IRoberge
Veteran Member
Amir was cut off after stating his suspicions about Russia being behind the terrorist attack.
INTL "Israel is in an all-out war. " MAJOR Palestinian Ground Incursion From Gaza Into Israel Ongoing. Hundreds Killed. (Please watch for dups #1881)
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northern watch
TB Fanatic
I just wondered if Russia is behind this, as payback for Israeli aid to the Ukraine?
Posted for fair use......
apnews.com
WORLD NEWS
BY JOSEF FEDERMAN AND ISSAM ADWAN
Updated 4:54 PM PDT, October 7, 2023
Share
JERUSALEM (AP) — Backed by a barrage of rockets, dozens of Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and into nearby Israeli towns, killing dozens and abducting others in an unprecedented surprise early morning attack during a major Jewish holiday Saturday. A stunned Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza, with its prime minister saying the country is now at war with Hamas and vowing to inflict an “unprecedented price.”
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. In some places, they roamed for hours, gunning down civilians and soldiers as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response. Gunbattles continued well after nightfall, and militants held hostages in standoffs in two towns and occupied a police station in a third.
Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, said at least 250 people were killed and 1,500 wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Israel in decades. At least 232 people in the Gaza Strip have been killed and at least 1,700 wounded in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Hamas fighters took an unknown number of civilians and soldiers captive into Gaza, a deeply sensitive issue for Israel, in harrowing scenes posted on social media videos.
The conflict threatened to escalate to an even deadlier stage with Israel’s vows of greater retaliation. 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.
MORE COVERAGE
Hamas launches surprise attack against Israel and Netanyahu says country is ‘at war’
5 things to know about the Hamas militant group’s unprecedented attack on Israel
Biden decries the ‘unconscionable’ Hamas attack and warns Israel’s enemies not to exploit the crisis
In a televised address Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier declared Israel to be at war, said the military will use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities and “take revenge for this black day. But he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”
“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 of 2.3 million people.
After nightfall, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza intensified, flattening several residential buildings in giant explosions, including 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, and there were no reports of casualties.
Soon after, a Hamas rocket barrage into central Israel hit four cities, including Tel Aviv and a nearby suburb, where two people were seriously injured. Throughout the day, Hamas fired more than 3,500 rockets, the Israeli military said.
In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike late Saturday flattened a home, killing 12 members of the Abu Qouto family, neighbors said. Ten members of a family in the northern town of Jebalya were killed in another airstrike, relatives said. It was not known why the homes were targeted.
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 without resistance from the military.
In some towns, a trail of civilians’ bodies lay where they had encountered the advancing gunmen. On the road outside the town of Sderot, a bloodied woman slumped dead in the seat of her car. At least nine people gunned down at a bus shelter in the town were laid out on stretchers on the street, their bags still on the curb nearby. One woman, screaming, embraced the body of a family member sprawled under a sheet next to a toppled motorcycle; as she was led away, she picked up the dead person’s helmet from the ground nearby.
In 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. Israeli media said dozens of people were killed.
Associated Press photos showed an abducted elderly Israeli woman being brought back into Gaza on a golf cart by Hamas gunmen and another woman squeezed between two fighters on a motorcycle. Images also showed fighters parading captured Israeli military vehicles through Gaza streets.
Among the dead in Israel was Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer who commanded the military’s Nahal Brigade, a prominent infantry unit.
The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa — the disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount — increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians and growth of settlements.
“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. “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”
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.”
A ball of fire and smoke rise from an explosion on a Palestinian apartment tower following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The militant Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land, and sea and catching the country off-guard on a major holiday. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
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.
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, center, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Hamas’ military wing claimed it was holding dozens of Israeli soldiers captive in “safe places” and tunnels in the Gaza Strip. Hecht confirmed that a number of Israelis were abducted but would not give a figure, saying only that the number was “substantial.”
If true, the claim could set the stage for complicated negotiations on a swap with Israel, which is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons.
An unknown number of civilians were also taken. AP journalists saw four 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 Israeli 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. Israeli TV reported that workers from Thailand and the Philippines were also among the captives.
In the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, just 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Gaza Strip, terrified residents who were huddled indoors said they could hear constant gunfire echoing off the buildings as firefights continued.
