JERUSALEM
ISRAEL CAUGHT OFF GUARD
In an unforeseen turn of events, Hamas militants launched a surprise attack during a significant Jewish holiday, breaking through the blockade from the Gaza Strip into neighboring Israeli towns. This brazen assault resulted in numerous casualties and abductions, leaving Israel in a state of shock. In response, Israel swiftly initiated retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza. The Israeli Prime Minister declared the nation to be at war with Hamas and pledged to exact an “unprecedented price” for the attack.
The scale of the assault was staggering, with Hamas militants infiltrating as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip, some as far as 15 miles from the Gaza border. In these areas, they targeted both civilians and soldiers, catching the Israeli military off guard and prompting them to scramble for a counter-response.
Gunfights persisted well into the night, with militants holding hostages in standoffs in two towns. In a third town, Hamas militants occupied a police station, resulting in a protracted effort by Israeli forces to regain control, eventually succeeding by Sunday morning. Just before dawn on Sunday, militants fired rockets from Gaza, striking a hospital in the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon. While the hospital sustained damage, there were no reported casualties.
According to Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, at least 250 people were killed and 1,500 were wounded in Saturday’s attack, making it the deadliest incident in Israel in decades. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, at least 232 people were killed and 1,700 were wounded due to Israeli strikes, as reported by the Palestinian Health Ministry. Additionally, Hamas fighters took an unspecified number of civilians and soldiers captive and brought them into Gaza.
The situation teetered on the brink of further escalation, as Israel pledged retaliation. Prior conflicts between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas leadership had already led to widespread death and destruction in Gaza, along with days of rocket attacks on Israeli towns. However, the current situation appears to be even more precarious, with Israel’s far-right government deeply concerned about the security breach and ongoing despair among Palestinians over the unending occupation in the West Bank and the stifling blockade of Gaza.
In a televised address on Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had earlier declared Israel to be at war, vowed to employ the full might of the military to dismantle Hamas’ capabilities. He cautioned that “This war will take time. It will be difficult,” adding, “All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins.” Netanyahu also urged Gaza residents to leave, though they have no means to do so from the densely populated territory of 2.3 million people.
Early on Sunday, the Israeli military issued Arabic warnings to residents of communities near the Israeli border with Gaza, advising them to vacate their homes and move deeper into the small enclave. Historically, in past Israel-Hamas confrontations on Gaza soil, communities near the border suffered significant casualties from artillery fire and occasional ground incursions.
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Gaza’s residents have endured a border blockade, enforced to varying degrees by Israel and Egypt, since 2007 when Hamas militants took control. Civilians are trapped and vulnerable during conflicts and bouts of fighting. Israeli airstrikes in Gaza intensified after nightfall, demolishing residential buildings in powerful explosions, including a 14-story tower housing both apartments and Hamas offices in central Gaza City. Israel had issued a warning before the strike.
Around 3 a.m., a mosque loudspeaker in Gaza City broadcast a stark warning to residents of nearby apartment buildings: evacuate immediately. Minutes later, an Israeli airstrike reduced a nearby five-story building to rubble. Following one Israeli strike, Hamas responded with a barrage of rockets targeting four cities, including Tel Aviv and a nearby suburb. Throughout the day, Hamas fired over 3,500 rockets, according to the Israeli military.
The Saturday morning attack by Hamas shocked Israel due to its strength, sophistication, and timing. Hamas fighters used explosives to breach the border fence around Gaza, infiltrating with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders, and speed boats along the coast.
In some towns, the bodies of civilians lay where they had encountered advancing gunmen. In the town of Sderot, at least nine people were gunned down at a bus shelter, their lifeless forms laid out on stretchers along the street. Amidst the chaos, one woman, screaming in grief, clung to the body of a family member lying under a sheet next to a toppled motorcycle. Amateur videos captured hundreds of terrified young people fleeing for their lives during a Hamas attack on a rave. Israeli media reported dozens of casualties in this incident.
Among the casualties was Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer commanding the Israeli military’s Nahal Brigade, a prominent infantry unit. Hamas’ military wing leader, Mohammed Deif, who rarely appears in public, asserted that the assault was a response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli incursions into West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa, a disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount, escalating attacks by settlers on Palestinians, and the expansion of settlements.
Deif stated, “Enough is enough,” and declared the attack as the start of “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” calling on Palestinians from East Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight.
The Hamas incursion on Simchat Torah, a typically joyous day when Jews conclude the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll, evoked painful memories of the 1973 Middle East war, nearly 50 years ago. In that conflict, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, with the aim of reclaiming Israeli-occupied territories. Comparisons to one of the most traumatic moments in Israeli history intensified criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned for more aggressive action against Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the government and military for failing to anticipate the meticulously planned and coordinated Hamas attack.
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When asked by reporters how Hamas had managed to catch the Israeli army off guard, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesperson, simply replied, “That’s a good question.” The abduction of Israeli civilians and soldiers presented a thorny issue for Israel, which has previously engaged in lopsided exchanges to secure the release of captive Israelis. Israel currently holds thousands of Palestinians in its prisons. Hecht confirmed that a “substantial” number of Israelis were abducted during Saturday’s events.
Associated Press photos depicted an elderly Israeli woman being brought into Gaza on a golf cart by Hamas militants, while another woman was squeezed between two fighters on a motorcycle. AP journalists witnessed four people taken from the Kfar Azza kibbutz, including two women. In Gaza, a black jeep came to a halt, and a young Israeli woman, bleeding from the head with her hands bound behind her back, stumbled out. A man wielding a gun in the air seized her by the hair and forcibly placed her in the back seat of the vehicle. Israeli TV reported that workers from Thailand and the Philippines were also among the captives.
Netanyahu vowed that Hamas would “pay an unprecedented price.” A significant question now is whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that has previously resulted in heightened casualties.
The Israeli military was deploying four divisions of troops along with tanks to the Gaza border, supplementing the 31 battalions already in the area, according to spokesperson Hagari. In Gaza, much of the population was left in darkness after nightfall as electrical supplies from Israel, which provides almost all of the
territory’s power, were cut off. Netanyahu’s office announced that Israel would cease supplying electricity, fuel, and goods to Gaza.
Hamas stated that it had prepared for a protracted conflict. Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, told Al-Jazeera TV, “We are prepared for all options, including all-out war. We are ready to do whatever is necessary for the dignity and freedom of our people.” U.S. President Joe Biden expressed support for Israel, stating that 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 discussions with the U.S. regarding normalizing relations with Israel, called on both sides to exercise restraint, cautioning against the escalation of the situation due to the continued occupation and deprivation of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group congratulated Hamas on the attack, praising it as a response to “Israeli crimes” and revealing that its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.
This attack occurred against the backdrop of deep divisions within Israel over Netanyahu’s proposal to reform the judiciary, resulting in mass protests and concerns over the military’s readiness. It also unfolded amidst escalating tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, with the peace process stalled for years. Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government increased settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, while Israeli settler violence displaced hundreds of Palestinians, and tensions flared around a contested Jerusalem holy site. Palestinians demonstrated in various towns and cities across the West Bank on Saturday night, with Palestinian health officials reporting five killed by Israeli fire, though providing few details.
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