About a thousand people – 600 on Israeli soil and more than 400 in Gaza – died in two days of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, who captured a hundred hostages in an offensive that took the Jewish State by surprise.
“The enemy is still on the ground,” the Israeli army said on Sunday evening.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Israelis to prepare for war “long and difficult” and the army announced the upcoming evacuation of all inhabitants of areas near the Gaza Strip.
The offensive launched on Saturday by land, sea and air by Hamas, which governs Gaza, has so far left more than 600 dead in Israel and 2,000 injured, 200 of them in “critical state”, according to the official Israeli balance sheet.
The bombings launched in response by Israel against Gaza caused 413 deaths – among them 78 children and 41 women – as well as 2,300 injuries, indicated the Ministry of Health of that Palestinian enclave.
The Israeli government also indicated that Hamas captured “more than 100” people, taking them as “prisoners.”
“Kill every terrorist”
Israel deployed tens of thousands of soldiers with the mission of “release hostages and “kill every terrorist present” in its territory, said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.
Many Israelis searching for missing relatives claim to have recognized them in videos circulating on social networks.
Yifat Zailer, 37, said that he thus identified his cousin and her children, aged nine months and three years, allegedly captured by Hamas militiamen.
“It is the only confirmation we have” about them, she told AFP distressedly by phone.
Among those captured are several American and German citizens, many with dual Israeli nationality.
There’s also “three missing Brazilians” and one “hospitalized”all with dual nationality, who were participating in a music festival “less than 20 km from the Gaza Strip“, the foreign ministry in Brasilia told AFP.
In the Hamas offensive, ten Nepalis were killed and four were injured in a kibbutz located a few kilometers from Gaza, the Himalayan country’s embassy in Tel Aviv indicated.
AFP journalists saw bodies of civilians shot in the streets in Sederot, the Gevim kibbutz and Zikim beach, north of Gaza.
International airlines canceled dozens of air links with Tel Aviv.
International tension
The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting this Sunday on the situation in the Middle East, called by Brazil, which holds the presidency of the organization this month.
The Hamas attack was condemned by the United States and numerous European and Latin American countries.
Washington began sending additional military aid to Israel on Sunday and moving its naval force closer to the eastern Mediterranean, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
After the announcement, Hamas in a statement equated US military aid to a “assault” against the Palestinians.
“The US announcement that it will provide an aircraft carrier to support the occupation [de Israel] “It implies real participation in the aggression against our people.”said.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared that the Islamic Republic “supports the legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation.”
Pope Francis asked that the attacks stop, because “Terrorism and war do not lead to any solution, only to the death and suffering of so many innocent people.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged both sides to “support peace” and offered his good offices to end the conflict.
“Unprecedented in Israel”
The armed wing of Hamas called its offensive “Al Aqsa Flood”destined to “put an end to all the crimes of the occupation [israelí]”.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, Palestinian territory, and eastern Jerusalem since 1967.
Palestinian fighters fired “more than 5,000 rockets” from the Gaza Strip and managed to infiltrate using vehicles, boats and even motorized paragliders.
The militants reached urban areas such as Ashkelon, Sderot and Ofakim, 22 kilometers from Gaza, and attacked military and civilian positions in the middle of the street.
A former Israeli soldier declared that the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which remains a national trauma in the Jewish state, was “Little thing” compared to the current Hamas offensive.
“What happened is unprecedented in Israel,” Netanyahu acknowledged, in what is the largest attack in decades, 50 years after the Yom Kippur war, which left more than 2,600 Israelis dead in three weeks of fighting.
“We fear the destruction and end of civil society in the Gaza Strip,” declared Shadi al Asi, a 29-year-old Gazan. “We are entering a phase of destruction”, he warned.
Israeli forces bombed numerous targets in Gaza, including several buildings that they presented as “command centers” of Hamas.
The UN World Food Program said “deeply concerned” for the situation in that very poor enclave of 2.3 million inhabitants, subjected to a strict Israeli blockade for more than 15 years.
In the north, from Lebanon, the pro-Iran Shiite movement Hezbollah attacked three Israeli positions in a disputed border area with projectiles, in “solidarity”he said, with the Hamas offensive.
The Israeli army responded by bombing southern Lebanon.
In the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a police officer killed two Israeli tourists and their Egyptian guide, a local channel and the Israeli Foreign Ministry reported.
Source: AFP
Source: Gestion
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
