2023-10-08 14:21:10
Update
October 8, 2023
16:21
The escalation observed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the deadliest in decades. More than 600 deaths were recorded on the Israeli side, while some 370 people died on the Palestinian side.
Israeli forces were tracking down hundreds of Palestinian fighters infiltrated into Israel and bombed the Gaza Strip, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “long” war once morest Hamasat the origin of an unprecedented offensive launched the day before.
More than 600 dead on the Israeli side, more than 370 dead on the Palestinian side, hundreds of Palestinian fighters infiltrated into Israeli communities bordering Gaza, numerous Israelis kidnapped. For Israel, this escalation is the deadliest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades.
The Israeli army announced that it would evacuate in the next 24 hours all residents residing in localities near Gazaterritory under the control of Hamas, Israel’s sworn enemy.
“The war will be long and difficult”
Seeking to regain control following the surprise offensive launched on Saturday at dawn in the middle of Shabbat, the Jewish weekly rest, Israeli forces on Sunday tracked down fighters infiltrated in southern Israel and continued airstrikes once morest targets in Gaza where buildings were flattened. “Tens of thousands of soldiers” are deployed in the southern sector where “heroic battles are underway to free hostages” and “we will (…) kill every terrorist present in Israel,” declared the spokesperson for the army, General Daniel Hagari.
Israeli forces said they had retaken the police station in Sderot, following having “neutralized 10 terrorists who were there.” “The first phase is coming to an end […] by eliminating the vast majority of enemy forces that have infiltrated our territory,” Mr. Netanyahu said, warning that “the war will be long and difficult“.
Under the cover of a barrage of rockets fired at Israel, Hamas fighters, aboard vehicles, boats and even motorized paragliders, made use of the imposing barrier around Gaza on Saturday, attacking military positions and civilians in the street. Again on Sunday, Palestinian fighters fired rockets into Israel.
“A lot of bodies”
Israel was further attacked on its northern border with Lebanon. Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and Iran, fired shells at a contested border arealeading to an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah target in southern Lebanon.
In Egypt, two Israeli tourists were killed by a police officer who shot at them in Alexandria, according to a media report. In Israel, the authorities have not specified the number of Israeli civilians and soldiers kidnapped by Palestinian fightersbut the Israeli online news site Ynet puts forward “an estimate of around a hundred people”.
Some of the Israelis searching for their loved ones, interviewed on radio and television, said they had seen them on videos of Hamas hostages in Gaza circulating on social media. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another armed Palestinian group, claimed to have captured ‘numerous soldiers’. “What happened is unprecedented in Israel,” admitted Benjamin Netanyahu, commenting on the Hamas offensive.
The fighting left “more than 200 dead” and “more than 1,000 injured” on the Israeli side, according to the army, which accused Hamas of having “massacred civilians” even in their homes. “I saw a lot of bodies“, Shlomi, an Israeli, told AFP, next to corpses near Kibbutz Gevim (south). In the Gaza Strip, 313 Palestinians were killed and nearly 2,000 injured according to Hamas.
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