“With rockets we somehow feel safer, knowing that we have the Iron Dome (missile defense system) and our safe rooms. But knowing that terrorists are walking around communities is a different kind of fear,” said Mirjam Reijnen, a 42-year-old volunteer firefighter and mother of three.
Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis southern Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)
Earlier in the day, Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.
Israel’s military was bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area, the spokesman Hagari said. And the Israeli military later released an Arabic-language video warning Gazans to leave their homes in targeted areas of the dense coastal enclave.
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.
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.”
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.”
Israeli police officers evacuate a family from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
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.
It also comes at a time of mounting tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, with the peace process effectively dead for years. 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 a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.
Palestinians demonstrated in towns and cities around the West Bank on Saturday night amid the offensive from Gaza and Israeli retaliation. Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire killed five there, but gave few details.
Hamas surprise attack out of Gaza stuns Israel and leaves hundreds dead in fighting, retaliation
Hamas militants have fired thousands of rockets and sent dozens of fighters into Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented surprise early morning attack during a major Jewish holiday.
apnews.com
WORLD NEWS
Hamas surprise attack out of Gaza stuns Israel and leaves hundreds dead in fighting, retaliation
BY JOSEF FEDERMAN AND ISSAM ADWAN
Updated 4:54 PM PDT, October 7, 2023
Share
JERUSALEM (AP) — Backed by a barrage of rockets, dozens of Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and into nearby Israeli towns, killing dozens and abducting others in an unprecedented surprise early morning attack during a major Jewish holiday Saturday. A stunned Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza, with its prime minister saying the country is now at war with Hamas and vowing to inflict an “unprecedented price.”
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. In some places, they roamed for hours, gunning down civilians and soldiers as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response. Gunbattles continued well after nightfall, and militants held hostages in standoffs in two towns and occupied a police station in a third.
Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, said at least 250 people were killed and 1,500 wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Israel in decades. At least 232 people in the Gaza Strip have been killed and at least 1,700 wounded in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Hamas fighters took an unknown number of civilians and soldiers captive into Gaza, a deeply sensitive issue for Israel, in harrowing scenes posted on social media videos.
The conflict threatened to escalate to an even deadlier stage with Israel’s vows of greater retaliation. 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.
MORE COVERAGE
Hamas launches surprise attack against Israel and Netanyahu says country is ‘at war’
5 things to know about the Hamas militant group’s unprecedented attack on Israel
Biden decries the ‘unconscionable’ Hamas attack and warns Israel’s enemies not to exploit the crisis
In a televised address Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier declared Israel to be at war, said the military will use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities and “take revenge for this black day. But he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”
“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 of 2.3 million people.
After nightfall, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza intensified, flattening several residential buildings in giant explosions, including 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, and there were no reports of casualties.
Soon after, a Hamas rocket barrage into central Israel hit four cities, including Tel Aviv and a nearby suburb, where two people were seriously injured. Throughout the day, Hamas fired more than 3,500 rockets, the Israeli military said.
In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike late Saturday flattened a home, killing 12 members of the Abu Qouto family, neighbors said. Ten members of a family in the northern town of Jebalya were killed in another airstrike, relatives said. It was not known why the homes were targeted.
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 without resistance from the military.
In some towns, a trail of civilians’ bodies lay where they had encountered the advancing gunmen. On the road outside the town of Sderot, a bloodied woman slumped dead in the seat of her car. At least nine people gunned down at a bus shelter in the town were laid out on stretchers on the street, their bags still on the curb nearby. One woman, screaming, embraced the body of a family member sprawled under a sheet next to a toppled motorcycle; as she was led away, she picked up the dead person’s helmet from the ground nearby.
In 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. Israeli media said dozens of people were killed.
Associated Press photos showed an abducted elderly Israeli woman being brought back into Gaza on a golf cart by Hamas gunmen and another woman squeezed between two fighters on a motorcycle. Images also showed fighters parading captured Israeli military vehicles through Gaza streets.
Among the dead in Israel was Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer who commanded the military’s Nahal Brigade, a prominent infantry unit.
The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa — the disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount — increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians and growth of settlements.
“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. “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”
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.”
A ball of fire and smoke rise from an explosion on a Palestinian apartment tower following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The militant Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land, and sea and catching the country off-guard on a major holiday. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
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.
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, center, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Hamas’ military wing claimed it was holding dozens of Israeli soldiers captive in “safe places” and tunnels in the Gaza Strip. Hecht confirmed that a number of Israelis were abducted but would not give a figure, saying only that the number was “substantial.”
