Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared intentions to obliterate Hamas as he metes out revenge for the deadly surprise attacks by the Palestinian militant group this weekend that saw hundreds of Israelis killed.
Netanyahu, who first came to power in Israel in 1996 and has served three separate terms, compared Hamas to the Islamic State group and said Israel planned to deploy ‘unprecedented force’ that would ‘reverberate for generations’.
‘We have only started striking Hamas,’ Netanyahu, 73, said in a nationally televised address late last night.
‘What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.
‘Hamas terrorists bound, burned and executed children. They are savages. Hamas is ISIS,’ Netanyahu concluded.
Thousands of Hamas targets have been wiped out in brutal aerial bombing campaigns, Israeli defence officials claimed, but harrowing clips circulating social media showed how the rockets and bombs also obliterated Palestinian residential blocks, killing hundreds of civilians.
Military spokesman Richard Hecht told reporters on Tuesday that the bodies of some 1,500 Hamas militants had been found around the Gaza border following strikes, adding that security forces had ‘more or less restored control over the border’ with Gaza.
Israel also ordered a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza, cutting off electricity, fuel and food for the 2.3 million Palestinians who for the most part were already living in abject poverty.
The four-day-old war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades and neighbourhoods in Gaza were reduced to rubble.
In a response to the savage aerial bombardment of Gaza, Hamas warned late last night it would begin executing Israeli civilian captives.
‘Every targeting of our people without warning will be met with the execution of one of the civilian hostages,’ Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.
Hamas militants abducted up to 150 people, including women and children, from Israeli territory and dragged them back in Gaza amid their ruthless slaughter.
‘We have decided to put an end to this and as of now, we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one the hostages of civilians we are holding,’ Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, later added in a recording released to Al Jazeera.
On Tuesday morning, air raid sirens were blaring in cities across Israel, suggesting Hamas was launching another salvo of rockets.
A fireball erupts from an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 9, 2023
The death toll from the unprecedented assault by Palestinian militant group Hamas on its territory rose to 900 in Israel, which has retaliated with a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza (pictured)
Rockets stream from the Gaza Strip towards Israel
A Palestinian walks through the rubble while smoke rises from a damaged residential building nearby, in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Gaza City, October 10, 2023
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the Sousi mosque in Gaza City on October 9, 2023
This aerial photo shows heavily damaged buildings following Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 10, 2023
Lightning strikes as smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 9, 2023
Mourners react as they pray during the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip October 10, 2023
Palestinian men cry as they mourn the dead following Israeli air strikes in Gaza
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip
Sitting on the back of a terrorist’s motorcycle, her outstretched arms pointing towards her helpless boyfriend, student Noa Argamani pleads for her life as Hamas militants abduct her and drive her into Gaza
Hamas militants abducted up to 150 people, including women and children, from Israeli territory and dragged them back in Gaza amid their ruthless slaughter
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (R) have vowed to crush Hamas
Covered bodies of dead Palestinians lie on the floor at the Al-Shifa hospital after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, 09 October 2023
Mourners react as they pray during the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip October 10, 2023
Mourners carry the body of a Palestinian killed in the Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip October 10, 2023
Israeli soldiers take a position near the southern city of Sderot close to the Gaza Strip
An Israeli soldier runs next to a self-propelled howitzer near the southern city of Ashkelon
Hamas published footage showing for the first time the homemade Mubar 1 short-range air defence system on Monday Oct 9, 2023
The use of rockets by Hamas has been a significant source of tension and conflict in the region, as they have targeted Israeli civilians and cities, resulting in casualties and property damage
Israel and Hamas have had repeated conflicts in past years, often sparked by tensions around a Jerusalem holy site.
Hand-to-hand combat, fatal booby traps and the risk of friendly fire: How Israel hostage rescue operation will unfold, and the deadly dangers they face
But this time, the context has become more explosive.
The surprise weekend attack by Hamas left a death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, fomenting calls for Israel to crush Hamas no matter the cost, rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza.
Israel is run by its most hard-right government ever, dominated by ministers who adamantly reject Palestinian statehood.
Hamas, in turn, says it is ready for a long battle to end an Israeli occupation it says is no longer tolerable. Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending Israeli control and increasing settler depredations in the West Bank, the blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world’s apathy.
On Monday, thousands of Israelis were evacuated from more than a dozen towns near Gaza, and tanks and drones were deployed to guard breaches in the Gaza border fence against new incursions.
In the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands fled their homes as airstrikes levelled buildings.
The moves, along with Israel’s formal declaration of war on Sunday, pointed to Israel increasingly shifting to the offensive against Hamas, threatening greater destruction in the densely populated, impoverished region where 2.3 million people live on top of each other in squalid conditions.
Israel said it had called up 300,000 army reservists for its ‘Swords of Iron’ campaign, while the IDF said it struck hundreds of Hamas targets in Gaza’s City Rimal neighbourhood, which is home to Hamas’ ministries and governing buildings, overnight.
IDF spokesman Richard Hecht said Gazans were being told to evacuate ‘over social media’ before strikes, but did not give details.
