middle-east
Under heavy bombing, Palestinians in Gaza move from place to place, only to discover nowhere is safe
Over 180,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are packed into United Nations shelters as Israeli warplanes pound the tiny territory of 2.3 million people after their Hamas militant rulers launched an unprecedented weekend attack on Israel.
Among them is 27-year-old Sabreen al-Attar. She sprang into action when she heard rocket after rocket whoosh over her farmland in Beit Lahiya just south of the Israeli border on Saturday. She knew from experience that Israeli retaliation would be swift and severe.
Grabbing her children, al-Attar rushed to one of the dozens of shelters set up in schools run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City. There, blasts of unprecedented intensity punctuated hours of steadily declining conditions Monday as food and water ran out.
“When I escape, I do it for my children,” she said, her hands trembling. “Their lives rest on my shoulders.”
But residents say there is no real escape in Gaza, which has been under a suffocating 16-year blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt. When war breaks out, as it has four times since the Hamas militant group seized power in 2007, even United Nations facilities that are supposed to be safe zones risk becoming engulfed in the fighting. The U.N. said that an airstrike directly hit one of its shelters Sunday and damaged five other schools-turned-shelters on Monday. There was no immediate word of casualties.
In the downtown Rimal area, Gaza City’s bustling commercial district with high-rises home to international media and aid organizations, al-Attar hoped she would be safe. Rimal had until then not been an immediate Israeli target, unlike border towns or densely populated refugee camps.
But as the Israeli military went neighborhood to neighborhood with rapid and intensifying airstrikes, the heavy bombardments reached the heart of Gaza City, transforming the affluent neighborhood into an uninhabitable desert of craters. Rimal was also hit by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza’s bloody 2021 war, but not to this extent.
Israeli bombs that struck Gaza's flagship Islamic University, government ministries and high-rises in Rimal, starting Monday afternoon, also blew out the windows of al-Attar’s shelter, shattering glass everywhere, she said. Life there, crammed with 1,500 other families, was full of danger and deprivation but Al-Attar said she had no choice but to stay, telling her boys — 2-year-old Mohammed and 7-year-old Nabil — to keep away from the windows.
Read: Everything you need to know about Hamas
“The night was very, very difficult,” she said Tuesday. “We have nowhere else to go.”
The bombing in Rimal and the potential risks of sheltering in U.N. schools highlighted the desperate search by Gaza civilians for refuge, with the territory's safe spaces rapidly shrinking. Ahead of the Israeli military's warning to civilians on Monday that Rimal would be hit, families staggered into the streets with whatever belongings they could carry and without a destination.
In a briefing Tuesday, Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht suggested Palestinians should try to leave through the Gaza border crossing with Egypt — a seemingly impractical suggestion.
While Hamas officials operating the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing said Tuesday that Gazans who had registered in advance could cross into Egypt, the number of those allowed to travel has typically been small. That has led to backlogs and waiting times of days or weeks, even in calm times.
“There is never a Plan B here,” said 31-year-old Maha Hussaini, as she watched terrified Rimal residents flood her Gaza City neighborhood further south just as bombs began to fall there, too.
So far, the Gaza toll stands at about 700 dead and thousands wounded, according to Gaza health officials, a punishing response to the militant group’s attack that has killed over 900 Israelis. More than 150 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been taken captive.
Read: Israel-Hamas war: Trust in Israeli army shattered
Israel says it takes pains to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas sites in Gaza. But the military long has carried out airstrikes in crowded residential neighborhoods, inevitably harming civilians and civilian infrastructure. Hamas authorities on Monday reported the destruction of seven mosques and 15 civilian homes that killed many members of the same family.
The Israeli defense minister also has ordered a “complete siege” on the already blockaded Gaza Strip, vowing to block food, water and fuel from the territory.
“None of us even know what ‘safe’ means in Gaza,” said 28-year-old Hind Khoudary, who was hunkered down in the upscale Roots Hotel as deafening explosions thundered.
“These are not people with (militant) affiliations, these are people from higher classes, foreign organizations and media," she said of those around her. "But on days like this, there is zero difference.”
Residents described a dangerous dance around the heavy Israeli bombing — fleeing home, crashing at relatives’ apartments, fleeing again to U.N. schools and then starting all over again in an attempt to find some sense of safety.
Read more: Israel vows complete siege on Gaza as it strikes Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas
“It is better than dying,” said 37-year-old Muhammad al-Bishawi, exhausted as he hustled between a U.N. shelter in Gaza City and his home in Beit Lahiya to secure food and other supplies before returning.
On Saturday after the massive Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Gaza civilians of the horrors to come, promising to unleash the full force of the Israeli military on the strip.
“Get out now,” he said, addressing Palestinians in Gaza. “Because we will operate everywhere.”
Khoudary was listening to him as the airstrikes intensified, trapped in her home with nowhere to run.
“Why didn’t he tell us where to flee?” she asked. “Because we’d really like to know.”
Everything you need to know about Hamas
Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched an attack inside Israel over the weekend, killing hundreds and taking others hostage. Its unprecedented breach of the border sent fighters inside border communities and military installations, shocked Israel and its allies, and raised questions about the group’s capabilities and strategy.
WHAT IS HAMAS?
The group was founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee living in Gaza, during the first intifada, or uprising, which was marked by widespread protests against Israel’s occupation.
Hamas is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, and a recognition of the group’s roots and early ties to one of the Sunni world’s most prominent groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in the 1920s.
The group has vowed to annihilate Israel and has been responsible for many suicide bombings and other deadly attacks on civilians and Israeli soldiers.
The U.S. State Department has designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997. The European Union and other Western countries also consider it a terrorist organization.
Hamas won 2006 parliamentary elections elections and in 2007 violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority, dominated by rival Fatah movement, administers semi-autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel responded to the Hamas takeover with a blockade on Gaza, restricting movement of people and goods in and out of the territory in a step it says is needed to keep the group from developing weapons. The blockade has ravaged Gaza's economy, and Palestinians accuse Israel of collective punishment.
Over the years, Hamas received backing from Arab countries, such as Qatar and Turkey. Recently, it's moved closer to Iran and its allies.
Read more: What to know as war between Israel and Hamas rages on for a fourth day
WHO ARE HAMAS' LEADERS?
