2023-10-08 15:38:45
Fighting raged on Sunday between Hamas activists and Israeli forces, the day after the launch of a surprise offensive by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel from the Gaza Strip.
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A thousand people have already been killed on both sides as Israeli forces hunted down Palestinian fighters infiltrated into Israel and bombarded the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “long” war against Hamas.
Here’s what we know so far about this conflict:
The Hamas offensive was launched at dawn on Saturday in the middle of Shabbat, the Jewish weekly rest, 50 years and one day after the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
The Palestinian movement fired thousands of rockets into Israel while its fighters used explosives and bulldozers to breach the barrier that separates the Gaza Strip from Israeli territory, attacking military positions and civilians in the streets.
Aboard vehicles, boats and even motorized paragliders, the fighters infiltrated urban areas of Israel like Ashkelon, Sderot and Ofakim, located about 22 kilometers from the border with the coastal enclave.
Hamas seized Israeli military equipment and took civilian hostages. “More than 100 prisoners” are in its hands, according to the Israeli government.
Its fighters notably invaded a police station in Sderot where they exchanged fire with Israeli forces.
They attacked a “rave party” attended by several hundred young Israelis near Kibbutz Reim, close to Gaza, according to media reports.
The Israeli army, which counted more than 3,000 Palestinian shots, responded with airstrikes and launched Operation “Iron Saber”, destroying buildings presented as Hamas “command centers” in Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to reduce Hamas hideouts in Gaza, a poor enclave populated by 2.3 million people, to “ruins”.
The army announced that it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to fight Hamas militants infiltrated in the desert regions of southern Israel.
According to army spokesman Richard Hecht, the strikes targeted 426 targets, including tunnels and other infrastructure in Gaza.
The Israeli army, which analysts said was taken by surprise, announced its intention to evacuate all residents around the Gaza Strip within 24 hours.
According to Israel, more than 600 people were killed and 2,000 injured on the Israeli side.
The army released the names of 26 soldiers killed.
In the Gaza Strip, 370 Palestinians were killed and 2,200 others injured according to Hamas.
Two Thai men, a Cambodian student and two Ukrainian women were killed.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of Hamas, announced that they had launched the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation against Israel and fired more than “5,000 rockets” to “put an end to the crimes of the occupation”.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, a Palestinian territory, and the eastern part of Jerusalem since 1967, and has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas took power there in 2007.
“We are on the verge of a great victory,” said Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas leader.
The movement called on “resistance fighters in the West Bank” as well as “Arab and Muslim nations” to join its fight.
On Sunday morning, pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah announced that it had fired “artillery shells and guided missiles” at Israeli positions on the border between Lebanon and Israel, in solidarity with Hamas.
The Israeli army said it responded using a drone.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the Hamas offensive and called on the international community to make “diplomatic efforts to avoid a widening of the conflagration”.
Western countries, many of which consider Hamas to be a “terrorist” organization, also condemned the attack.
US President Joe Biden assured Israel of his “unwavering support”.
The United States will “probably” give the details of new military aid to Israel on Sunday, announced the head of diplomacy Antony Blinken.
The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen condemned attacks amounting to “terrorism in its most despicable form” and considered that Israel had “the right to defend itself”.
Russia called for an “immediate ceasefire.”
Iran “supports the legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation,” declared Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi, adding that Israel must “be held responsible” for the situation.
Saudi Arabia called for “an immediate end to the escalation between the two sides, protection of civilians and restraint.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on both sides “to refrain from acting impulsively, which would increase tensions.”
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