Also on Monday, Israel found more bodies from Hamas’ stunning weekend attack into southern Israeli towns.
Rescue workers found 108 bodies in the tiny farming community of Be’eri – around 10 per cent of its population – after a long hostage standoff with gunmen.
More than 270 bodies, mostly young people, were strewn across the site of a music festival in a Negev desert kibbutz after Hamas attackers used paragliders to cross the border and fire indiscriminately into the crowd.
The Israeli military said more than 900 people already have been killed in Israel.
In Gaza and the West Bank, 704 people have been killed, according to authorities there; Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are among them. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
Israel pounded Hamas targets in Gaza on October 10 and said the bodies of 1,500 Islamist militants were found in southern towns recaptured by the army in gruelling battles near the Palestinian enclave
A Palestinian man stands in front of the ruins of a building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City
A fireball erupts during Israeli bombardment of Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip on October 9 and cut off the water supply as it bombed targets
People standing on a rooftop watch as a ball of fire and smoke rises above a building in Gaza City on October 7, 2023 during an Israeli air strike
Israeli soldiers gather at an area along the border with Gaza, southern Israel, 09 October 2023
A paramedic holds a little girl with her face full of blood and dirt from the effects of the bombing of Israeli planes in Gaza on Monday
A paramedic holds a little girl crying after being pulled from the scene of the bombing Gaza on Monday
A huge fireball engulfs part of the Gaza Strip following an Israeli airstrike
Israeli police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon
A missile explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike on Sunday night
In a video statement Monday, Israel’s foreign minister warned Hamas against harming any of the hostages who were taken from Israel and being held in Gaza.
Eli Cohen said Israel was committed to bringing the hostages home ‘in the spirit of mutual responsibility.’
READ MORE: Innocent victims snatched by Hamas: Student, 25, screams ‘don’t kill me!’ as she is kidnapped from a rave by militants who also nab mother, 34, and her two young girls in terrifying series of raids into Israel – leaving Middle East on brink of all-out war
‘We demand Hamas not to harm any of the hostages, Cohen said. ‘This war crime will not be forgiven,’ he added.
Hamas seized more than 100 hostages amid their surprise attacks this weekend, forcibly deporting some soldiers as well as innocent civilian women and even children back into Gaza.
Unsettling footage showed women being marched into vehicles, bloodied and bruised, often with their hands bound behind their backs.
A student who attended a desert rave and a mother and her two young girls were among the innocent victims snatched on Saturday.
Particularly shocking footage showed the abduction of Noa Argamani, 25, a student who was torn from her boyfriend’s arms and driven away on the back of a militant’s motorcycle as she screamed and pleaded for her life.
As violence escalates, Israel has responded with devastating airstrikes into the Gaza Strip, bringing down residential buildings they say contained military infrastructure.
The Israel Defense Forces announced on October 9 it had carried out more than 500 strikes on targets across the Gaza Strip overnight.
Palestinian officials said almost 500 people were killed, including 91 children, and over 2,700 were injured.
The death toll is expected to rise significantly.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said an airstrike early on Monday hit a market area ‘killing and wounding dozens and causing heavy destruction’.
A school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was also hit in the attack on the camp.
‘The school was severely damaged and was housing about 225 people, though no casualties were recorded among the displaced, but the school sustained significant structural damage,’ UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a daily press briefing.
All UNRWA schools across the Gaza Strip are closed, and more than 300,000 people students are impacted, according to the UN.
The Times of Gaza reported ‘dozens’ had been ‘killed and burned alive’ during the attacks on Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip.
Palestinians search for survivors after an Israeli airstrike on buildings in the refugee camp of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip on October 9, 2023
A Palestinian mourns the death of her relative following an Israeli airstrike on the refugee camp of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip on October 9, 2023
Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike on Gaza City, 9 October 2023
A smoke rises and ball of fire over a buildings in Gaza City on October 9, 2023
Palestinian officials said almost 500 people were killed, including 91 children, and over 2,700 were injured in the strikes. Pictured: smoke rises over Gaza on October 9
Palestinians sit among rubbles of a damaged residential building, in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Gaza City, October 10, 2023
With no sign of either side losing momentum, Israel declared a ‘complete siege’ of the Strip on Monday, ensuring ‘no electricity, no food, no fuel’ would reach the 2.3mn people living there.
The country’s defence minister said: ‘We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.’
The EU also said it would review all of its development funding to the Palestinian territories in response to Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Brussels was later pushed to clarify this would not include humanitarian aid.
Speaking from Jerusalem on Monday evening, Thomas Helm, Jerusalem Correspondent at The National, told MailOnline he had witnessed missiles hitting the city today, injuring a ten-year-old child.
He suggested there are no indications at present of the conflict waning.
He said: ‘The thinking has been that [Hamas] launched their [strongest missiles] in the first barrage. But if they are still hitting Jerusalem now, it shows they still have a desire to escalate.’
