JERUSALEM – Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and rampaged thru within reach Israeli communities, killing no less than 250 other people and abducting others in an remarkable surprise attack all the way through a big Jewish vacation Saturday. Israel spoke back with strikes in Gaza that killed 232 and signaled extra as its high minister mentioned the rustic is at battle and vowed to inflict an “unprecedented price.”
In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 places out of doors the Gaza Strip, together with towns and different communities so far as 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Gaza border. In some puts they gunned down civilians and infantrymen as Israel’s army scrambled to muster a reaction.
Gun battles persisted neatly after dusk, and militants held hostages in standoffs in two towns. Militants occupied a police station in a 3rd the city, the place Israeli forces struggled till Sunday morning to in the end reclaim the construction. An Israeli army spokesperson mentioned Sunday morning that the hostage scenarios have been “resolved,” however didn’t say whether or not all of the hostages have been rescued alive.
Twenty-four hours after the beginning of the Hamas assault, the Israeli army had nonetheless now not given an all-clear. In some towns, civilians’ our bodies lay the place they’d encountered advancing gunmen. At least 9 other people gunned down at a bus safe haven in the city of Sderot had been laid out on stretchers on the road, their baggage nonetheless on the curb within reach. One girl, screaming, embraced the frame of a circle of relatives member sprawled below a sheet subsequent to a toppled motorbike.
Israeli airstrikes in Gaza intensified after dusk, knocking down residential structures in large explosions, together with a 14-story tower that held dozens of flats in addition to Hamas workplaces in central Gaza City. Israeli forces fired a caution simply earlier than.
At least 232 other people in the Gaza Strip had been killed and 1,700 wounded in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry mentioned.
Israeli media, bringing up rescue carrier officers, mentioned no less than 250 other people had been killed and 1,500 wounded in Saturday’s assault, making it the deadliest in Israel in many years. Hamas fighters took an unknown choice of civilians and infantrymen captive into Gaza.
The struggle threatened to escalate with Israel’s vows of retaliation.
In a televised deal with Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned the army will use all of its energy to smash Hamas’ functions. “All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins,” he added.
“Get out of there now,” he instructed Gaza citizens, who don’t have any method to depart the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory.
Overnight, the Israeli army issued warnings in Arabic to communities close to the border with Israel to depart their houses for spaces deeper throughout the tiny enclave.
Gaza’s 2.3 million other people have persisted a border blockade, enforced to various levels via Israel and Egypt, since Hamas militants seized regulate in 2007.
Previous conflicts between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers introduced popular demise and destruction in Gaza and days of rocket fireplace on Israeli towns. The state of affairs is probably extra unstable now, with Israel’s far-right executive stung via the protection breach and with Palestinians in melancholy over a endless profession in the West Bank and suffocating blockade of Gaza.
The energy, sophistication and timing of the Saturday morning attack shocked Israelis. Hamas fighters used explosives to damage in the course of the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with bikes, pickup vans, paragliders and pace boats on the coast.
In an novice video, masses of terrified younger individuals who have been dancing at a rave fled for his or her lives after Hamas militants entered the realm and started firing at them.
Among the ones killed Saturday was once Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer who commanded the Israeli army’s Nahal Brigade, a distinguished infantry unit.
Before break of day Sunday, militants fired extra rockets from Gaza, hitting a clinic in the Israeli coastal the city of Ashkelon, mentioned senior clinic professional Tal Bergman. Video equipped via Barzilai Medical Center confirmed a big hollow punched right into a wall and chunks of particles scattered on the bottom of what looked to be an empty room and a hallway. The army mentioned sufferers have been evacuated from Barzilai earlier than the strike.
School was once canceled throughout Israel.
Around 3 a.m., a loudspeaker atop a mosque in Gaza City blared a stark caution to citizens of within reach condominium structures: Evacuate straight away. Just mins later, an Israeli airstrike diminished one within reach five-story construction to ashes.
After one Israeli strike, a Hamas rocket barrage hit 4 towns, together with Tel Aviv and a close-by suburb. Throughout the day, Hamas fired greater than 3,500 rockets, the Israeli army mentioned.
