Hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis have been killed as the two countries resume hostilities after a surprise attack on Israel by Hamas on Saturday morning, involving aerial, sea, and ground operations. Israel expectedly responded with a heavy bombardment of the blockaded coastal enclave.
The UK Guardian reported late last night that 250 Israelis had been killed while some 1,800 of them were injured. Retaliatory airstrikes by Israel, in turn, have killed more 230 Palestinians and wounding over 1,650, according to the London-based newspaper.
The surprise operation from Gaza came on the heels of the killing of four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, widespread Israeli settler attacks, especially in Huwara, near Nablus and increased tensions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement running the besieged enclave, said it was surprised that large-scale operation was in response to the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased settler violence.
The first round of rockets was fired at 6:30am, local time (03:30 GMT). Hamas said it captured a ‘huge number of Israeli soldiers.’ A senior Hamas leader said the group had captured enough Israeli soldiers during an unprecedented attack against Israel to make Israeli authorities free all Palestinian prisoners in its jails.
“We managed to kill and capture many Israeli soldiers. The fighting is still on,” Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
“The freedom of our detainees in Israeli prisons is looming large. What we have in our hands will release all our prisoners. The longer fighting continues, the higher the number of prisoners will become,” added Al-Arouri, who said senior officers were among those captured, but did not provide any figures.
The Israeli army acknowledged that soldiers and commanders had been killed and prisoners of war taken, but it did not give any figure. Hamas said it had fired 5,000 rockets while Israel confirmed that the group’s fighters had entered its territory.
The early morning attacks occurred on Simchat Torah, a holiday that falls towards the conclusion of the weeklong Jewish festival, known as Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said dozens of fighter jets were carrying out attacks on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
Its air raids on the besieged Gaza Strip have flattened a tower in the heart of Gaza City. Israel’s air force noted in a statement that its fighter jets had hit two high-rising buildings in Gaza, alleging that they housed Hamas “military infrastructure.”
As at Saturday evening, the gun battles were taking place in and around the towns of Kfar Aza, Sderot, Sufa, Nahal Oz, Magen, Be’eri and the Re’im military base, the Times of Israel reported.
Abdul Rahman Ab Lihya, a 40-year-old Palestinian construction worker told newsmen that, “It is judgement day, a nightmare. We are all confined to our homes, no one can leave.
“We are close to the fence, a lot of dead bodies scattered around and anyone who goes near there gets shot. I have never seen something like this. My father said it was like the Yom Kippur war in 1973,” he added.
Why Did Hamas Attack Israel?
Hamas spokesperson, Khaled Qadomi, told Al Jazeera that the group’s military operation was in response to all the atrocities the Palestinians had faced over the decades. “We want the international community to stop atrocities in Gaza against Palestinian people, our holy sites like Al-Aqsa. All these things are the reason behind starting this battle.”