If true, the claim could set the stage for complicated negotiations on a swap with Israel, which is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons.
An unknown number of civilians were also taken. AP journalists saw four 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 Israeli 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. Israeli TV reported that workers from Thailand and the Philippines were also among the captives.
In the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, just 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Gaza Strip, terrified residents who were huddled indoors said they could hear constant gunfire echoing off the buildings as firefights continued.
“With rockets we somehow feel safer, knowing that we have the Iron Dome (missile defense system) and our safe rooms. But knowing that terrorists are walking around communities is a different kind of fear,” said Mirjam Reijnen, a 42-year-old volunteer firefighter and mother of three.
Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis southern Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)
Earlier in the day, Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.
Israel’s military was bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area, the spokesman Hagari said. And the Israeli military later released an Arabic-language video warning Gazans to leave their homes in targeted areas of the dense coastal enclave.
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.
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.”
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.”
Israeli police officers evacuate a family from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
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.
It also comes at a time of mounting tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, with the peace process effectively dead for years. 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 a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.
Palestinians demonstrated in towns and cities around the West Bank on Saturday night amid the offensive from Gaza and Israeli retaliation. Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire killed five there, but gave few details.
___
Adwan reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.northern watch
TB Fanatic
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Let's get it on! It will happen eventually...
phloydius
Veteran Member
Maybe this means Israel is going to do what I theorized to someone that they might if things "were really bad" earlier today.
On the Gaza:
1) Go in with ground forces. Large numbers.
2) Create a zone/area and quite literally build a wall / fence around it and setup military units to keep anyone from crossing it.
3) Clear the zone/area of ALL people. Every Last One. Kill the terrorists. Move the civilians to other zones (by force if needed), or offer to move them (not by force) to West Bank. (Steps 2 & 3 would probably happen at least somewhat concurrently).
4) Have backup teams search the area for weapons, explosives, etc.
5) Move to another zone/area, and repeat Steps 2-4. And previous Step 4 can finish while doing this.
6) Keep repeating until ALL of Gaza is finished.
7) When allowing civilians back into the zones/areas that were cleared, they would be vetted & ID'd (possibly finger printed). If they don't want to, they could always could volunteer to go somewhere else.
8) Take over the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Even that would not be 100%.
It is also very NWO.
Most of the world would decry it.
If you want it done rapidly, the reference isn't Dresden, it's Ypres.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
energy_wave
Has No Life - Lives on TB
This might be what sets the nations of the world against Israel. When they clean house, there may not even be a house left when they're done.
Knoxville's Joker
Has No Life - Lives on TB
To send a message...
Posted for fair use.....
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/YA5G3V77KBPORFR7Y2BQ5VYKY4.jpg)
www.reuters.com
October 7, 2023 3:42 PM PDT Updated an hour ago
More than 230 Gazans were also killed when Israel responded with one of its most devastating days of retaliatory strikes.
"We will take mighty vengeance or this black day," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
"Hamas launched a cruel and wicked war. We will win this war but the price is too heavy to bear," he said. "Hamas wants to murder us all. This is an enemy that murders mothers and children in their homes, in their beds. An enemy that abducts elderly, children, teenage girls."
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."
Bodies of Israeli civilians were strewn across the streets of Sderot in southern Israel, near Gaza, surrounded by broken glass. The bodies of a woman and a man were sprawled across the front seats of a 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.
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."
Senior military officers were among those killed in fighting near Gaza on Saturday, the Israeli military said.
In Gaza, black smoke and orange flames billowed into the 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 and at least 1,700 wounded.
Streets were deserted apart from ambulances racing to the scenes of air strikes. Israel cut the power, plunging the city into darkness.
At the White House, President Joe Biden went on national television to say Israel had the right to defend itself and issued a blunt warning.
"This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. The world is watching," he said.
A senior Biden administration told reporters that the United States was in intense talks with Israel about its particular needs as it responds to the attack, noting that Washington always shares timely intelligence. The official said the United States is working with other governments to make sure the crisis does not spread and is contained to Gaza.
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.
Long after nightfall, residents had yet to be given the all-clear to go home.
"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 fresh 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.
