Maayan Lubell, Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Ammar Awab – Reuters Oct 7, 2023
- Hamas gunmen enter Israel in unprecedented attack
- At least 200 Israelis reported dead, more than 1,000 wounded
- Hamas says it has taken many Israeli captives
- Israel says Hamas declares war, commits ‘grave mistake’
- Barrage of rockets launched into Israel from Gaza
Gunmen from the Palestinian group Hamas rampaged through Israeli towns on Saturday killing and capturing scores of civilians and soldiers in a surprise assault, met by Israel with massive retaliatory air strikes that killed scores in the Gaza Strip.
The worst attack on Israel for decades unleashed a war that both sides vowed to escalate. At least 200 Israelis were reported killed and 1,100 wounded by gunbattles raging in more than 20 locations inside Israel. In Gaza, health officials reported more than 230 people killed and 1,600 wounded.
“Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We are in a war and we will win it”.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault that had begun in Gaza would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem.
“This was the morning of defeat and humiliation upon our enemy, its soldiers and its settlers,” he said in a speech. “What happened reveals the greatness of our preparation. What happened today reveals the weakness of the enemy.”
Dead Israelis in Sderot. Click to enlarge
In Sderot, in southern Israel near Gaza, bodies of Israeli civilians lay strewn across a highway, surrounded by broken glass. A woman and a man were sprawled out dead across the front seats of a car. A military vehicle drove past the bodies of another woman and a man in a pool of blood behind another car.
“I went out, I saw loads of bodies of terrorists, civilians, cars shot up. A sea of bodies, inside Sderot along the road, other places, loads of bodies,” said Shlomi from Sderot.
Terrified Israelis, barricaded into safe rooms, recounted their plight by phone on live TV.
“They just came in again, please send help,” a woman identified as Dorin told Israel’s N12 News from Nir Oz, a kibbutz near Gaza. “My husband is holding the door closed … They are firing rounds of bullets.”
Esther Borochov, who fled a dance rave party attacked by the gunmen, told Reuters she survived by playing dead in a car after the driver trying to help her escape was shot point blank.
“I couldn’t move my legs,” she told Reuters at the hospital. “Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes.”
In Gaza, black smoke and orange flames billowed into the evening sky from a high rise tower hit by an Israeli retaliatory strike. Crowds of mourners carried the bodies of freshly killed militants through the streets, wrapped in green Hamas flags.
Gaza’s dead and wounded were carried into crumbling and overcrowded hospitals with severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment. The health ministry said 232 people had been killed.
Streets were deserted apart from ambulances racing to the scenes of air strikes. Israel cut the power, plunging the city into darkness.
‘DAY OF THE GREATEST BATTLE’
By nightfall on Saturday in southern Israel, residents had yet to be given the all-clear to leave the shelters where they had hidden from the gunmen since the early hours.
“It’s not over because the (army) hasn’t said the kibbutz is clear of terrorists,” Dani Rahamim told Reuters by telephone from the shelter where he was still hiding in Nahal Oz, close to the Gaza fence. Gunfire had subsided but regular explosions could still be heard.
Hamas said it fired a volley of 150 rockets towards Tel Aviv on Saturday evening in retaliation for an Israeli air strike that took down a high rise building with more than 100 apartments.
Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera that the group was holding a big number of Israeli captives, including senior officials. He said Hamas had enough captives to make Israel free all Palestinians in its jails.
The Israeli military confirmed Israelis were being held in Gaza. A military spokesman said Israel could mobilise up to hundreds of thousands of reservists and was also prepared for war on its northern front against Lebanon’s Hezbollah group
Hamas, which advocates Israel’s destruction, said the attack was driven by what it said were Israel’s escalated attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
“This is the day of the greatest battle to end the last occupation on earth,” Hamas military commander Mohammad Deif said, announcing the start of the operation in a broadcast on Hamas media and calling on Palestinians everywhere to fight.
Hamas has since fought four wars against Israel since seizing control of Gaza in 2007. But the scenes of violence inside Israel itself were unlike anything seen since the suicide bombings of the Palestinian Intifada uprising two decades ago.
That Israel was caught completely off guard was lamented as one of the worst intelligence failures in its history, a shock to a nation that boasts of its intensive infiltration and monitoring of militants.
In Gaza, a narrow strip where 2.3 million Palestinians have lived under an Israeli blockade for 16 years, residents rushed to buy supplies in anticipation of days of war ahead. Some evacuated their homes and headed for shelters.
Scores of Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded in clashes at the border into Israel, where fighters captured the crossing point and tore down fences. Some of those dead were civilians, among crowds that attempted to cross into Israel through the damaged gates.
“We are afraid,” Palestinian woman, Amal Abu Daqqa, told Reuters as she left her house in Khan Younis.
BIDEN OFFERS SUPPORT TO NETANYAHU
Western countries, led by the United States, denounced the Palestinian attack and pledged support for Israel.
“I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement issued after the two men spoke on a call.
“Israel has a right to defend itself and its people. The United States warns against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation,” Biden added.
Across the Middle East, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas, with Israeli and U.S. flags set on fire and marchers waving Palestinian flags in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
The Hamas attack was openly praised by Iran and by Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese allies.
U.N. Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland condemned the attacks on Israel, warning in a statement: “This is a dangerous precipice, and I appeal to all to pull back from the brink.”
BACKDROP OF SURGING VIOLENCE
The escalation comes against a backdrop of surging violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Israeli occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian authority exercises limited self-rule, opposed by Hamas that wants Israel destroyed.
