Tel Aviv/Gaza, 8 Oct, (dpa/GNA) – The Palestinian extremist organization Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, with hundreds said to have been killed on both sides in the ensuing fighting, which also saw Israelis being taken hostage into Gaza.
Israel responded by launching retaliatory strikes on Gaza in the biggest day of conflict, seen between the warring parties in years, which came on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed vengeance against Hamas.
“We will be victorious in this war despite an unbearable price. This is a very difficult day for all of us,” he said in an address on Saturday evening.
“All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into islands of ruins.”
Addressing the residents of Gaza, he said, “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”
Israel would take revenge for this black day, Netanyahu said.
Hamas, which rules the coastal strip, is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU, the US and Israel.
Netanyahu, who earlier had told citizens that Israel was now “at war,” now said “this war will take time.”
“It will be difficult. Challenging days are ahead of us.
Islamist group Hamas, which rules the coastal strip, fired thousands of rockets into Israel, while armed Palestinians advanced into the south of the country by land, sea and air, the Israeli army said.
According to media reports, they killed numerous Israelis in settlements near the Gaza border. Some attackers were said to be holding people hostage inside houses.
At least 300 people were killed in the Jewish state after the massive Hamas attacks, according to the Israeli rescue service Zaka, and more than 1,590 were wounded as of Saturday evening.
In Gaza, 242 people have been killed and some 1,700 injured following the retaliatory strikes by the Israeli army, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Another rocket alert sounded in the greater Tel Aviv area and other Israeli cities on Saturday evening.
Several people were injured in the attacks, three of them seriously, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. It was initially unclear whether the people were injured by the attacks themselves or while fleeing. Israeli media, citing the fire brigade, reported that a building in Tel Aviv had been hit by rockets and collapsed. Two people were rescued there.
Numerous explosions were heard over the coastal metropolis, presumably triggered by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system.
Hamas said in the evening it had fired another 150 rockets at Israel in retaliation for strikes that hit a residential building in Gaza.
Israel’s army said it attacked the two multi-storey buildings because they had been used by senior Hamas members for terrorist activities.
The army had previously ordered residents to leave the building.
Several Israeli citizens including soldiers were taken hostage in the fighting and are now being held in the Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Israeli army confirmed without giving an exact number.
A Hamas spokesman later said “dozens of soldiers” including high-ranking Israeli officers were held in Gaza in secure locations.
It was initially unclear how exactly the Palestinian militants were able to enter Israel despite strict border controls. A spokesman for the Israeli army said that, among other things, gliders had been used. He could not name the number of attackers.
Pictures of Palestinian militants celebrating on top of an allegedly captured Israeli tank were circulating online. The tank look partially burnt, with smoke rising.
Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif said in a message that the group had decided to put an end to Israeli violations, as he called them.
But Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz announced the country would cut the electricity supply to Gaza, in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The coastal enclave relies on fuel imports for its energy supply.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said “Hamas committed a grave mistake this morning” and said Israeli soldiers were fighting “in all the places where incursions were made.” He mobilized the country’s reservists and called on citizens to obey the authorities’ orders.
The Israeli army called its defensive action “Iron Swords.”
Egypt said it is holding “intense contacts” with “influential” international parties to halt the Palestinian-Israeli escalation.
Violence between Israeli forces and Palestinians also continued in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.
Six Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed in clashes with the Israeli army in several locations, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah. Another man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers after an attempted knife attack, it said.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry called EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on the “serious escalation at the Palestinian-Israeli level,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Meanwhile Saudi Arabia, which has been negotiating with Israel about normalizing relations, has called for an “immediate cessation” of the hostilities. The US is mediating the normalization talks.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry congratulated Hamas for its attack on Israel.
“Today’s operation of the resistance movement in Palestine is a turning point in the continuation of the armed resistance of the Palestinian people against the Zionists,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told Iran’s ISNA news agency.
“With this operation, a new page has been turned on the Palestinian people’s resistance against the Zionists.”
Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon hailed the Hamas attack on Israel, calling it “heroic.” It said it maintained direct contact with the Palestinian leaders inside and outside the Palestinian territories to conduct a “constant evaluation” of the operations.
Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organization by the US, Germany, UK, Israel and the Arab League.
The attack was roundly condemned in the West, including with statements of support for Israel from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and the US.
UN Secretary General António Guterres condemned “in the strongest term” the attack by Hamas against Israeli towns, spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.
Guterres was deeply concerned for the civilian population and urged maximum restraint and that “all diplomatic efforts” were made “to avoid a wider conflagration,” Dujarric said.
The UN Security Council would hold a private meeting on the unfolding crisis in New York on Sunday.
US President Joe Biden promised Israel his country’s support.
“Israel has a right to defend itself and its people,” Biden said.
“The United States warns against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation.”
“My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.”
GNA