With today’s response of a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza, Israel is now ‘trying to prepare their backers’ for the possibility that ‘this is going to be a long war’, Helm added.
Some 300,000 reservists have been called up as Israel desperately looks to turn the tide.
‘I got caught in a firefight and some of the the Israeli troops engaging were 70, 75-years-old,’ Helm said.
He suggested it was unlikely the threat of executing hostages would do much to deter Israeli airstrikes.
Along with hundreds of other young Israelis, Noa (pictured) and Avi had been enjoying a peace festival in the desert when they were forced to flee for their lives
A plume of smoke rises in the sky of Gaza City during an Israeli airstrike on October 9, 2023
Israeli emergency responders inspect a damaged car after a barrage of rockets that were launched from the Gaza Strip landed in the Israeli settlement of Beitar Ilit, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank October 9, 2023
The spiralling conflict has been felt globally, with oil prices surging on fears of tightening supplies.
US energy firm Chevron said it suspended operations at a natural gas platform off Israel’s coast at the request of authorities.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in a phone call that the Gulf kingdom was working to prevent the conflict spreading across the region, state media said early Tuesday.
Qatar meanwhile sought to mediate de-escalation talks with Israel and Hamas, aiming to secure a deal whereby both sides release captives.
The ongoing negotiations, which Qatar has been conducting in coordination with the United States since Saturday night, are ‘moving positively’ a source told Reuters earlier today.
‘We are in constant contact with all sides at the moment. Our priorities are to end the bloodshed, release the prisoners and make sure the conflict is contained with no regional spillover,’ foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said.
Reports of artillery shelling and gunfire near the Israel-Lebanon border fuelled growing fears that the fighting could spread to other areas in the region, should Israel’s opponents decide to strike against it following the attacks by Hamas during the weekend.
Arab League foreign ministers are set to meet tomorrow to discuss ‘the Israeli aggression’ against Gaza, the group said.
ISRAEL PALESTINE CONFLICT TIMELINE
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas launched its biggest assault on Israel in years early on Saturday, firing a barrage of rockets from Gaza and sending fighters across the border.
Israel said it was on a war footing and began its own strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza, with Israeli media reporting gunbattles between bands of Palestinian fighters and security forces in southern Israel.
The following timeline, which begins with Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, details the major flare-ups in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian groups in the crowded coastal enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.
August 2005 – Israeli forces unilaterally withdraw from Gaza 38 years after capturing it from Egypt in the Middle East war, abandoning settlements and leaving the enclave under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
Jan. 25, 2006 – The Islamist group Hamas wins a majority of seats in a Palestinian legislative election. Israel and the U.S. cut off aid to Palestinians because Hamas refuses to renounce violence and recognise Israel.
June 25, 2006 – Hamas militants capture Israeli army conscript Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid from Gaza, prompting Israeli air strikes and incursions. Shalit is finally freed more than five years later in a prisoner exchange.
June 14, 2007 – Hamas takes over Gaza in a brief civil war, ousting Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank.
Dec. 27, 2008 – Israel launches a 22-day military offensive in Gaza after Palestinians fire rockets at the southern Israeli town of Sderot. About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis are reported killed before a ceasefire is agreed.
Nov. 14, 2012 – Israel kills Hamas’s military chief of staff, Ahmad Jabari. Eight days of Palestinian militant rocket fire and Israeli air strikes follow.
July-August 2014 – The kidnap and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas leads to a seven-week war in which more than 2,100 Palestinians are reported killed in Gaza and 73 Israelis are reported dead, 67 of them military.
March 2018 – Palestinian protests begin at Gazaâs fenced border with Israel. Israeli troops open fire to keep protestors back. More than 170 Palestinians are reported killed in several months of protests, which also prompt fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces.
May 2021 – After weeks of tension during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, hundreds of Palestinians are wounded in clashes with Israeli security forces at the Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, Islamâs third holiest site.
After demanding Israel withdraw security forces from the compound, Hamas unleashes a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel. Israel hits back with air strikes on Gaza. Fighting goes on for 11 days, killing at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.
Aug 2022 – At least 44 people, including 15 children, are killed in three days of violence that begin when Israeli air strikes hit a senior Islamic Jihad commander.
Israel says the strikes were a pre-emptive operation against an imminent attack by the Iranian-backed militant movement, targeting commanders and arms depots. In response, Islamic Jihad fires more than 1,000 rockets towards Israel. Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system prevents any serious damage or casualties.
Jan 2023 – Islamic Jihad in Gaza fires two rockets towards Israel after Israeli troops raid a refugee camp and kill seven Palestinian gunmen and two civilians. The rockets set off alarms in Israeli communities near the border but cause no casualties. Israel responds with air strikes on Gaza.
Oct 2023 – Hamas launches the biggest attack on Israel in years from the Gaza Strip, with a surprise assault combining gunmen crossing the border with a heavy barrage of rockets. Islamic Jihad says its fighters have joined the attack.
Israel’s military said it was on a war footing, adding it had carried out strikes targeting Hamas in Gaza and had called up reservists.
(Source: Reuters)