Hamas founder and spiritual leader Yassin — a paralyzed man who used a wheelchair — spent years in Israeli prisons and oversaw the establishment of Hamas' military wing, which carried out its first suicide attack in 1993.
Israeli forces have targeted Hamas leaders throughout the years, killing Yassin in 2004.
Khaled Mashaal, an exiled Hamas member who survived an earlier Israeli assassination attempt, became the group’s leader soon after.
Yehia Sinwar, in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in exile, are Hamas' current leaders. They realigned the group’s leadership with Iran and its allies, including Lebanon's Hezbollah. Since then, many of the group’s leaders relocated to Beirut.
Read more: Israel strikes and seals off Gaza after incursion by Hamas, which vows to execute hostages
WHAT DOES HAMAS WANT?
Hamas has always espoused violence as a means to liberate occupied Palestinian territories and has called for the annihilation of Israel.
Hamas has carried out suicide bombings and over the years fired tens of thousands of increasingly powerful rockets from Gaza into Israel. It also established a network of tunnels running from Gaza to Egypt to smuggle in weapons, as well as attack tunnels burrowing into Israel.
In recent years, Hamas had appeared to be more focused on running Gaza than attacking Israel.
WHY NOW?
In recent years, Israel has made peace deals with Arab countries without having to make concessions in its conflict with the Palestinians. The U.S. has recently been trying to broker a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a bitter rival of Hamas' Iranian backers.
Meanwhile, Israel's new far-right government was working to cement Israeli settlements in the West Bank despite Palestinian opposition.
Hamas leaders say an Israeli crackdown on militants in the West Bank, continued construction of settlements — which the international community considers to be illegal — thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails, and its ongoing blockade of Gaza pushed it to attack.
Its leaders say hundreds of its 40,000 fighters took part in the assault. Israel says the group has about 30,000 fighters and an arsenal of rockets, including some with a range of about 250 kilometers (155 miles), and unmanned drones.
Read more: Israel-Hamas war: Humanitarian groups scrambling to assist civilians
Israel-Hamas war: Trust in Israeli army shattered
It was, they thought, an ironclad social contract. Israeli citizens would serve in the military and live along enemy borders. In exchange, the army would defend them.
That contract was shattered Saturday when hundreds of Hamas militants breached Israel’s defenses from the Gaza Strip, pouring in by air, land and sea on a rampage that would leave hundreds dead. The infiltration caught Israel’s storied high-tech army completely unaware and stunned a country that prides itself on military prowess.
Further shocking Israelis was how long it took the military to respond. As thousands in southern Israel suddenly found themselves besieged, their cries for help went unanswered for hours. Holed up inside homes and safe rooms as militants sprayed bullets, torched homes and hurled grenades, they turned in desperation to social media, to journalists and to friends, beseeching the army to save them.
READ: Israel's Netanyahu says offensive against Hamas will 'reverberate' for generations
The weekend attacks and the military's response brought an unsettling new sense of vulnerability and abandonment. Thousands of families had no idea whether loved ones were alive or had been taken as captives to Gaza. At the height of the violence, there was no one to turn to for guidance or information. Contact centers were eventually set up, but the focus was on soliciting information from families rather than offering it.
Six members of Jonathan Silver's family are missing, and he approached authorities for help. At least three relatives are captive in Gaza, he said, and the others are assumed to be there, too. He saw video of a cousin and two children taken hostage from their kibbutz, Nir Oz.
But the family has received no information, Silver said.
“We tried to reach everybody – the homeland command, police, friends, acquaintances, people on the kibbutz,” he said. And for hours, “there was no one to talk to.”
He's particularly concerned for his aunt, who has Parkinson’s disease and needs her medication. He's frustrated, but he also said now is not the time to criticize too deeply.
READ: Israel vows complete siege on Gaza as it strikes Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas
“I have a lot of questions and a lot to say. The day of reckoning will come,” he said, but “now I prefer to stand beside the army.”
In Israel, military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women. In the eyes of many citizens, it is the glue that keeps the country together in a region widely hostile to its presence, and it's recognized worldwide for its technological advances and intelligence-gathering capabilities.
That it could be taken so completely by surprise by a militant group is something Israelis are hard-pressed to fathom.
For Merav Leshem Gonen, a feeling of helplessness gripped her when her daughter called in a panic from a music festival that was attacked.
"Mommy, we were bombed. They shot at us. The car was shot, we cannot drive, everybody here is hurt,” Gonen recounted her daughter saying.
“She was talking to me and said, ‘Mommy, help us, we don’t know what to do.’ And I’m saying, ’We love you, and it’s OK. We are trying to find a way to take you out of there. We are sending people,’" Gonen told a news conference outside Tel Aviv. "And I know I’m lying because we don’t have answers, and we didn’t have any answers. Nobody had.”
READ: 9 US citizens killed in Israel, Hamas conflict: NSC
Journalist Amir Tibon had good fortune that many others didn’t: While the army struggled to regroup, his 62-year-old father, a retired general, entered the breach. Noam Tibon headed from his home in Tel Aviv to Nahal Oz, a kibbutz where his son, his wife and their two young daughters were hunkering in a safe room. On the way, he connected with another retired general and a group of commandoes.
After firefights with militants along the way, the elder Tibon extricated his son and family. More than a dozen others at Nahal Oz did not survive.
“The terms of the contract between us and the state had always been clear: We protect the border, and the state protects us,” Amir Tibon wrote in an article retelling the rescue for his newspaper, Haaretz.
“We fulfilled our share of the deal heroically. For all too many of our beloved friends and neighbors, on this black day of Saturday, October 7, the state of Israel did not fulfill its share.”
Maayan Zin said she learned that her two daughters had been abducted when a relative sent her photos from a Telegram group appearing to show them sitting on mattresses in captivity. She's among dozens of distraught families who say there's been a lack of support from Israeli authorities about their loved ones held in Gaza.
READ: Israel intensifies its strikes and vows to besiege Gaza as it scours south for Hamas fighters
“There is no information. No one has contacted me since yesterday. Not the army, not the government, not the police,” she said.
At first, she couldn't believe what she saw in the images. “I thought it was Photoshopped,” she said.
