestine against Israeli oppression, called for the international community to intervene to protect Palestinian civilians.

The foreign minister also expressed concern over the volatile situation and the loss of precious Palestinian lives. “Pakistan is deeply concerned by the escalating hostility in the Middle East and the loss of innocent lives. We stand in solidarity with Palestinians and call for an immediate end to the violence and oppression by Israeli occupation forces,” Jilani wrote on his X account.

Furthermore, the caretaker minister also called for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of pre-1967 borders and according to the United Nations (UN) resolutions.