The Palestinian resistance group Hamas launched an attack this morning, beginning at about daybreak, on Israel from Gaza, that caught everyone, including the IDF, Israeli intelligence and the government by surprise. The containment wall around Gaza proved to be anything but, with hundreds of Palestinian militants breaching it in several locations and even flying over it using paragliders. At the same time, Hamas launched hundreds of rockets—they claim 5,000—causing air raid alerts in Israel as far as 70 km from the Strip. It took two hours before the first Israeli retaliatory strikes were launched on Gaza.
The Israeli Defense Force has been bombing Gaza in response. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a video address saying, “This is war.” He called the IDF response “Swords of Iron.”
There are hundreds of dead and thousands of injured, as the battle continues overnight. As of late evening, Israeli news outlets were reporting as many as 300 Israelis killed and at least 1,450 wounded.The Health Ministry in Gaza earlier reported 250 Palestinians killed and more than 1,700 wounded. The numbers on both sides are expected to rise.
One question of the day is how Israel could have been caught napping, especially as Hamas launched its attack one day after the 50th anniversary of the Oct. 6, so-called “Yom Kippur War,” when an earlier generation of Israelis was also caught napping.
The IDF reported fighting ongoing in 22 locations outside of the Gaza containment wall. The evidence being reported suggested that Palestinian militants had infiltrated Israel up to 20 km outside of Gaza. Many settlements within that, including the headquarters of the IDF’s Gaza Division, were reported occupied by groups of armed Palestinians, though the IDF reported retaking the headquarters later in the day. Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade also claimed capturing as many as 150 IDF troops and capturing 100 Israelis, taken back to Gaza as hostages. The militants claim to have captured Israeli Brig. Gen. Nimrod Aloni, the commander of the IDF Depth Corps, along with 50 other IDF members. The IDF has not commented on the claims except to confirm that indeed hostages have been taken.
Mohammad Deif, the Hamas military commander, issued a statement that the ongoing attacks are in retaliation for Israel’s “desecration” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, reported the Times of Israel. He added that Israel killed and wounded hundreds of Palestinians this year (at least 200 in the West Bank—ed.), and that Israel rejected offers for prisoner exchange deals. He urged Arabs in Jerusalem and inside Israel, in the Negev, the Galilee and northern Israel to “set the earth on fire under the feet of the occupiers.”