Gaza has been devastated by four wars and countless skirmishes between Hamas and Israel since the militants seized control of the strip in 2007. But the scenes of violence inside Israel itself were beyond anything seen there even at the height of the Palestinian Intifada uprisings of past decades.
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 war. 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 the dead were civilians, among crowds that attempted to cross into Israel through the damaged gates.
"We are afraid," a Palestinian woman, Amal Abu Daqqa, told Reuters as she left her house in Khan Younis.
Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics
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, Peter Graff and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by William Mallard, Robert Birsel, Alex Richardson, Nick Macfie and Diane Craft
Israel vows 'mighty vengeance' after deadliest day for 50 years
The worst attack on Israel for decades unleashed a war that both sides vowed to escalate. Hundreds were reported killed and thousands wounded on both sides after Israel responded with massive air strikes.
www.reuters.com
Israel vows 'mighty vengeance' after deadliest day for 50 years
By Maayan Lubell, Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Ammar AwadOctober 7, 2023 3:42 PM PDT Updated an hour ago
- Summary
- Companies
- Hamas gunmen enter Israel in unprecedented attack
- At least 250 Israelis reported dead, more than 1,000 wounded
- Hamas says it has taken many Israeli captives
- Israel says Hamas has launched 'cruel and wicked war'
- At least 230 killed in Israeli retaliation on Gaza
More than 230 Gazans were also killed when Israel responded with one of its most devastating days of retaliatory strikes.
"We will take mighty vengeance or this black day," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
"Hamas launched a cruel and wicked war. We will win this war but the price is too heavy to bear," he said. "Hamas wants to murder us all. This is an enemy that murders mothers and children in their homes, in their beds. An enemy that abducts elderly, children, teenage girls."
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."
Bodies of Israeli civilians were strewn across the streets of Sderot in southern Israel, near Gaza, surrounded by broken glass. The bodies of a woman and a man were sprawled across the front seats of a 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.
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."
Senior military officers were among those killed in fighting near Gaza on Saturday, the Israeli military said.
In Gaza, black smoke and orange flames billowed into the 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 and at least 1,700 wounded.
Streets were deserted apart from ambulances racing to the scenes of air strikes. Israel cut the power, plunging the city into darkness.
BIDEN OFFERS SUPPORT TO NETANYAHU
Western countries, led by the United States, denounced the Palestinian attack and pledged support for Israel.At the White House, President Joe Biden went on national television to say Israel had the right to defend itself and issued a blunt warning.
"This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. The world is watching," he said.
A senior Biden administration told reporters that the United States was in intense talks with Israel about its particular needs as it responds to the attack, noting that Washington always shares timely intelligence. The official said the United States is working with other governments to make sure the crisis does not spread and is contained to Gaza.
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.
Long after nightfall, residents had yet to be given the all-clear to go home.
"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 fresh 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.
Gaza has been devastated by four wars and countless skirmishes between Hamas and Israel since the militants seized control of the strip in 2007. But the scenes of violence inside Israel itself were beyond anything seen there even at the height of the Palestinian Intifada uprisings of past decades.
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 war. 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 the dead were civilians, among crowds that attempted to cross into Israel through the damaged gates.
"We are afraid," a Palestinian woman, Amal Abu Daqqa, told Reuters as she left her house in Khan Younis.
Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics
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, Peter Graff and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by William Mallard, Robert Birsel, Alex Richardson, Nick Macfie and Diane Craft
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Valley of Tears
On October 6th 1973, the Middle East was shaken by the biggest war it had ever seen. A war that should have been the last one, and that forever changed the region.
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Raggedyman
Res ipsa loquitur
THIS
and in SPADES
and in SPADES
Knoxville's Joker
Has No Life - Lives on TB
All of this attack lands squarely on the Biden administration. They gave money to Iran who sponsors terrorism. They left weapons to the Taliban. They gave money to Palestine, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The administration financed this attack. This is going to cause some serious election issues next year and right now. The jewish lobby does not take this stuff sitting down...
psychgirl
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Delete
I figured I might as well show all of the second tier players......
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Past time actually but there's so many SJWs in positions of power around the globe who persist in ignoring the evidence.
My wife, who isn't really violent by nature, always asks why society refuses to follow the oft-repeated directive to have no business with Muslims.
I keep telling her evil and money speak louder . . . . . .
The fact that senior military leaders were killed show planning, co-ordination and possible satellite intel does suggest support from a nation with much more capabilities than Iran.
