Israel has launched a counterstrike against Hamas militants in the Gaza strip in the south, and is pounding Lebanon with artillery in the north, following an unprecedented sneak attack that has left at least 300 Israelis dead.
As the sun rose on Sunday following the deadliest day of violence in Israel in 50 years, the Jewish nation’s warplanes strafed densely populated Gaza City with bombs in retaliatory strikes.
Heavy smoke and flames were seen rising from Gaza’s Burc Vatan shopping mall, after the Palestine Tower in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, one of the tallest buildings in the strip, was reduced to rubble.
In the north, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it is carrying out artillery strikes in Lebanon following ‘shooting’ directed toward Israeli territory.
Columns of heavy weaponry including tanks and armored personnel carriers were also spotted moving north toward Israel’s border with Lebanon and Syria, amid fears Iran-backed Hezbollah militants are preparing to open a second front.
‘We are embarking on a long and difficult war that was forced on us by a murderous Hamas attack,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Sunday, adding that the ‘offensive phase’ of the IDF response has begun.
The sun rises over Gaza City on Sunday as Israel launches its counterstrike against the strip
People assess the destruction cause by Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on Saturday. Israel has launched a counterstrike against Hamas militants after a sneak attack that killed hundreds
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from Ashkelon in southern Israel early Sunday
More than 300 Israelis have been killed, and 1,590 injured, since Hamas launched its blitz attack on Saturday morning with rockets and up to 1,000 armed militants roving in gangs, attacking civilians and soldiers alike across dozens of locations.
At least 26 Israeli soldiers have been killed in an attack by the Hamas militant group on the country´s south, Israel’s military confirmed.
On Sunday morning, Israel was still fighting Hamas incursions in eight places, the Israeli military said.
In other developments on Israel’s darkest day for decades:
Hamas fighters began their attack at dawn on Saturday with a huge barrage of rockets into southern Israel, giving cover to an unprecedented, multi-pronged infiltration of fighters into Israel from Gaza.
Hamas fighters killed hundreds of Israelis in clashes through the day, and escaped back into Gaza with at least dozens of hostages, including women, children, and disabled elderly Israelis.
An Israeli military spokesperson said Sunday morning that two hostage situations had been ‘resolved,’ but did not say whether those hostages had been rescued alive.
Israeli airstrikes in Gaza had intensified after nightfall, flattening residential buildings in giant explosions, including a 14-story tower that held dozens of apartments as well as Hamas offices in central Gaza City. Israeli forces issued a warning just before.
Around 3am, a loudspeaker atop a mosque in Gaza City blared a stark warning to residents of nearby apartment buildings: Evacuate immediately. Just minutes later, an Israeli airstrike reduced one nearby five-story building to ashes.
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.
Israeli officials said that operations to eliminate the armed invaders were winding down early on Sunday.
‘The first stage is ending at this time by the destruction of the vast majority of the enemy forces that infiltrated our territory, said Netanyahu following an early morning Security Cabinet meeting.
‘At the same time, we have begun the offensive phase, which will continue with neither limitations nor respite until the objectives are achieved. We will restore security to the citizens of Israel and we will win,’ he added.
The PM’s office said the Security Cabinet had decided to halt the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza, a narrow strip that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. Gazans have lived under an Israeli blockade for 16 years.
Netanyahu’s office said his security cabinet had approved steps to destroy the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group, ‘for years’.
Hamas claimed to have fired 5,000 rockets into Israel from the occupied Gaza Strip, setting off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
Smoke and flames rise in Burc Vatan shopping mall after bombing of Israeli forces with warplanes as clashes continue between Israeli forces and Hamas armed groups
People standing on a rooftop watch as a ball of fire and smoke rises above a building in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike that hit the Palestine Tower building on Saturday
Palestinian inspect a mosque destroyed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, Gaza on Sunday
People walk atop the rubble of a tower destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Saturday
Israeli troops battled Hamas gunmen through the night in parts of southern Israel. An Israeli army spokesperson said on social media the situation was not fully under control.
Bodies of Israeli civilians surrounded by broken glass were strewn across the streets of Sderot in southern Israel near Gaza. The bodies of a man and woman were sprawled across the front seats of a car.
Terrified Israelis, barricaded into safe rooms, recounted their plight by phone on live television.
Senior military officers were among those killed in fighting near Gaza, the Israeli military said.
In Gaza, black smoke, orange flashes and sparks lit the sky from explosions. Israeli drones could be heard overhead.
Gaza’s dead and wounded were carried into crumbling and overcrowded hospitals with severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment. The health ministry said 232 people had been killed and at least 1,700 wounded.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh claimed the assault, which the group dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem.
In a speech, Haniyeh highlighted threats to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the continuation of an Israeli the blockade on Gaza and Israeli normalization with countries in the region.
‘How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognize the rights of our people?’
Israeli police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday
Palestinian cross the Gaza-Israel border fence in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip in a surprise incursion into southern Israel on Saturday
Sitting on the back of a terrorist’s motorcycle, student Noa Argamani (left) pleads for her life as she is abducted and her boyfriend (right) is led away by the gang of militants
Western countries, led by the United States, denounced the attack
At the White House, President Joe Biden went on national television to say Israel had the right to defend itself, issuing a blunt warning to Iran and other countries: ‘This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. The world is watching.’
The United States has been seeking a deal to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, seen by Israelis as the biggest prize yet in their decades-long quest for Arab recognition.
Palestinians fear any such agreement could sell out their dreams of an independent state.
Osama Hamdan, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon, told Reuters that Saturday’s operation should make Arab states realize that accepting Israeli security demands would not bring peace.
Across the Middle East, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas, with Israeli and US flags set on fire and marchers waving Palestinian flags in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Iran and Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese allies, praised the Hamas attack.
Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera the group was holding a large number of Israeli captives, including senior officials.
He said Hamas had enough captives to make Israel free all Palestinians in its jails.
Hamas said the attack was driven by what it called escalated Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
That Israel was caught completely off guard was lamented as one of the worst intelligence failures in its history, a shock to a nation that boasts of its intensive infiltration and monitoring of militants.
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