Key events
More from AFP in Sderot, Israel…
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.
Yifat Zailer, 37, said she was horrified to see online video footage from Gaza that showed her cousin and the woman’s children, aged nine months and three years.
“That’s the only confirmation we have,” she told AFP, her voice breaking with emotion, and adding there was no information on her cousin’s husband or 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, with at least 3,000 rockets raining down as fighters infiltrated towns and kibbutz communities and stormed an outdoor rave where many revellers were shot dead.
Panicked Israelis hiding in their homes told reporters that militants were going door to door and shooting civilians or dragging them away.
“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.”
– ‘No respite’ –
Western capitals have condemned the attack by Hamas, which Washington and Brussels consider a terrorist group.
Israel’s foes have praised the assault, including Iran whose president Ebrahim Raisi voiced support when he spoke with the leaders of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group.
Pro-Palestinian protests took place in the United States, Iraq, Pakistan and other countries, while Germany and France were among nations stepping up security around Jewish temples and schools.
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 – 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.
Israeli attacks have reduced several Gaza residential towers to rubble and destroyed a mosque in Gaza’s Khan Yunis as well as the central bank.
– ‘We will not give up’ –
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 for 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.”
He recalled the terror of the attack on their town near Gaza.
“I held a kitchen knife and a large screwdriver, and I told my wife that, if something happens, to make sure to read the Kaddish (prayer) over me, if you stay alive,” he said. “And so we stayed close to each other at home, shut everything and turned off the lights.”
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has predicted “victory” and vowed to press ahead with “the battle to liberate our land and our prisoners languishing in occupation prisons”.
An Israeli survivor of the attack on Sderot, 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.”
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.”
Agence France-Presse reports from Sderot, Israel
Israeli troops fought to regain control of the desert around the Gaza Strip and evacuate people from the embattled border area on Monday, as the death toll from the war with Hamas surged above 1,100 by the third day of clashes.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel on Sunday to prepare for a “long and difficult” conflict a day after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise assault from Gaza, firing a barrage of rockets and sending a wave of fighters who gunned down civilians and took at least 100 hostages.
More than 700 Israelis have been killed since Hamas launched its large-scale attack, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Monday – the country’s worst losses since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Gaza officials reported at least 413 deaths in the impoverished and blockaded enclave of 2.3 million people, which was hammered by Israeli air strikes on 800 targets ahead of what many feared may be a looming ground invasion.
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.
“The enemy is still on the ground,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said as a second night fell after the massive opening attack.
US president Joe Biden ordered “additional support for Israel in the face of this unprecedented terrorist assault by Hamas”.
US defense secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions”.
Austin directed the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier and group of warships to the eastern Mediterranean, and said that Washington was augmenting fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.
Hamas has said the US aid amounted to “aggression” against Palestinians.
The conflict has had global impact, with several other countries reporting nationals killed, abducted or missing, among them Brazil, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Nepal, Thailand and Ukraine.
A US National Security Council spokesperson confirmed that “several” Americans had been killed in the surprise attack, but did not provide further details.
Spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus posted this update on the IDF’s response online. He said “almost 48 hours into the fighting… the situation in Israel is a dire one”.
He said there was “still fighting going on in southern Israel, our troops are still fighting”.
Conricus said the IDF estimated upwards of 1000 Hamas militants entered Israeli territory in the attack on Saturday. He said 700 Israelis had been killed – civilians and military personnel – and more than 2100 wounded. With a “high number of critically wounded people”, more deaths are expected, he said.
“It is by far the worst day in Israeli history. Never before have so many Isarelis been killed by one single thing on one day.”
Drawing a US analogy, he said the weekend’s attack, for Israel, “could be a 9/11 and a Pearl Harbour wrapped into one”.
Conricus said a significant number of Israeli civilians and military personnel had been taken hostage and moved into Gaza. He did not specify a figure, but said “many many Israelis [have been] forcefully taken from Israel”.
He said the IDF military response had two primary objectives in its response to the Hamas attack.
“At the end of this war, Hamas will no longer have any military capabilities to threaten Israeli civilians. .. Hamas will not be able to govern the Gaza Strip.”
Monday morning
It is early on Monday morning in Palestine and in Israel, 48 hours since an attack by Hamas sparked the latest brutal conflagration of this conflict.
What we know so far:
The death toll has surpassed 1,100. The Israeli toll has risen to at least 700, including 44 soldiers, as the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel was embarking on a “long and difficult war”. In Gaza, which was pummelled by Israeli airstrikes, officials have reported at least 413 deaths.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, said it was “by far the worst day in Israeli history”, saying, using an American analogy, it could be “a 9/11 and a Pearl Harbour wrapped into one”.
The permanent observer mission of the state of Palestine to the UN said in a statement: “these developments did not occur in a vacuum”.
“They are preceded by the killing this year of hundreds of Palestinians … and preceded by decades of Israel’s unrelenting military raids on Palestinian villages, towns, cities and refugee camps.”
The latest major developments:
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Israeli rescue service Zaka said that its paramedics have removed approximately 260 bodies from a music festival that was attacked by Hamas. Videos posted online showed festival goers running frantically and getting into cars after the attacks.
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Spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus posted an update on the IDF’s response online. He said “almost 48 hours into the fighting… the situation in Israel is a dire one” and the death toll will rise.
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Up to 100 Israeli hostages, including women and children, may have been taken into Gaza by Hamas, hugely complicating any Israeli military operation to free them. The whereabouts and fate of the captives has become one of the most pressing issues for military planners.
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Numerous members of the UN security council denounced Hamas on Sunday but the United States regretted the lack of unanimity. At an emergency session, the United States and Israel urged strong condemnation of the Palestinian Islamists. “There are a good number of countries that condemned the Hamas attacks. They’re obviously not all,” senior US diplomat Robert Wood told reporters after the closed-door session. “You could probably figure out one of them without me saying anything,” said Wood, in a clear allusion to Russia.
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Iran helped Hamas plan its surprise attacks against Israel over the weekend, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, they said. US secretary of state, Antony Blinken has however said that Washington had not seen any evidence that Iran was behind the attack.
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Iran, however, has denied any involvement in the attack. But Tehran has defended Hamas’s assault as a “wholly legitimate defence”. “The resolute measures taken by Palestine constitute a wholly legitimate defence against seven decades of oppressive occupation and heinous crimes committed by the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Iran’s UN mission said in statement.
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An Israeli airstrike has killed 19 members of a Palestinian family in a Gaza refugee camp, according to the Associated Press.
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The permanent observer mission of the state of Palestine to the UN has issued a response on Sunday to the Israel-Hamas war, saying that “these developments did not occur in a vacuum”. “They are preceded by the killing this year of hundreds of Palestinians … and preceded by decades of Israel’s unrelenting military raids on Palestinian villages, towns, cities and refugee camps,” it said.
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US president Joe Biden told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday that “additional assistance for the Israeli Defense Forces is now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days.” After the call between the two leaders, the White House released a statement, saying: “The President … pledged his full support for the Government and people of Israel in the face of an unprecedented and appalling assault by Hamas terrorists.”
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More airlines have suspended flights into Tel Aviv following Hamas’s attacks on Israel over the weekend. Those airlines include Delta, American Airlines, United and Air France.
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The UN’s World Food Programme has called on the establishment of humanitarian corridors to deliver food supplies into Gaza following Israeli airstrikes in response to Hamas’s attacks. “As the conflict intensifies, civilians, including vulnerable children and families, face mounting challenges in accessing essential food supplies,” the WFP said.