In the West Bank, there were clashes in several locations on Saturday, with stone throwing youths confronting Israeli troops. Four Palestinians including a 13-year-old boy were killed. Palestinian factions called a general strike for Sunday.
Israel itself has been experiencing internal political upheaval, with the most right-wing government in its history attempting to overhaul the judiciary.
Meanwhile, Washington has been trying to strike a deal that would normalise ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, seen by Israelis as the biggest prize yet in their decades-long for Arab recognition. Palestinians fear any such deal could sell out their future dreams of an independent state.
Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Ammar Anwar in Sderot Additional reporting by Henriette Chacar, Emily Rose and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by James Mackenzie, Tom Perry, Michael Georgy and Peter Graff; Editing by William Mallard, Robert Birsel, Alex Richardson and Nick Macfie
Reuters report? Not worth reading.
Where did Israel get this “right to exist” when no White countries have one? They made it up, so why don’t we make one up?
Hamas is a Mossad creation, a mossad front, this attack is a false flag to give Israel the excuse to destroy Palestine.
reuters is owned by rothschild
we the chirstians of the UK allie with our muslim brothers
and must help them all we can against the evil of the jew
People are saying this is Israel’s 9/11. What chutzpah.
A talking head wants us to believe Bin-Laden did it. The talking head believes; well that’s what he wants us to believe.
If Israel goes in hard against Gaza, Hezbollah might come in, and then who knows?
I wonder if Israel
‘Let it Happen on Purpose.’
200 dead Israelis..yeah right. In the attached photo you can see a ‘corpse’ with his legs crossed. Get real. Yid is probably laughing under the sheet. An Israeli staged false flag/psyop, with crisis actors & fake dead bodies for the gullible saps, similar to that 2016 Bastille Day Nice truck attack psyop.
Looks to me Bibi has unleashed primal rage – Hal Turner’s website has many graphic photos of the dead Israelis: scroll through the links
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/israel-under-attack-800-missiles-fired-from-gaza-hamas-enters-israel-by-land-and-by-air-idf-declares-state-of-war
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/ukraine-sold-weapons-to-hamas-used-against-israel
Like Pearl Harbor, the idea it was a surprise attack is laughable.
and
both USA and Russia test the emergency alert on the same day just hours before the attack.
The Zionists who run Israel have been doing their very best to ignite hostilities with various atrocities against the Palestinians and with their continuous attacks and provocations against Syria. They clearly want the US and the UK, nations which they very much control, to come in and help with their expansionist efforts. The Zionists appear also to be running the Ukraine. $100 billion now is requested for their war there which they also provoked. How much now for the war in the ME?
Are you in shock? I am not. After 7 decades of brutal occupation, the natives are well organized to counter attack on the god’s self chosen lunatics.
Want to know why any of this is happening? It is called religious belief. When a human reads some book, identifies with the book and in a state of faith acts on the book. Jews have been brainwashed by the Torah, Christians by the Holy Bible, and based on this wideset insanity of the chosen ones and the covenant, Jews returned to Arab central and set up a war camp to claim almighty god’s gift of land.
Funny how “almighty” god is not lifting a finger.
Be sure to read my comments here – https://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=274117
All these beliefs are delusions of a damned specie, cast to earth to fight it out to the last man.
Biden, Trudeau and the rest of Western leaders claim Israel has a right to defend itself ? What about Palestine and its people. They have had the right to defense since 1948 when this insidious Israel was created. Even at that future wars might have been prevented if Israel had stayed in its 1967 borders. But no, Jewish supremacy raised its ugly head and demanded more land. Now we see the consequences, unlimited death and destruction.
blessed the palestinian dwarf against Goliat israhell
for their courage + resistencia . in contrast the coward
deutsche assholes, occupied + robbed since 78 years
by JEWSA . ruled by deutsche traitor parasites, cock suckers
of JEWSA .
quoting lewis – “Where did Israel get this “right to exist”?”
Israel does not have a right to exist because the title to the land in the Bible is a hoax, and in fact, no court recognizes it. Yet millions believe the Bible and thus Israel is a growing cancer on the world because of religious belief.
The talking point “Israel has the right to exist” is repeated over and over, it is a propaganda slogan, used to deny reality, just like Jesus is the savior of the world. There is no evidence of any Jesus or any salvation, or any heaven, etc. But Christians say it over and over to make it true in their mind – just the same with Israel has a right to exist. And note, on the Jew run media no one is ever allowed to counter the slogan.
There is only one case I know of, a real Semite, Helen Thomas, Whitehouse correspondent, said it, and got immediately ousted. She said Israel needs to get the hell out of Palestine. You can’t say that.
Why you should rejoice that Jews are getting slaughtered:
1. They are supremacist assholes who think they are invincible. This offensive has blown that myth right to hell.
2. They are trespassing on some other nations land, and are arrogant assholes about it.
3. Based on a book their tribe wrote, they claim Almighty God gave them that land, and thus it is inevitable that they will take it. Jews getting wiped out of Palestine destroys that belief, including all those asshole Christian Zionists who agree with it.
4. No one likes losers, and when Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, Taliban, Russia, China, North Korea wipe Jews off the map then stupid dumbass Amerikans, who do not like losers will stop supporting Jewry and Israel and that will save us all kinds of money so we can pay down the national debt.
5. Every scumbag Jew in Israel is on Uncle Sam’s dole, they are all on the welfare, so screw them, as a taxpayer I do not want to fund their sorry asses just because they are clever manipulators and like to bribe politicians to get free money.