2023-10-09 00:57:00
Adding to the clashes in Gaza is the exchange of fire on the border with Lebanon. Photo: AFP
The Israeli Army was fighting Hamas militants in cities in southern Israel for the second day after the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian movement, after having launched more bombings in Gaza and exchanging fire with the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah, which raised fears of an expansion of hostilities.
Israeli media, citing rescue service spokesmen, said the attacks left at least 600 dead in Israel, while authorities in Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave ruled by Hamas, have already reported more than 400 dead from Israeli bombings.
Among the fatalities are 57 soldiers, 34 police officers and five agents of the Shin Bet, the internal intelligence service, the Army reported, according to the Europa Press news agency.
The Haartez and Times of Israel newspapers and several Israeli TV channels said that at least or more than 600 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, were killed in the attacks launched yesterday by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
Likewise, the Ministry of Health indicated that there were 2,243 injured, of which 22 were in critical condition and 343 were serious.
Israeli military officials said some fighting was still ongoing more than 24 hours after the surprise attack from Gaza, in which Hamas fighters, backed by a barrage of thousands of rockets, breached Israel’s security barrier and leveled nearby communities.
The Islamists took hostages and took them with them to the coastal enclave, including women, children and the elderly, kidnapped people who in the past have exchanged for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. The Israeli military said a “substantial” number of Israelis were kidnapped, but did not say how many.
Photo: AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was at war and that Hamas will pay a heavy price to its enemies.
The Israeli security cabinet approved putting the country officially at war and authorizing “significant military activities,” Netanyahu’s office reported, which was interpreted as the prelude to a possible ground military incursion into Gaza.
The declaration must now be approved by two parliamentary committees, and then the prime minister must announce it before the plenary session of Parliament.
Hamas said it launched the operation tired of the blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2007 and to avenge Israeli military incursions into the West Bank, occupation and colonization of those territories. that the Palestinians claim to found their State and the desecration of Islamic sacred sites in the Old City of East Jerusalem.
Hamas leaders said they were prepared for further escalation.
In the West Bank, the other Palestinian territories, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of “military aggression” against Gaza and ordered humanitarian aid to the region.
The United States, the European Union (EU) and countries around the world, including Argentina, condemned the Hamas attacks, and Pope Francis called for an end to hostilities.
“May the attacks and weapons stop, I ask you please. Terrorism and war do not lead to any solution, only to the death and suffering of so many innocents,” the Pope assured from the Vatican.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc that brings together 57 Muslim countries, accused Israel of the escalation, while China called for the cessation of hostilities and the creation of a Palestinian state as a fundamental solution to the conflict.
Photo: AFP
At least 413 Palestinians died in Israeli bombings launched in the Gaza Strip after the attack by the Hamas movement on Israel, authorities reported this Sunday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said another 2,200 people were wounded in Israeli attacks on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave, the BBC reported.
Hamas attacked Israel by air, sea and land on Saturday with hundreds of militants tearing down a defensive wall and infiltrating Israel from Gaza.
Among the 313 dead in Gaza were 20 children, plus 2,000 wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The U.N. Palestinian refugee body, Unrwa, said more than 20,000 Palestinians left the Gaza border region to move deeper into the territory and seek protection in U.N. schools.
An Israeli military commander said hundreds of militants had been killed and dozens captured.
In neighboring Egypt, a police officer shot dead an Egyptian man by two Israeli tourists at an archaeological site in the northern coastal city of Alexandria, the Interior Ministry reported.
Egypt made peace with Israel decades ago and has long served as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, anti-Israel sentiment runs deep in the country, especially during episodes of violence.
In northern Egypt, Hezbollah attacked Israeli positions in an area of southern Lebanon occupied by Israel with artillery and rockets, which responded with bombing.
Photo: AFP
Hezbollah assured that the attack was a show of “solidarity” with the land, sea and air operation launched by Hamas against Israel.
“The Islamic Resistance (…) attacked three positions of the Zionist enemy in the occupied area of Shebaa Farms (…) with a large number of artillery shells and guided missiles,” the Lebanese Shiite group reported in a statement. .
The Israeli Army reported that it hit a “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure” in the border area with a drone. Earlier it indicated that it launched its artillery in southern Lebanon in response to gunfire in the area.
“We recommend to Hezbollah not to intervene. If it does, we are ready,” warned Israeli Army spokesman Richard Hecht, the AFP news agency reported.
Hezbollah, one of Israel’s bitterest enemies, has close ties to Hamas and Iran.
Photo: AFP
Israeli Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that the situation on the northern border was calm after the exchange of fire.
However, he said fighting was still ongoing in southern Israel and there were still hostage situations.
He added that troops had moved into all communities near the Gaza border, where they planned to evacuate all civilians and search the area for militants.
Hagari said the army had killed 400 militants since the start of hostilities and captured dozens more.
Photo: AFP
Israel attacked 426 targets in Gaza, leveling residential buildings in giant explosions, including a 14-story tower housing dozens of apartments, as well as Hamas offices, in the center of Gaza City, it added.
“We will go through all the communities until we kill all the terrorists who are in Israeli territory,” he said.
In Gaza, “all the terrorists located in a house, all the commanders in the houses, will be hit by Israeli fire. That will continue to increase in the coming hours,” he promised.
Photo: AFP
Israelis with missing relatives lined up outside a police station in central Israel to provide investigators with DNA samples and other means that could help identify their relatives.
“Israel wakes up to a terrible morning,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman.
“There are many people murdered… children, grandmothers, families, corpses.”
Amnesty International calls on Israelis and Palestinians to protect civilian lives
Amnesty International (AI) warned that civilians on “both sides are paying the price for an unprecedented escalation of hostilities between Israel and Gaza as the death toll rises.”
The organization called on the parties to “make every effort to avoid further bloodshed among the civilian population” and to comply with the principles of international humanitarian law.
In a statement, AI urged Israeli security forces and Palestinian armed groups to “do everything possible to protect civilian lives.”
“We are deeply alarmed by the increasing number of civilian deaths in Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Bank,” AI said in the note.
“We urgently call on all parties to the conflict to respect international law and make every effort to avoid further bloodshed among civilians,” urged Agnès Callamard, AI Secretary General.
Likewise, the humanitarian organization urged the international community to intervene urgently to protect the civilian population and prevent further suffering.
Callamard noted that deliberate attacks on civilians are considered war crimes and recalled that “Israel has a horrible record of committing” these types of crimes and disproportionate attacks on the Palestinian civilian population.
However, he called on Palestinian armed groups in Gaza to “refrain from attacking civilians and using indiscriminate weapons.”
The kidnapping of civilians and the taking of hostages are prohibited under international law and may constitute war crimes, he added.
AI highlighted that, in accordance with international law, all civilians held hostage must be immediately released and unharmed, and must be treated humanely and receive medical treatment.
Muslim nations condemn ‘Israeli aggression’ against Gaza Palestinians
The largest bloc of Muslim countries condemned what it called “Israeli military aggression” against the Gaza Strip, amid strong hostilities between Israel and militants from the Palestinian group Hamas.
The Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation said in a statement that it was “very concerned about developments on the ground and the dangerous Israeli escalation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The bloc, which is made up of 57 countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, condemned “the Israeli military aggression that led to the fall of hundreds of martyrs and injuries among the Palestinian people.”
Photo: AFP
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