Hamas Attack: Death Toll Rises As Israel Strikes Gaza

Following a massive attack by the militant group that started early on Saturday, about 1,100 people have been murdered in Israel and Gaza as Israel’s military fought to force Hamas gunmen out of southern communities and secure its borders Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warning to transform the besieged Palestinian enclave into a “deserted island” has raised concerns about a ground invasion of Gaza. The Israeli military claims to have assembled 100,000 reserve soldiers close to the border.

After a record number of Palestinians were killed, there were rising tensions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, extensive Israeli settler attacks, and Hamas operations.

More than 400 people have reportedly been killed in Gaza, while at least 700 people have reportedly been slain in Israel, a staggering death toll the nation has not seen in decades. Over 130 Israeli prisoners, according to Palestinian organizations, are being held captive.

Israeli soldiers were still engaged in combat with terrorists camped out in multiple locations more than two days after Hamas launched its historic invasion of Gaza.

The IDF reported fighting Hamas in “seven to eight” locations in southern Israel as Monday got underway.

According to military spokesman Richard Hecht, it is taking longer than anticipated to stop the infiltration since there are still numerous border crossing points that Hamas might exploit to enter more fighters and weapons. “We thought this morning we’d be in a better place,” Hecht said.

The Be’eri kibbutz, which the military has been unable to take back from Hamas, was infiltrated by an additional 70 militants overnight, according to the Israeli Defense Forces.

The level of violence between the two sides has increased to its highest level in decades, and some observers believe Israel was unprepared for it.

In the meantime, Israel reportedly struck more than 1,000 sites in Gaza, including airstrikes that largely destroyed the village of Beit Hanoun in the northeastern corner of the territory.

According to Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Hamas uses the town as a staging area for its strikes. There was no early information on injuries, and the vast majority of the community’s tens of thousands of residents probably left earlier.

The initial raid on Saturday reportedly involved 1,000 Hamas fighters, according to the Israeli military. The significant number demonstrated the depth of preparation on the part of the terrorist group in control of Gaza, which claimed responsibility for attacking reaction to the intensifying Palestinian misery brought on by Israel’s occupation and siege of Gaza.

More than 130 Israeli citizens, according to Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad organization, were allegedly kidnapped and brought into Gaza with the promise of exchange for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Although unsubstantiated, the announcement provided the first indication of the scale of the kidnappings.

Soldiers and civilians, predominantly Israelis but also some persons from other countries, including women, children, and older adults, are known to be among the hostages. The Israeli military simply described the hostages’ number as “significant.”

Israel has not corroborated Al Jazeera’s claim that Hamas has abducted a fresh batch of Israeli soldiers.

The UN said that more than 123,000 Gazans had been displaced by the fighting, while the Israeli military was evacuating at least five communities adjacent to Gaza.

“Over 123,538 people, have been internally displaced in Gaza, mostly due to fear, protection concerns, and the destruction of their homes,” said the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA.

Some European Union member states have begun evacuating their citizens from Israel after the outbreak of fighting with Hamas.

On Monday morning, Hungarian MP Balázs Orbán said his country had evacuated 215 people in a joint rescue operation.

“Our priority is the safety of our people,” he said, thanking Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania for their cooperation.

Poland has also started evacuating its citizens from Israel, with the first plane carrying around 120 people landing in Warsaw early on Monday.

“The first people evacuated from Israel are already in Poland. I would like to thank [our] soldiers for carrying out the operation efficiently. You are the best,” Polish defense minister Mariusz Blaszczak tweeted.

On Sunday, Blaszczak said some 200 Polish tourists, including children on a school trip, waiting to leave Israel. In Gaza, residents feared further escalation.

As of late Sunday, Israeli airstrikes had destroyed 159 housing units across Gaza and severely damaged 1,210 others. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit.

In the Palestinian city of Rafah in southern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed 19 people, including women and children, said Talat Barhoum, a doctor at the local Al-Najjar Hospital. Barhoum said aircraft hit the home of the Abu Hilal family, and that one of those killed was Rafaat Abu Hilal, a leader of a local armed group. The strike caused damage to surrounding homes.

Over the weekend, another airstrike on a home in Rafah killed 19 members of the Abu Outa family, including women and children, when they were huddling on the ground floor in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, survivors said.

The declaration of war was largely symbolic, said Yohanan Plesner, the head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank, but it “demonstrates that the government thinks we are entering a more lengthy, intense and significant period of war.”

Israel has carried out major military campaigns over the past four decades in Lebanon and Gaza that it portrayed as wars but without a formal declaration.

The presence of hostages in Gaza complicates Israel’s response. Israel has a history of making heavily lopsided exchanges to bring captive Israelis home.

An Egyptian official said Israel sought help from Cairo to ensure the safety of the hostages. Egypt also spoke with both sides about a potential cease-fire, but Israel was not open to a truce “at this stage,” according to the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to brief the media.

In northern Israel, a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group fanned fears that the fighting could expand into a wider regional war. Hezbollah fired rockets and shells Sunday at Israeli positions in a disputed area along the border, and Israel fired back using armed drones. The Israeli military said the situation was calm after the exchange.

Elsewhere, six Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers Sunday around the West Bank.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned both Israel and Hamas for violating international law, calling for an end to “further abuses”.

“Deliberate killings of civilians, hostage-taking, and collective punishment are heinous crimes that have no justification,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at HRW, a US-based NGO.

“The unlawful attacks and systematic repression that have mired the region for decades will continue, so long as human rights and accountability are disregarded,” he added in a statement sent to Euronews on Monday.

HRW said Palestinians have recently faced “unprecedented repression,” noting Israeli authorities had killed more Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in the first nine months of 2023 than in any year since the UN began systematically recording fatalities in 2005.

In previous outbreaks of violence, HRW said it has documented “serious violations of the laws of war by Israeli forces and by Palestinian armed groups.”

It also claimed Israel has repeatedly carried out indiscriminate airstrikes that killed scores of civilians and targeted civilian infrastructure, including destroying high-rise Gaza towers full of homes and businesses, with no evident military targets in the vicinity.

For 17 years, Israel has shut Gaza off from the outside world, banning Palestinians in the tiny pocket of land from traveling.

Haaretz, one of Israel’s largest newspapers, has said Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is to blame for the violence that broke out on Saturday.

“The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu,” its Editorial Board wrote.

“The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.”

Haaretz, markets itself as a center-left progressive newspaper, it has the third largest circulation in Israel and is read widely overseas.

Source: Agencies