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A woman gestures as people flee their homes amid Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip, October 8 2023. Picture: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS
A woman gestures as people flee their homes amid Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip, October 8 2023. Picture: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS

Jerusalem/Gaza — Israel battered Gaza on Sunday after suffering its bloodiest attack in decades when Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns killing 600 and abducting dozens more, as the spiralling violence threatened a big new Middle East war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance for this black day”.

The death toll of at least 600 Israelis killed comes from reports by Israeli TV stations. Israel has not released an official toll. At least 413 Palestinians have been killed, including 78 children and 41 women, and nearly 2,300 wounded by Israeli air strikes, the health ministry of the Palestinian authority reported on Sunday.

SA called for the immediate cessation of violence, restraint, and peace, and offered its experience in mediation and conflict resolution to help with the peace process. “The region is in desperate need of a credible peace process that delivers on the calls of a plethora of previous UN resolutions for a two-state solution and a just and comprehensive peace between Israel and Palestine,” the department of international relations & co-operation said in statement.

In a sign the conflict could spread beyond blockaded Gaza, Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia exchanged artillery and rocket fire, while in Alexandria two Israeli tourists were shot dead with their Egyptian guide.

In southern Israel, Hamas gunmen were still fighting Israeli security forces 24 hours after a surprise, multipronged assault of rocket barrages and bands of gunmen who overran army bases and invaded border towns.

“My two little girls, they’re only babies. They’re not even five years old and three years old,” said Yoni Asher, who had seen video of gunmen seizing his wife and two small daughters.

Israel’s military, which faces questions over its failure to prevent the attack, said it has regained control of most infiltration points along security barriers, killed hundreds of attackers and taken dozens more prisoner. “We’re going to be attacking Hamas severely and this is going to be a long, long haul,” an Israeli military spokesperson told a briefing with reporters.

Smoke rises from the Israeli raids in Gaza City, Gaza, October 8 2023. Picture: AHMAD HASABALLAH/GETTY IMAGES
Smoke rises from the Israeli raids in Gaza City, Gaza, October 8 2023. Picture: AHMAD HASABALLAH/GETTY IMAGES

The military said it has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around Gaza, a narrow strip that is home to 2.3-million Palestinians. It is starting to evacuate all Israelis living around the frontier of the territory.

Deadliest incursion

“This is my fifth war. The war should stop. I don’t want to keep feeling this,” said Qassab al-Attar, a Palestinian wheelchair user in Gaza whose brothers carried him to shelter when Israeli forces shelled their house.

The attack by Hamas launched at dawn on Saturday represented the biggest and deadliest incursion into Israel since Egypt and Syria launched a sudden assault in an effort to reclaim lost territory in the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago.

The conflict could undermine US-backed moves towards normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia — a security realignment that could threaten Palestinian hopes of self-determination and hem in Hamas’ main backer, Iran.

Tehran’s other main regional ally, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fought a war with Israel in 2006 and said its “guns and rockets” stand with Hamas. “We recommend Hezbollah not to come into this and I don’t think they will,” Israel’s army spokesperson said.

The debris from Saturday’s attack still lay around southern Israeli towns and border communities on Sunday and Israelis were reeling from the sight of bloodied bodies lying on suburban streets, in cars and in their homes.

Bleeding

About 30 missing Israelis attending a party that was targeted during Saturday’s attack emerged from hiding on Sunday, Israeli media reported.

Palestinian fighters escaped back into Gaza with dozens of hostages, including soldiers and civilians.

The capture of so many Israelis, some filmed being pulled through security checkpoints or driven, bleeding, into Gaza, adds another layer of complication for Netanyahu after previous episodes when hostages were exchanged for many Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas fired more rocket salvoes into Israel on Sunday, with air raid sirens sounding across the south, and the Israeli military said it will combine an evacuation of border areas with a search for more gunmen.

Israeli air strikes on Gaza began soon after the Hamas attack and continued overnight and into Sunday, destroying the group’s offices and training camps, but also houses and other buildings.

In Khan Younis, southern Gaza, people searched through the remains of a mosque early on Sunday. “We ended the night prayers and suddenly the mosque was bombed. They terrorised the children, the elderly and women,” said resident Ramez Hneideq.

The escalation comes against a backdrop of surging violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule and is opposed by Hamas, which wants Israel destroyed.

A Palestinian woman, Sabreen Abu Daqqa, at the funeral of her daughter and two sons, who were killed in Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 8 2023. Picture: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS
A Palestinian woman, Sabreen Abu Daqqa, at the funeral of her daughter and two sons, who were killed in Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 8 2023. Picture: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS

Internal wrangles

Conditions in the West Bank have worsened under Netanyahu’s hard-right government, with more Israeli raids and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages, and the Palestinian Authority called for an emergency Arab League meeting.

Peacemaking has been stalled for years and Israeli politics have been convulsed this year by internal wrangles over Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault that began in Gaza will spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Gazans have lived under an Israeli-led blockade for 16 years, since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.

“How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognise the rights of our people?” Haniyeh said.

Western countries, led by the US, denounced the attack. President Joe Biden issued a blunt warning to Iran and other countries: “This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks.”

Across the Middle East there were demonstrations in support of Hamas, while Iran and Hezbollah praised the attack.

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.

The main Tel Aviv Stock Exchange indices fell 6% on Sunday and investors expected the violence to prompt a move into gold and other safe haven assets.

Reuters

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