But videos she found online confirmed her worst fears. Dafna, 15, and Ella, 8, were shown weeping and terrified. Their father, her ex-husband, was seen being taken across the border into Gaza, his leg bleeding heavily.
“Just bring my daughters home,” Zin pleaded. “Bring everybody home.”
Israel vows complete siege on Gaza as it strikes Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas
Israel’s military ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip on Monday, halting deliveries of food, fuel and supplies to its 2.3 million people as it pounded the Hamas-ruled territory with waves of airstrikes in retaliation for the militants’ bloody weekend incursion.
More than two days after Hamas launched its surprise attack, the Israeli military said it had largely gained control in its southern towns where it had been battling Hamas gunmen. Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence apparatus was caught completely off guard by Hamas, resulting in heavy battles in its streets for the first time in decades.
Also read: Israel intensifies Gaza strikes and battles to repel Hamas, with over 1,100 dead in fighting so far
Israeli tanks and drones were deployed to guard breaches in the Gaza border fence to prevent new incursions. Thousands of Israelis were evacuated from more than a dozen towns near Gaza, and the military summoned 300,000 reservists — a massive mobilization in a short time.
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 Gaza Strip.
Also read: What to know as Israel declares war, bombards Gaza Strip after unprecedented Hamas attack
A major question remains whether Israel will launch a ground assault into the tiny Mediterranean coastal territory, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.
Israel and Hamas have had repeated conflicts in past years, often sparked by tensions around a Jerusalem holy site. This time, the context has become potentially more explosive, and both sides talk of shattering with violence a years-long Israeli-Palestinian deadlock left by the moribund peace process.
Also read: Israel intensifies its strikes and vows to besiege Gaza as it scours south for Hamas fighters
Israel has been stunned by a surprise attack and death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. That is fomenting calls 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 any Palestinians 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.
“I ask you to stand firm because we are going to change the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told authorities from the south Monday. “I know you have been through terrible and difficult things. What Hamas will go through will be difficult and terrible … we have only just begun.”
In the early evening, the sound of explosions echoed over Jerusalem when a volley of rockets fired from Gaza hit two neighborhoods – a sign of Hamas’s reach. Israeli media said seven were wounded.
On Sunday, Israeli strikes leveled much of the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, which Israel said Hamas was using as a staging ground. On Monday, the Israeli military blared messages to residents to evacuate Rimal, a residential and commercial district of central Gaza City where offices of The Associated Press and other international media are located, a signal that heavy strikes were to come.
As Israel hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza, Palestinian militants continued firing barrages of rockets, setting off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Around 700 people, including 73 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, according to Israeli media outlets, citing rescue service — a staggering toll by the scale of its recent conflicts. The Gaza Health Ministry said 493 people, including 78 children and 41 women, were killed in the territory. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
Palestinian militant groups claimed to be holding over 130 people abducted in Israel and dragged into Gaza. The armed wing of Hamas claimed on its Telegram channel that four of them were killed in Israeli airstrikes. That could not be independently confirmed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza, saying authorities would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel.
Gallant said Israel was at war with “human animals,” using the kind of dehumanizing language often employed by both sides at times of soaring tensions.
Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza of varying strictness since Hamas seized power in 2007. In recent years Israel has provided limited electricity and allowed the import of food, fuel and some consumer goods, while heavily restricting travel in and out.
The Israeli seal will leave Gaza almost entirely dependent on its crossing into neighboring Egypt at Rafah, where cargo capacities are lower than other crossings into Israel.
An Egyptian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, said more than 2 tons of medical supplies from the Egyptian Red Crescent were sent to Gaza and efforts were underway to organize food, and other deliveries, but the question of allowing in fuel was not yet decided.
Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters that Israeli bombardment was moving from district to district to destroy houses and buildings Israel says are being used by Hamas. Israel is planning to hit thousands of targets, he said. He said “hundreds” of Hamas militants were buried under rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel in the past 48 hours. His claims of the numbers – and his characterization of the dead as Hamas – could not be confirmed.
In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed 19 people, including women and children, said Talat Barhoum, a doctor at the local Al-Najjar Hospital. Barhoum said aircraft hit the home of the Abu Hilal family, and that one of those killed was Rafaat Abu Hilal, a leader of a local armed group. The strike caused damage to surrounding homes.
The U.N. said more than 123,000 people have fled their homes in Gaza – many after Israeli warnings of imminent bombardment. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit. It did not say where the fire came from.
Meanwhile, after about 48 hours of pitched battles, Hagari said the military has “control” of its border communities in southern Israel. He said 15 of 24 border communities have been evacuated, with the rest expected to be emptied in the coming day.
Earlier, Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua told The Associated Press over the phone that the group’s fighters continued to battle outside Gaza and had captured more Israelis as recently as Monday morning.
He said the group aims to free all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which in the past has agreed to lopsided exchange deals in which it released large numbers of prisoners for individual captives or even the remains of soldiers.
Among the captives are soldiers and civilians, including women, children and older adults, mostly Israelis but also some people of other nationalities. Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said Monday that Egyptian officials are trying to mediate a release of Palestinian women in Israel’s prisons in exchange for Israeli women captured by militants.
Mayyan Zin, a divorced mother of two, said she learned that her two daughters had been abducted when a relative sent her photos from a Telegram group showing them sitting on mattresses in captivity. She then found online videos of a chilling scene in her ex-husband’s home: Gunmen who had broken in speak to him near the two weeping daughters, Dafna, 15, and Ella, 8. Another video showed the father being taken into Gaza.
“Just bring my daughters home and to their family. All the people,” Zin said.
Hamas has ruled Gaza since driving out forces loyal to the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007 and its rule has gone unchallenged through the blockade and four previous wars with Israel.
After breaking through Israeli barriers with explosives at daybreak Saturday, an estimated 1,000 Hamas gunmen rampaged for hours, gunning down civilians and snatching people in towns, along highways and at a techno music festival attended by thousands in the desert. Palestinian militants have also launched around 4,400 rockets at Israel, according to the military.
On Sunday, the U.S. dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel, and said it would send additional military aid.
What to know as Israel declares war, bombards Gaza Strip after unprecedented Hamas attack
The Israeli government promised Monday to hunt down Hamas fighters and to punish the Gaza Strip following a surprise weekend attack killed more than 700 people in Israel, including at least 260 at a crowded music festival that became the scene of one of the country’s worst civilian massacres.
