Tel Aviv, Oct. 8, (dpa/GNA) – At least 700 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured in Israel in the worst single day of bloodshed among Israeli citizens since the War of Independence in 1948.
The bloodshed came during large-scale surprise attacks from the Gaza Strip by the militant Islamist group Hamas on Saturday.
More than 100 people were abducted from Israeli towns and taken to Gaza, the Israeli government said. Israeli media reported around 170 Israelis in captivity in Gaza. Gruesome scenes were distributed on social media of the kidnappings, showing the abduction of women, children and elderly people, some of whom were injured.
Many victims were young participants at a festival in the Negev desert. Some commentators described the massacre as Israel’s 9/11, in reference to the terrorist attacks on New York’s Twin Towers.
Numerous other nationals were killed, injured or are missing according to their governments, including citizens from Thailand, France, Germany and the United States. The Polish government said it is sending military planes to fly out its nationals from Israel.
Israeli retaliatory attacks on Gaza later killed 313 Palestinians and injured almost 2,000, the Health Ministry there said.
Among the dead was the high-ranking Hamas leader Ayman Younis, whose body was recovered from the rubble of his house on Sunday after shelling in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the civil protection agency confirmed.
On Sunday the fighting continued with more Hamas attacks from Gaza, including rocket attacks on Israeli border towns, according to the Israeli military.
According to media reports, one person was seriously injured when a rocket hit the border town of Sderot. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) wants to evacuate the border area and move the population to safer parts of the country.
Having been initially taken by surprise, the Israeli military on Sunday coordinated counter-attack operations in Gaza. Troops intercepted five more Palestinian militants who were trying to enter Israel along a beach, the IDF said. Israeli radio reported that the men had been killed, although there was no confirmation by the IDF.
And in the north, Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shiite militia, fired rockets at Israeli-occupied territory, according to the Israeli army, Hezbollah and the United Nations Observer Mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
A senior Hezbollah official vowed unqualified support to Palestinians and said the movement is “not neutral” in the current escalation between Palestinians and Israel.
“We are with you, and our hearts, souls, missiles, and rifles are with you, because we are the resistance that originally existed for the sake of Palestine and the al-Aqsa [mosque],” Hashem Saffieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, said in a speech at a pro-Palestinian rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“We are fully prepared and ready when needed,” Saffieddine, who is the cousin of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, added as the crowd waved Palestinian and Hezbollah flags and chanted, “Death to Israel. Death to America.”
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi spokes with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh after the attacks, according to Iranian media.
In a separate phone call, Raisi also spoke with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the leader of the militant Palestinian organization Islamic Jihad, which is also active in Gaza, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.
Nothing was initially disclosed about the content of the talks. On Saturday, Iran’s government congratulated Hamas on its attack calling it “a turning point […] against the Zionists.”
Israel has been Iran’s declared arch-enemy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Tehran has expanded its political and military ties in the region since the 1990s to create an “axis of resistance” against Israel by supporting Shiite militias, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is considered a terrorist organization by multiple Western countries.
Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday declared a state of war allowing for “far-reaching military steps,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has announced.
After meeting security chiefs, Netanyahu vowed to avenge the attacks, which came a day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur war. He warned of “a long and difficult war” against Hamas, which rules Gaza.
Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States and Israel. Netanyahu pledged to destroy the military and governance capabilities of both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad organization “so that they will no longer be able and willing to threaten and attack the citizens of Israel for many years.”
“We are beginning a long and difficult war forced upon us by a murderous attack by Hamas,” Netanyahu said as Israel announced a defensive action dubbed Iron Swords.
In earlier comments, Netanyahu vowed to turn “all of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in […] into islands of ruins.” Addressing the residents of Gaza, he said, “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”
GNA