Hamas: Campaign against the Israeli Blockade in the Sixty Years After the Yom Kippur War and on the Crossroads to Jerusalem
Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that there was a military operation “in defense of the Aqsa mosque,” the hotly contested holy site in Jerusalem that thousands of Jews have visited in recent weeks, and against the Israeli blockade.
The ambulance service, Magen David Adom, issued an urgent call for blood and was organizing a special blood donation drive at a hospital in central Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military said armed men had crossed the border fence in several locations and into Israeli communities in the Gaza strip, which is a poor coastal enclave that is blockaded by Israel.
At least 2,200 rockets had been fired at Israel by 11 a.m. on Saturday, the Israeli military said. Fighter jets had begun attacking the Gaza Strip, after it declared a state of alert for war.
Israeli losses from the Arab attack on several fronts and the subsequent soul-searching about the state of the country were caused by the violence that came 50 years after the Yom Kippur War.
The leader of Hamas’s military wing said in a recorded message that the group had decided to launch an operation so that the time of their rampaging without accountability has ended. He cited Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which it captured during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, recent Israeli police raids on the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the detention of thousands of Palestinian militants in Israeli jails.
According to the Health Ministry, there were at least 759 Israelis wounded in Israel. The Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba admitted more than eighty people, with some of them in very difficult condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. The ambulance service, Magen David Adom, issued an urgent call for blood.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said operations were underway to clear the militants from infiltrated towns and that he had issued a call-up of reservists.
The countries said they were at war after Palestinian fighters launched an attack on southern Israel that included invading several Israeli towns and firing rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.
Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said that the White House “unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians” and that the United States stood “firmly” with the government and people of Israel.
Israels Defense Failures May Change Strategy to Israel and the West Bank: Israelis Are at War, Netanyahu Says After Hamas Attacks
Unverified video footage, circulated by Hamas, the Iran-backed militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, appeared to show some Palestinian gunmen arriving in Israel in a sort of makeshift hang glider.
People in the border towns of Israel told broadcasters that people were looking for people in their homes. Analysts said there was unsourced footage that showed Palestinian fighters taking captured Israeli civilians and bodies through the strip.
In Sderot, a southern city, photographs showed dead bodies strewn on the streets. Hundreds of young Israelis raced for safety after the militant group targeted an all-night dance festival in the desert.
“We are at war and we will win it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a televised statement, announcing a call-up of hundreds of thousands of Israeli military reservists.
Iran’s possible role in the operation drew scrutiny in Israel as violence spread to other parts of the region. Tehran provides intelligence and weaponry to several militant groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah.
Hamas leaders called for Arabs living in Israel and the West Bank to seize the momentum created by the assault and carry out their own attacks on Israelis. According to the officials, three Palestinians died in confrontations with the security forces of Israel in the West Bank.
The Situation in Gaza City During the War Between the United Nations and the West Bank: A Call for a Resolution of the Palestinian Unification Conundrum
The UN said they were increasing their activity on the border with southern Lebanon after a skirmish with Israeli troops.
The government critics who had quit their reserves to protest the judicial plan announced that they would return to service in Israel’s hour of need. Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of the opposition, announced he was prepared to join a government of national unity — a move that would potentially postpone any further judicial changes and allow Mr. Netanyahu to end his alliance with the far right.
Israel has made peace with several Arab countries and is working to forge a landmark deal with Saudi Arabia, which has never officially recognized the Jewish state. It wasn’t immediately clear how the effort would be affected. Saudi Arabia’s government called for a cessation of hostilities in a statement.
The ease with which Palestinian fighters entered Israel prompted recriminations and anger among Israelis. There were questions about the quality of Israeli intelligence gathering, normally a point of Israeli pride, and suggestions that the Israeli military — which has focused its recent activity on quelling an insurgency in the West Bank — had misdirected its energies.
Israel and Egypt placed a blockade on Gaza in 2007, after Hamas took control of the enclave from the moderate Palestinian group. According to the UN, 50 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population is unemployed and only 10 percent of them have access to clean water.
In the past few months, Israel had allowed up to 18,000 workers to cross into Israel daily from Gaza and added to a sense that calm would prevail.
Hamas’s rocket arsenal was considered to be its primary weapon because the Israeli Army had secured the land border with walls and other fortifications, making a ground invasion difficult.
The streets of Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban area, emptied out as residents gathered at schools to take shelter. People lined up at stores to stock up on supplies. And Gazans living close to the Israeli border fled to areas further inside the enclave, fearing an Israeli ground invasion.
“We can’t take it anymore,” said Jamila Al-Zanin, 39, a mother of three, who was one of those who fled with their families away from the border. The situation is very bad.
Source: ‘We Are at War,’ Netanyahu Says After Hamas Attacks
Iranian Foreign Minister Nasser Kanani: “Today’s Operation opened a New chapter in the field of resistance and armed operations against the occupiers in the occupied territories”
The second intifada left more than 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians dead, and analysts expected the Gaza war to set off a new wave of violence in the West Bank.
The spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanani, said that “today’s operation opened a new chapter in the field of resistance and armed operations against the occupiers in the occupied territories.”
Reporting was contributed by Raja Abdulrahim from Istanbul; Jonathan Rosen and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; Iyad Abuheweila from Cairo; Aaron Boxerman from London; Euan Ward and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; and Rami Nazzal from Ramallah, West Bank.