It also shows either a complete blind-side by BOTH Israel AND US intelligence or the refusal of US intelligence to warn Israel. Neither possibility makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
It also shows either a complete blind-side by BOTH Israel AND US intelligence or the refusal of US intelligence to warn Israel. Neither possibility makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Lone_Hawk
Resident Spook
I think this is very likely....
Hawkgirl_70
Veteran Member
I think so too. And if so, we are soooo evil!
No wonder God ignores our country.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
WARMINGTON: Some in Toronto celebrating mass murder of Israelis as death toll mounts
Story by Joe WarmingtonToronto Sun
October 7 2023
While hundreds are slaughtered in Israel, Pro-Palestinian demonstrators went to a bridge over the Gardiner Expressway to celebrate on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.© Provided by Toronto Sun
First Canada saw cheering for a Second World War Nazi-related Waffen SS soldier, now there’s jubilation in Toronto over the mass slaughter of innocent Israelis.
Most of the dead are believed to be Jewish – just like those exterminated in the Holocaust. But some here thought this was fantastic and went public to party about it.
The cowardly sneak attack by Hamas terrorists in Israel that killed several hundred and wounded more than 1,000 was already as sick as sick can get.
But people in Toronto celebrating while the death toll mounts is evil. Ye t there it was, on the Roncesvalles Pedestrian Bridge on Saturday afternoon.
A banner drop is happening today to honour and celebrate the resistance and continued solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation,” a notice posted on social media by Toronto4Palestine stated. “A few people wish to hand out sweets to celebrate the resistance and its next level accomplishments.”
Those sick “accomplishments” consist of parading the bodies of innocent women through the streets with cheers, as well as torturing Israeli soldiers and firing thousands of rockets into to kill civilians. It’s genocide. It’s also kidnapping. Several dozen Israeli soldiers are being held against their will.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and U.S. President Joe Biden denounced the gutless attack on the tail end of Yom Kippur, there are people in Toronto who are with the Hamas terrorists and rooting for the murderers who organized this heinous event from Palestine.
“ACTION ALERT,” they posted. “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm has begun. The occupation continues to cross our red line. Al-Aqsa is our red line.”
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it very clear Israel as at war.
However, it turns out there are people on the other side amassing here was well. A second gathering is planned for 2 p.m. on Monday at Nathan Phillips Square.
B’nai Brith CEO Michael Mostyn said “celebrating this horrifying attack and heinous murders in our city of Toronto is “hideous.”
“Palestine is rising, long live the resistance,” said a posting on X by Cupe Local 3906, which represents 3,000 academic workers at Hamilton’s McMaster University.
There are many Jewish students who may not feel safe attending class Tuesday with such blatant anti-Semitism on full display. In this case, there likely will be no repercussions like what would happen if anybody partied over the mass murders of any other group. It’s free speech but it’s still gross.
And, while legal, Saturday’s banner drop over the Gardiner Expressway with blood-thirsty people enjoying the carnage, is as ugly a moment as the city has ever seen. And Toronto Police were monitoring it.
t sounds like there may be more glorification of this craven act.
It seems there are people here who support this depravity on what should have been a happy Thanksgiving weekend.
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Hamas has been deemed a terrorist organization since 1997.
Ractivist
Pride comes before the fall.....Pride month ended.
Well Rag, this could easily be the kick off of the Ezekiel war. I suspect it to be. It's not like the other players are going to sit back and do nothing.... they know how weak the deep state has made us, and they are deep state members. There is a plan in play...they want the world population knocked down by eighty some percent.... I'd definitely go into thinking mode at home, each and every TB'r. Could this be the real deal, the unleashed hordes on America to follow up soon.
I think, it's on like Donkey Kong....Pray and prep accordingly. Just had some canned Corned Beef served with rice. it's very tasty, wise to buy a few more cans.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
That is why I am wondering if Russia is behind this.
Yeah, that comment is definitely going to bite someone......
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
My apologies, but, I do not recognize this person. His EMOTIONS are damn familiar to me, just a small difference is he has the ABILITY to make a difference, regardless of the damages countenanced.
The Hammer
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Why is Hamas talking to BBC, and vice versa?
But yeah, that's gonna make it harder for the US administration to deny that their big aid package had nothing to do with this.
- Status