A day after formally declaring war, Israel's military worked to crush Hamas fighters who might remain in southern towns and intensified its bombardment of Gaza, where almost 500 people have died since Saturday's unprecedented incursion.
The militants blew through a fortified border fence and gunned down civilians and soldiers in Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier during a Jewish holiday. Israel struck back with airstrikes, including one that flattened a 14-story tower that held Hamas offices.
Here are some key takeaways from the conflict:
WHAT DOES THE WAR DECLARATION MEAN?
The declaration gave the green light for Israel to take “significant military steps” against Hamas. The army called up around 300,000 reservists, and a major question was whether the Israeli military would launch a ground assault into Gaza.
Israeli defense minister orders 'complete siege' on Gaza Strip with no electricity, food or fuel
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that he has ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza and that authorities would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel to the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after the Israeli military said it had regained “control” of border communities taken by Hamas. Speaking to reporters, the chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said there were some isolated incidents but no fighting going on Monday morning.
He cautioned, however, that there could still be militants in the area and that forces were conducting searches.
Israel and Egypt have imposed various levels of blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
Israel had hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza as of Monday, its military said. Airstrikes leveled much of the town of Beit Hanoun in the enclave’s northeast corner. Hamas had been using the town as a staging ground for attacks, Hagari said.
The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which participated in Saturday’s attack, said it was holding more than 30 Israelis among dozens of captives in Gaza. He said they would not be released until all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are freed.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE FROM THE U.S. AND OTHER NATIONS?
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel. The deployment — which also includes a host of ships and warplanes — underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to keep the conflict from growing.
Preliminary reports indicated at least four U.S. citizens were killed in the attacks, and seven more were missing, a U.S. official said.
The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting about the situation and took no immediate action on a U.S. demand that its 15 members condemn the Hamas attack.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador told The Associated Press that long-stalled negotiations between the two sides need to resume. China’s ambassador said it was important to come back to a two-state solution, where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side.
Israel intensifies Gaza strikes and battles to repel Hamas, with over 1,100 dead in fighting so far
But U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said the ongoing violence needed to be dealt with first.
Germany’s development minister said her country would review its aid for Palestinian areas.
In Iran — a longtime supporter of Hamas and other militant groups — senior officials praised the incursion. President Ebrahim Raisi spoke by phone with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
Egypt spoke with both sides about a potential cease-fire, but an Egyptian official said Israel was not open to a truce “at this stage.”
A policeman in Egypt opened fire Sunday on Israeli tourists in the city of Alexandria, killing at least two Israelis and one Egyptian, authorities said. The U.S. embassy in Cairo urged Americans in the country to take precautions as the attack could be related to c lashes between Israel and Palestinian militants.
IS ANYTHING BEING DONE TO PROTECT CIVILIANS?
The number of displaced Gazans staying at schools converted into shelters jumped by tens of thousands, to some 123,000, the U.N. said. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit but there were no casualties amid heavy shelling and airstrikes in different parts of the crowded territory of 2 million people.
Associated Press video Sunday showed a large crater in the middle of the school.
“Schools and other civilian infrastructure, including those sheltering displaced families, must never come under attack,” UNRWA said in a statement.
Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky. Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues are rarely addressed, setting the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.
WHAT PROMPTED THE ATTACK?
Hamas officials cited long-simmering tensions including a dispute over the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.
In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.
Hamas also has cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir’s efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Tensions escalated with recent violent Palestinian protests. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis.
WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING RECENTLY IN A DIVIDED ISRAEL?
The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza rises to 232
The protest movement accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab. That has bitterly divided society and unleashed turmoil within the military, with hundreds of reservists threatening to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest.
Reservists are the backbone of the army, and protests within the ranks have raised concerns about cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu called up “an extensive mobilization of reserve forces” Saturday.
5 things to know as Israel declares war, bombards Gaza Strip after unprecedented Hamas attack
Fighting continued in southern Israel early Monday after the government declared war and intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a major surprise attack by Hamas.
Special forces soldiers were brought in to try to retake four Israeli sites held by Hamas following its unprecedented weekend incursion, which officials said involved as many as 1,000 fighters. The militants blew through a fortified border fence and gunned down civilians and soldiers in Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier during a Jewish holiday.
The rampage included an assault on a crowded music festival where authorities had removed about 260 bodies by Sunday.
Israel struck back with airstrikes including one that flattened a 14-story tower that held Hamas offices. At least 700 people were reported killed in Israel and more than 400 in Gaza. Thousands were wounded and some 123,000 displaced people in Gaza were in shelters, the U.N. said.
Here are some key takeaways from the conflict:
WHAT DOES THE WAR DECLARATION MEAN?
Israel has previously carried out major military campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza that it portrayed as wars, but without a formal declaration.
Read: More than 1,000 dead after surprise Hamas attack and Israel’s response
The declaration gives the green light for Israel to take “significant military steps” against Hamas. But a major question was whether Israel would launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.
Israel hit more than 800 targets in Gaza by Sunday, its military said. That included airstrikes that leveled much of the town of Beit Hanoun in the enclave’s northeast corner.
Hamas had been using the town as a staging ground for attacks, Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters. There was no immediate word on casualties, and most of the community’s population of tens of thousands likely fled before the bombardment.
The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which participated in Saturday’s attack, said it was holding more than 30 Israelis among dozens of captives in Gaza. He said they would not be released until all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are freed.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE FROM THE U.S. AND OTHER NATIONS?
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel. The deployment — which also includes a host of ships and warplanes — underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to keep the conflict from growing.
Read: US demands condemnation of Hamas at UN meeting, but Security Council takes no immediate action
Preliminary reports indicated at least four U.S. citizens were killed in the attacks, and seven more were missing, a U.S. official said.
The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting about the situation and took no immediate action on a U.S. demand that its 15 members condemn the Hamas attack.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador told The Associated Press that long-stalled negotiations between the two sides need to resume. China’s ambassador said it was important to come back to a two-state solution, where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side.
But U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said the ongoing violence needed to be dealt with first.
Germany’s development minister said her country would review its aid for Palestinian areas.