The shadowy chief of Hamas’ army wing, Mohammed Deif, mentioned the attack was once in reaction to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, and a chain of new incidents that experience introduced Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch.
Over the previous yr, Israel’s far-right executive has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced masses of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared across the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.
“Enough is enough,” Deif, who does now not seem in public, mentioned in the recorded message. He mentioned the assault was once just the start of what he known as “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and known as on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to sign up for the combat.
The Hamas incursion on Simchat Torah, a in most cases joyous day when Jews whole the yearly cycle of studying the Torah scroll, revived painful reminiscences of the 1973 Mideast war almost 50 years to the day, in which Egypt and Syria introduced a surprise assault on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, aiming to take again Israeli-occupied territories.
Comparisons to one of the vital hectic moments in Israeli historical past sharpened complaint of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned on extra competitive motion in opposition to threats from Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the federal government and armed forces over its failure to watch for what looked to be a Hamas assault unseen in its stage of making plans and coordination.
Asked via journalists how Hamas had controlled to catch the military off guard, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, spoke back, “That’s a good question.”
The abduction of Israeli civilians and infantrymen additionally raised a in particular thorny factor for Israel, which has a historical past of constructing closely lopsided exchanges to deliver captive Israelis house. Israel is maintaining hundreds of Palestinians in its prisons. Hecht showed {that a} “substantial” choice of Israelis had been kidnapped Saturday.
Associated Press footage confirmed an aged Israeli girl being introduced into Gaza on a golfing cart via Hamas gunmen and any other girl squeezed between two fighters on a motorbike. AP reporters noticed 4 other people taken from the kibbutz of Kfar Azza, together with two girls.
In Gaza, a black jeep pulled to a prevent and, when the rear door opened, a tender girl stumbled out, bleeding from the pinnacle and with her fingers tied at the back of her again. A person waving a gun in the air grabbed her via the hair and driven her into the automobile’s again seat.
Thailand’s executive mentioned that two of its voters can have been kidnapped, although the Israeli executive may just now not straight away verify the main points.
Thousands of Thai voters paintings in Israel, lots of them in the agriculture sector. Israeli TV reported that staff from the Philippines had been additionally a number of the captives.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has put the rustic’s air drive on standby to evacuate its voters if wanted.
A big query now was once whether or not Israel will release a floor attack into Gaza, a transfer that in the previous has introduced intensified casualties. Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” But, he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”
Israel’s army was once bringing 4 divisions of troops in addition to tanks to the Gaza border, becoming a member of 31 battalions already in the realm, a spokesperson mentioned.
Hamas mentioned it had deliberate for a probably lengthy combat. “We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, instructed Al-Jazeera TV. “We are ready to do whatever is necessary for the dignity and freedom of our people.”
In Gaza, a lot of the inhabitants was once thrown into darkness after dusk as electric provides from Israel — which provides virtually all of the territories’ energy — had been bring to an end. Netanyahu’s place of business mentioned in a observation that Israel would prevent supplying electrical energy, gasoline and items to Gaza.
U.S. President Joe Biden mentioned from the White House that he had spoken with Netanyahu to mention the United States “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop.”
Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks with the U.S. about normalizing relations with Israel, called on both sides to exercise restraint. The kingdom said it had repeatedly warned about the danger of “the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation (and) the Palestinian people being deprived of their legitimate rights.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group congratulated Hamas, praising the attack as a response to “Israeli crimes.” The group said its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.
The attack comes at a time of historic division within Israel over Netanyahu’s proposal to overhaul the judiciary. Mass protests over the plan have sent hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators into the streets and prompted hundreds of military reservists to avoid volunteer duty — turmoil that has raised fears over the military’s battlefield readiness.
Palestinians demonstrated in towns and cities around the West Bank on Saturday night. Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire killed five there, but gave few details.
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Shurafa reported from Gaza City. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre, Julia Frankel and Josef Federman in Jerusalem; and Issam Adwan in Rafah, Gaza Strip contributed to this record.