Hamas continues to attack Israel - Updates and thoughts on what caused this

Gaza and Jerusalem

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Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the country was “at war” on Saturday, after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a deadly barrage of rockets and sent gunmen into Israeli territory in a major escalation of the long running conflict between the two sides.

Militants launched about 2,200 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, according to the Israeli military, while armed gunmen infiltrated into Israel by land, sea and air – in paragliders. Multiple explosions were heard over Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and in southern Israel – some blasts likely the interceptions of incoming rockets – while air raids sent Israelis pouring into underground shelters.

The Israeli military said Hamas had taken “hostages and prisoners of war” but did not give a figure.

By the early afternoon, some 70 were dead and hundreds more were injured in Israel, according to Israel’s rescue service Magen David Adom (MDA).

Israel responded by launching strikes on what it called Hamas targets in Gaza. The Palestinian health ministry said that nearly 200 Palestinians had been killed and 1,610 injured, but did not say where the deaths occurred or whether the toll included Hamas militants or civilians in Gaza.

Video shows the Palestine Tower, a high-rise building with two annexes in Gaza City, hit by an explosion and collapse.

Israelis take cover in a bomb shelter as rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip.
Israelis take cover in a bomb shelter as rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip.
Hadas Parush/Reuters
Netanyahu said operations were under way to clear out militants from infiltrated towns and that he had also issued a call-up of reservists.

“We are at war, not in an operation or in rounds, but at war,” Netanyahu said in a video statement, adding that Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement that runs Gaza, had “launched a murderous surprise attack against the state of Israel and its citizens.”

The surprise assault on Saturday was unprecedented in recent history in its scale and scope, falling on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Lt Col Richard Hecht said in a briefing that Israeli forces “are fighting on the ground as we speak,” listing multiple locations where fighting was taking place, including several villages, army bases and border crossings.

Hecht declined to answer repeated questions from journalists about whether the IDF had missed intelligence that the attack was coming.

Dubbing the operation “Al-Aqsa Storm,” Hamas military commander Muhammad Al-Deif said in a recorded message that the group had “targeted the enemy positions, airports and military positions with 5,000 rockets” and that the assault on Israel was a response to attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.

“If you have a gun, get it out. This is the time to use it – get out with trucks, cars, axes, today the best and most honorable history starts,” Al-Deif added.

The attacks by Hamas follow one of the deadliest periods in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in nearly two decades. The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.

They also come at a moment of deep division in Israel, months after the government pushed through a contentious plan to reduce the power of the country’s courts, sparking a social and political crisis. The move this summer also struck a nerve with the military, prompting many reservists – the backbone of Israel’s army – to warn they would not come if called up, to protest the changes to the judicial system. An IDF spokesperson said Saturday that he did not know of any reservists refusing to be called up in the face of the latest attacks.