In Iran — a longtime supporter of Hamas and other militant groups — senior officials praised the incursion. President Ebrahim Raisi spoke by phone with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
Egypt spoke with both sides about a potential cease-fire, but an Egyptian official said Israel was not open to a truce “at this stage.”
A policeman in Egypt opened fire Sunday on Israeli tourists in the city of Alexandria, killing at least two Israelis and one Egyptian, authorities said. The U.S. embassy in Cairo urged Americans in the country to take precautions as the attack could be related to c lashes between Israel and Palestinian militants.
IS ANYTHING BEING DONE TO PROTECT CIVILIANS?
The number of displaced Gazans staying at schools converted into shelters jumped by tens of thousands, to some 123,000, the U.N. said. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit but there were no casualties amid heavy shelling and airstrikes in different parts of the crowded territory of 2 million people.
Read: Israeli and Palestinian supporters rally across U.S. as Israel declares war after Hamas attack
Associated Press video Sunday showed a large crater in the middle of the school.
“Schools and other civilian infrastructure, including those sheltering displaced families, must never come under attack,” UNRWA said in a statement.
Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky. Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues are rarely addressed, setting the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.
WHAT PROMPTED THE ATTACK?
Hamas officials cited long-simmering tensions including a dispute over the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.
In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.
Read: Hamas attack on Israel thrusts Biden into Mideast crisis and has him fending off GOP criticism
Hamas also has cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir’s efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Tensions escalated with recent violent Palestinian protests. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis.
WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING RECENTLY IN A DIVIDED ISRAEL?
The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.
The protest movement accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab. That has bitterly divided society and unleashed turmoil within the military, which undreds of reservists threatening to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest.
Reservists are the backbone of the army, and protests within the ranks have raised concerns about cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu called up “an extensive mobilization of reserve forces” Saturday.
Israel’s Security Council says country at war with Hamas and authorizes significant military steps
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says his Security Cabinet has declared the country at war following a deadly Hamas assault in southern Israel.
The decision, announced on Sunday, formally authorizes “the taking of significant military steps,” it said it a statement.
Hamas attack on Israel thrusts Biden into Mideast crisis and has him fending off GOP criticism
“The war that was forced on the State of Israel in a murderous terrorist assault from the Gaza Strip began at 06:00 yesterday,” it said.
It gave no further details. But Netanyahu had previous declared the country at war, and the military has promised a harsh response in Gaza.
Israeli media say at least 600 people have been killed in the surprise cross-border incursion by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli soldiers battled Hamas fighters in the streets of southern Israel on Sunday and launched retaliation strikes that leveled buildings in Gaza, while in northern Israel a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group raised fears of a broader conflict.
There was still some fighting underway more than 24 hours after an unprecedented surprise attack from Gaza, in which Hamas militants, backed by a volley of thousands of rockets, broke through Israel’s security barrier and rampaged through nearby communities. At least 600 people have reportedly been killed in Israel — a staggering toll on a scale the country has not experienced in decades — and more than 300 have been killed in Gaza.
The militants also took captives back into the coastal Gaza enclave, including women, children and the elderly, who they will likely try to trade for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The high death toll, multiple captives and slow response to the onslaught pointed to a major intelligence failure and undermined the long-held perception that Israel has eyes and ears everywhere in the small, densely populated territory it has controlled for decades.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was at war and would exact a heavy price from its enemies. Hamas leaders said they were prepared for further escalation.
A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties. Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” But, he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”
Civilians paid a staggering cost for the violence on both sides. Several Israeli media outlets, citing rescue service officials, said at least 600 people were killed in Israel, including 44 soldiers, while officials in Gaza said 313 people had died in the territory. Some 2,000 people have been wounded on each side. An Israeli official said security forces have killed 400 militants and captured dozens more.
Israeli TV news aired a stream of accounts from the relatives of captive or missing Israelis, who wailed and begged for assistance amid a fog of uncertainty surrounding the fate of their loved ones. In Gaza, residents fled homes near the border to escape Israeli strikes, fleeing deeper inside the territory after warnings in Arabic from the Israeli military.
In neighboring Egypt, a policeman shot dead two Israeli tourists and an Egyptian at a tourist site in Alexandria, the Interior Ministry said. Egypt made peace with Israel decades ago, but anti-Israel sentiment runs high in the country, especially during bouts of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
5 things to know about the Hamas group's unprecedented attack on Israel
The flare-up on Israel’s northern border also threatened to draw into the battle Hezbollah, a fierce enemy of Israel’s which is backed by Iran and estimated to have tens of thousands of rockets at its disposal. Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets and shells on Sunday at three Israeli positions in a disputed area along the border and Israel’s military fired back using armed drones. Two children were lightly wounded by broken glass on the Lebanese side, according to the nearby Marjayoun Hospital.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military official, told reporters the situation at the northern border was calm after the exchange. But he said fighting was still underway in the south and that there were still hostage situations there.
He said troops had moved into every community near the Gaza frontier, where they planned to evacuate all civilians and scour the area for militants.
“We will go through every community until we kill every terrorist that is in Israeli territory,” he said. In Gaza, “every terrorist located in a house, all the commanders in houses, will be hit by Israeli fire. That will continue escalating in the coming hours.”
Hamas said that overnight it had continued to send forces and equipment into “a number of locations inside our occupied territories,” referring to Israel. Hamas-linked media reported that the son of Nizar Awadallah, a senior political official, was killed. The Islamic militant group has not reported any senior members being captured, killed or wounded.
The surprise attack Saturday was the deadliest on Israel in decades. In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast.
They rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip early Saturday morning, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the Gaza border, while Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israeli cities.
“Israel is waking up this morning to a terrible morning,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman. “There are a lot of people killed ... children, grandmothers, families, bodies.”
Israeli media said at least 600 people were killed and 2,000 wounded in Saturday’s attack. Hamas fighters took an unknown number of civilians and soldiers captive into Gaza, and a line of Israelis with missing relatives snaked outside a police station in central Israel to supply investigators with DNA samples and other means that could help identify their family members.
Israel struck 426 targets in Gaza, its military said, flattening residential buildings in giant explosions.
Among the 313 killed in Gaza were 20 children, and close to 2,000 people were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinians, said more than 20,000 Palestinians left Gaza’s border region to head further inside the territory and take refuge in U.N. schools.
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza rises to 232
In a televised address Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military will use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities.
“Get out of there now,” he told Gaza residents, who have no way to leave the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory. Gaza’s 2.3 million people have endured a border blockade, enforced to varying degrees by Israel and Egypt, since Hamas militants seized control in 2007.
In Gaza, much of the population was thrown into darkness Saturday night as Israel cut off electricity and said it would no longer supply power, fuel or other goods to the territory.
Hamas said it had planned for a long fight. “We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, told Al-Jazeera TV.
Israel has a history of making heavily lopsided exchanges to bring captive Israelis home. The military has confirmed that a “substantial” number of Israelis were abducted Saturday without giving an exact figure.
An Egyptian official said Israel has sought help from Cairo to ensure the safety of the hostages, and that Egypt’s intelligence chief had contacted Hamas and the smaller but more radical Islamic Jihad group, which also took part in the incursion, to seek information. Egypt has often mediated between the two sides in the past.
The official said Palestinian leaders claimed that they don’t yet have a “full picture” of hostages, but said those who were brought into Gaza were taken to “secure locations” across the territory.
“It’s clear that they have a big number — several dozens,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to brief media.
Egypt also spoke with both sides about a potential cease-fire, but the official said Israel was not open to a truce “at this stage.”
In Iran, which has long supported Hamas and other militant groups, senior officials have openly praised the incursion. President Ebrahim Raisi spoke by phone with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault, named “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, and a series of recent incidents that have brought Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch.
Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.
President Joe Biden said from the White House that the U.S. “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults,” and said Israel has the right to defend itself.
Gunfire, rockets and carnage: Israelis are stunned and shaken by unprecedented Hamas attack
Israelis peeked out their windows to see terrifying scenes of armed Hamas militants outside, trying to break into their houses and shooting at anyone they saw. Thousands of Israeli party-goers at a desert rave screamed and ran for their lives as bloodied victims collapsed around them. Family members searching for missing loved ones were shaken to recognize them in haunting social media videos showing Hamas militants taking terrified Israelis hostage.
Israel was in shock Saturday, with the unprecedented scenes of violence and chaos unfolding across the country's south seared into people's minds. Even the steely nerved residents of communities near the Gaza Strip who have grown used to the wail of air-raid sirens described Saturday's ground assault — with fighters entering their communities in pick-up trucks, on boats and by hang-gliders — as a nightmare come true.
For Israelis working and living within range of Gaza, the sight of Hamas militants roaming outside their homes Saturday — and reports that Hamas had taken dozens of civilians and soldiers captive — marked a terrifying turn of events unlike anything residents had experienced before.
5 things to know about the Hamas group's unprecedented attack on Israel
"This was always the nightmare. We told ourselves that one day, the terrorists will come inside here," said Jehan Berman, a 42-year-old in the small community of Avshalom near Gaza. It took eight hours, he said, for the Israeli military to arrive to his kibbutz and start fending off the Hamas fighters.
Berman, who suffers from multiple wounds and disabilities inflicted by the past four wars and countless other skirmishes between Israel and Hamas over the years, said Israeli authorities notified him that Hamas kidnapped his 75-year-old mother-in-law, along with several friends in their 30s and their small children. The last time he heard from his mother-in-law was 10:30 a.m., he said, when she called him, panicked and distraught, to say that Hamas militants had shot and killed her husband.
While the Israeli military's Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system intercepted some 90% of Gaza rockets heading for populated areas, there was nothing protecting Israelis from armed militants opening fire and entering their homes. A fortified border fence, equipped with sophisticated sensors, proved no match for the heavy explosives unleashed by Hamas militants as they burst into Israel.
Israeli soldiers battle Hamas on second day of surprise attack; strikes level buildings in Gaza
This time, few residents had their usual sanguine slogans to offer about Israeli resilience and defiance. They were clearly rattled and emotional.
"I feel so incredibly violated," said 68-year-old Adele Raemer from a safe room in the southern kibbutz of Nir Am after discovering that Palestinian militants had smashed her windows while trying to break into her house. "This is so tough for us, I don't even have the words," she said.
Israel's Channel 12 aired a string of harrowing phone call recordings by civilians trapped inside their homes as militants closed in. The callers used hushed tones to describe terrifying scenes to their loved ones.
"We can hear them, they're breaking in through the windows and there's no one here to help us," one caller said.
A son whispered to his mother that he could hear gunshots. She pleaded with him to find somewhere secure to hide. Another caller told her relative she wasn't sure whether she would get out safely. "I love you, I love you," she said.
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza rises to 232
News of the surprise invasion, with its haunting echoes of the 1973 Mideast War, sent millions of Israelis rushing to bomb shelters. Some in hard-hit communities were evacuated to protected spaces farther north.
Families who huddled in their basements had little idea what was unfolding above them but heard deeply disturbing sounds — not just the usual shriek of rockets and muffled bangs of explosions, they said, but the loud crackling of gunfire that indicated fighters were on the ground, and getting closer.
"We are too scared to go out (from the shelter) even for a second to get water or food or use the bathroom because we know they are still fighting out there," said Janet Cwaigenbaum, a 57-year-old in the southern kibbutz of Nir Yitzhak. She said her neighbors had shared photos of bodies lying in the streets and their homes trashed by militants, the walls covered in red graffiti of Hamas slogans.
"I've lived here for so long that I know what to do within 15 seconds of hearing an alarm," she said. "But today was different. It was the hardest day of my life."
The biggest shock of all, residents said, came from footage on social media that showed fighters taking Israeli soldiers and civilians captive. The military confirmed Hamas' claims that it had captured a number of Israelis, declining to comment on how many but saying it was "significant."
One blurred-out video showed Hamas fighters shouting at an Israeli family, including terrified young children on the floor, held hostage in their own living room. "I will not kill you," the fighter could be heard yelling in broken English while gunfire sounded.
Other footage captured moments of terror and desperation: Hamas fighters paraded a disoriented-looking elderly woman in a golf cart down a dusty Gaza street while Palestinian crowds cheered. Israeli civilians were led into Gaza, crammed into the back of a pick-up truck with their heads down and hands tied. A gray-haired Israeli woman was sandwiched on a motorbike between a driver in a flak jacket and a man with a rifle. An Israeli captive swaddled in a sheet like a mummy cowered among militants on a golf cart.
Some Israelis found out from videos on social media that their loved ones were missing. Such was the case for Moshe Or, who discovered his brother was captured by Hamas after seeing footage of him being led into Gaza alongside his wailing girlfriend. In an interview with Channel 12, Or expressed anger at Israeli authorities, who he said never contacted his family about the kidnapping.
The awful realization of the attack came at different times for Israelis.
Some 3,000 Israelis at a desert rave came under attack. Witnesses told Israeli media that Hamas militants sprayed bullets into the crowd of revelers, who just moments earlier had been drinking, laughing and dancing. Videos showed Israelis racing across vast open fields and taking cover in orchards. Channel 12 said the bodies of dozens of party-goers had been recovered.
In the kibbutz of Kfar Azza near the Gaza frontier, at least six young people lay lifeless in pools of blood, according videos captured shortly after Palestinian militants left the area. At a bus shelter in the south, at least nine bloodied bodies were sprawled out on stretchers.
Berman, the war-wounded resident of Avshalom, said he was still struggling to grasp the attack's staggering toll. While reaching out to his loved ones to find out if they were safe and trying to distract his son in the bomb shelter, he said felt a deep grief — not only for his missing mother-in-law and friends, but for Israelis and Palestinians.
"I'm sad because I know there is no hope," he said. "There is no hope for us, or kids in Palestine or this whole region."
5 things to know about the Hamas group's unprecedented attack on Israel
Without warning on Saturday, Gaza's Hamas rulers attacked Israel by air, land and sea. Millions of Israelis in the country's south awoke to the searing sound of incoming rockets and the inevitable thud of impact. Air raid sirens wailed as far north as Tel Aviv. Israel's anti-rocket interceptors thundered in Jerusalem.
In an unprecedented escalation, armed Hamas fighters blew up parts of Israel's highly fortified separation fence and strode into Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier, terrorizing residents and trading fire with Israeli soldiers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies were scrambling to respond to the rapidly changing events. As the day wore on, the casualties quickly mounted.
Israeli soldiers battle Hamas on second day of surprise attack; strikes level buildings in Gaza
Rescue Service Zaka, an Israeli group, said at least 200 people died in southern Israel and an additional 1,100 people were wounded.
At least 198 people in the Gaza Strip were killed and at least 1,610 wounded amid Israel's retaliation.
Here are some key takeaways from the multi-pronged attack that has suddenly plunged Israel and Gaza into battle.
DID ISRAELIS DETECT ATTACK AHEAD OF TIME?
The shock that Israelis felt on Saturday morning — on Simchat Torah, one of the most joyous days of the Jewish calendar — recalled the surprise of the the 1973 Mideast war. Practically 50 years earlier to the day, a full-scale Egyptian-Syrian attack on a Jewish holiday quickly turned into a disaster for an unprepared Israeli military.
Then, as now, Israelis had assumed that their intelligence services would be able to alert the army to any major attack or invasion well in advance. That colossal failure still haunts the legacy of then-Prime Minister Golda Meir and helped bring down the lengthy rule of the once-dominant Labor Party.
Arab League slams Israel's anti-Palestinian policies as "time bomb"
Now, the question of how the militants were able to stage such a huge and coordinated attack — which has already killed more Israelis than any single assault since the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago — without triggering Israeli intelligence concerns has already presented a major challenge to Netanyahu's ultranationalist government.
The government's supporters had expected Netanyahu and hard-line ministers with a history of anti-Arab rhetoric like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to take a particularly belligerent stance against the Palestinians and respond more forcefully to threats from militants in Gaza.
As political analysts lambast Netanyahu over the failure, and the casualty count climbs, Netanyahu risks losing control of both his government and the country.
HOW WAS HAMAS ABLE TO CARRY OUT THE ASSAULT?
Hamas claimed its fighters took several Israelis captive in the enclave, releasing gruesome videos of militants dragging bloodied soldiers across the ground and standing over dead bodies, some of them stripped to their underwear. It said senior Israeli military officers were among the captives.
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza rises to 232
The videos could not immediately be verified but matched geographic features of the area. Fears that Israelis had been kidnapped evoked the 2006 capture of soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas-linked militants seized in a cross-border raid. Hamas held Shalit for five years until he was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
In a dramatic escalation unseen in decades, Hamas also sent paragliders flying into Israel, the Israeli military said. The brazen attack recalled a famous assault in the late 1980s when Palestinian militants crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel on hang-gliders and killed six Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli army belatedly confirmed that soldiers and civilians were taken hostage in Gaza, but refused to provide further details.
WHAT PROMPTED THE ATTACK?
Hamas officials cited long-simmering sources of tension between Israel and the Palestinians, including the dispute around the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is is sacred to both Muslims and Jews and remains at the emotional heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.
In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.
Biden decries the 'unconscionable' Hamas attack and warns Israel's enemies not to exploit the crisis
Hamas statements have also cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands that the Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir's efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
More recently, tensions have escalated with violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza frontier. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis that has sharpened public criticism of its rule.
Some political analysts have linked Hamas' attack to current U.S.-brokered talks on normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So far, reports of possible concessions to Palestinians in the negotiations have involved Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, not Gaza.
"We have always said that normalization will not achieve security, stability, or calm," Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told the AP.
ATTACK COMES WHEN ISRAELI SOCIETY IS DIVIDED
The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu's proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.
The protest movement, which accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab, has bitterly divided Israeli society and unleashed turmoil within the Israeli military. Hundreds of reservists have threatened to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest at the judicial overhaul.
Reservists are the backbone of the country's army, and protests within the army ranks have raised concerns about the military's cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu on Saturday called up "an extensive mobilization of reserve forces."
WHAT KIND OF CEASE-FIRE OR RESOLUTION CAN BE EXPECTED?
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and exchanged fire numerous times since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky.
Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues of the conflict are rarely addressed and set the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.
With its increased leverage in this round, Hamas is likely to push harder for concessions on key issues, such as easing the blockade and winning the release of prisoners held by Israel.
Israeli soldiers battle Hamas on second day of surprise attack; strikes level buildings in Gaza
Israeli soldiers fought to repel Hamas militants Sunday, a day after they broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and rampaged through nearby Israeli communities in an unprecedented surprise attack, while Israel's retaliation strikes leveled buildings in Gaza and its prime minister said the country was at war.
In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip, including towns and other communities as far as 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Gaza border, while Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israeli cities. They killed at least 250 people, including 26 soldiers, and took hostages as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it forces were fighting Hamas incursions in eight places. An Israeli military spokesperson said that two hostage situations had been “resolved,” but did not say whether all the hostages had been rescued alive.
Israel struck 426 targets in Gaza, its miltary said, flattening residential buildings in giant explosions. That included a 14-story tower that held dozens of apartments as well as Hamas offices in central Gaza City. Israeli forces fired a warning just before.
At least 256 people in the Gaza Strip were killed in Israeli strikes, including 20 children, and close to 1,800 wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, said at least 250 people were killed and 1,500 wounded in Saturday's attack, making it the deadliest in Israel in decades. Hamas fighters took an unknown number of civilians and soldiers captive into Gaza.
The conflict threatened to escalate with Israel’s vows of retaliation, and fears of attacks from Hezbollah, a militant group allied with Hamas in Lebanon, on Israel's northern border.
The Israeli military said that it was striking an area in Lebanon from which strikes on Israeli towns had come, but did not say who had launched the strikes. In previous Israel-Hamas conflicts, Hezbollah has sat on the sidelines while smaller Palestinian groups have launched rockets from Lebanon.
In a televised address Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military will use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities. “All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins,” he added.
“Get out of there now,” he told Gaza residents, who have no way to leave the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory.
Overnight, the Israeli military issued warnings in Arabic to communities near the border with Israel to leave their homes for areas deeper inside the tiny enclave.
Gaza’s 2.3 million people have endured a border blockade, enforced to varying degrees by Israel and Egypt, since Hamas militants seized control in 2007.
Previous conflicts between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers brought widespread death and destruction in Gaza and days of rocket fire on Israeli towns. The situation is potentially more volatile now, with Israel’s far-right government stung by the security breach and with Palestinians in despair over a never-ending occupation in the West Bank and suffocating blockade of Gaza.
The strength, sophistication and timing of the Saturday morning attack shocked Israelis. Hamas fighters used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast.
Read: Arab League slams Israel's anti-Palestinian policies as "time bomb"
In an amateur video, hundreds of terrified young people who had been dancing at a rave fled for their lives after Hamas militants entered the area and began firing at them.
Among those killed Saturday was Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer who commanded the Israeli military’s Nahal Brigade, a prominent infantry unit.
Before daybreak Sunday, militants fired more rockets from Gaza, hitting a hospital in the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon, said senior hospital official Tal Bergman. Video provided by Barzilai Medical Center showed a large hole punched into a wall and chunks of debris scattered on the ground of what appeared to be an empty room and a hallway. The military said patients had been evacuated from Barzilai before the strike.
School was canceled across Israel.
Around 3 a.m., a loudspeaker atop a mosque in Gaza City blared a stark warning to residents of nearby apartment buildings: Evacuate immediately. Just minutes later, an Israeli airstrike reduced one nearby five-story building to ashes.
After one Israeli strike, a Hamas rocket barrage hit four cities, including Tel Aviv and a nearby suburb. Throughout the day, Hamas fired more than 3,500 rockets, the Israeli military said.
The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, and a series of recent incidents that have brought Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch.
Read: Death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza rises to 232
Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.
“Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message. He said the attack was only the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight.
The Hamas incursion on Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll, revived painful memories of the 1973 Mideast war practically 50 years to the day, in which Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, aiming to take back Israeli-occupied territories.
Comparisons to one of the most traumatic moments in Israeli history sharpened criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned on more aggressive action against threats from Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the government and military over its failure to anticipate what appeared to be a Hamas attack unseen in its level of planning and coordination.
Asked by reporters how Hamas had managed to catch the army off guard, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesman, replied, “That’s a good question.”
The abduction of Israeli civilians and soldiers also raised a particularly thorny issue for Israel, which has a history of making heavily lopsided exchanges to bring captive Israelis home. Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons. Hecht confirmed that a “substantial” number of Israelis were abducted Saturday.
Read more: Biden decries the 'unconscionable' Hamas attack and warns Israel's enemies not to exploit the crisis
Associated Press photos showed an elderly Israeli woman being brought into Gaza on a golf cart by Hamas gunmen and another woman squeezed between two fighters on a motorcycle. AP journalists saw four people taken from the kibbutz of Kfar Azza, including two women.
In Gaza, a black jeep pulled to a stop and, when the rear door opened, a young woman stumbled out, bleeding from the head and with her hands tied behind her back. A man waving a gun in the air grabbed her by the hair and pushed her into the vehicle’s back seat.
Thailand’s government said that two of its citizens may have been abducted, though the Israeli government could not immediately confirm the details.
Thousands of Thai citizens work in Israel, many of them in the agriculture sector. Israeli TV reported that workers from the Philippines were also among the captives.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has put the country’s air force on standby to evacuate its citizens if needed. The Philippine government said it was still working to verify the reports.
A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties. Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” But, he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”
Israel’s military was bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area, a spokesperson said.
Hamas said it had planned for a potentially long fight. “We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, told Al-Jazeera TV. “We are ready to do whatever is necessary for the dignity and freedom of our people.”
In Gaza, much of the population was thrown into darkness after nightfall as electrical supplies from Israel — which supplies almost all the territories’ power — were cut off. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel would stop supplying electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.
U.S. President Joe Biden said from the White House that he had spoken with Netanyahu to say the United States “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop."
Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks with the U.S. about normalizing relations with Israel, called on both sides to exercise restraint. The kingdom said it had repeatedly warned about the danger of “the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation (and) the Palestinian people being deprived of their legitimate rights.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group congratulated Hamas, praising the attack as a response to “Israeli crimes.” The group said its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.
The attack comes at a time of historic division within Israel over Netanyahu’s proposal to overhaul the judiciary. Mass protests over the plan have sent hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators into the streets and prompted hundreds of military reservists to avoid volunteer duty — turmoil that has raised fears over the military’s battlefield readiness.
Palestinians demonstrated in towns and cities around the West Bank on Saturday night. Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire killed five there, but gave few details.