Number of Israelis killed reaches 1,000. The siege on the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas terrorist attack came from, is intensifying. Bombardments of the enclave have left more than 700 Palestinians dead, according to local authorities.
(DW) Around 1,500 bodies of Hamas terrorists have been found inside Israeli territory after three days of fighting, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said on Tuesday (10/10). On Saturday, terrorists invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave, occupying communities, attacking military installations and massacring the civilian population.
“Around 1,500 bodies of Hamas fighters have been found in Israel and around the Gaza Strip,” said military spokesman Richard Hecht. He also said that the security forces had “more or less restored control of the border” with Gaza. On Saturday, Hamas terrorists breached the fence dividing Gaza and Israel at more than two dozen points. “Since last night [Monday], we know that no one has entered,” said the spokesman, but warned that “infiltrations could still occur”.
According to Hecht, the Israeli army has “almost completed” the evacuation of all the communities around the border.
Around 1,000 Israelis – most of them civilians, including children – have been killed by Hamas, according to the latest figures released by the authorities. More than a hundred Israelis and foreigners who were in the country were also kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza as hostages. On Tuesday, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations estimated the number of hostages at between “100 and 150”.
Among the civilians killed in Israel are US and French citizens. Several of the victims were taking part in a music festival taking place a few kilometers from the border with Gaza, which was the target of an attack by Hamas gunmen. At least 260 bodies were found at the site.
Another 107 bodies were also found in the Israeli kibbutz of Be’eri, a rural community that had around 1,000 residents before the terrorist attack. Many of the dead were residents, but the bodies of Israeli security forces were also found. A Brazilian who was attending the festival targeted by Hamas was killed on the spot, confirmed the Brazilian government. France confirmed that four of its citizens died in Israel. The US confirmed nine dead.
Siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip
In addition to evacuating communities, Israel continues to carry out systematic bombardments against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. Since Saturday, there have been hundreds of Israeli air raids on the enclave, squeezed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, inhabited by just over 2 million Palestinians.
The heavy Israeli retaliatory bombardments have also caused civilian casualties in Gaza. According to the Palestinian emergency authorities, more than 700 people have died in the enclave, including hundreds of civilians.
Israel has also ordered a “total siege” on Gaza, cutting off the supply of electricity, water, fuel and food to the enclave. Announcing the siege on Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel is “fighting animals”. On Sunday, while visiting one of the Israeli towns attacked by Hamas, the minister had already warned that “the price the Gaza Strip will pay will be very heavy”.
In response to the blockade, the World Health Organization (WHO) called on Tuesday for the opening of a humanitarian corridor to Gaza. “A humanitarian corridor is needed to provide essential medical supplies to the population,” said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic.
On Monday, Hamas continued to attack Israeli territory from the air. Rockets launched by the group hit cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. A rocket exploded near Ben Gurion International Airport.
Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces have also been reported since Saturday in the West Bank, the Palestinian territory that is separate from the Gaza Strip, and which in turn is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas’ more moderate rival. According to the United Nations, 17 Palestinians died in clashes with the Israelis. More than 200 have been injured.
Pressure for a ground invasion
At the moment, pressure is growing among sectors of the Israeli government for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, which is tightly controlled by the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas. Israel called up 300,000 reservists after Saturday’s attacks. Tanks have been deployed in the vicinity of the Palestinian enclave.
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to “avenge” the weekend massacres, warned Palestinians to leave areas of Gaza where Hamas operates. But with Gaza isolated and under siege, residents say they have nowhere to run.
The last Israeli operation in Gaza that included a ground invasion took place in 2014, and left more than 2,000 dead in the strip, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations. Since then, Israel has preferred to carry out only air operations against Hamas, also as a way of limiting potential casualties of Israeli ground troops. But after Saturday’s massacre, different Israeli political and military sectors began to press for more drastic measures against Hamas.
“Anything less than an invasion will be a grave mistake. We need to conquer Gaza, or at least most of it, and destroy Hamas. We can’t keep doing the same things we did before and which aren’t working,” said Amir Avivi, former deputy commander of the Gaza Division of Israel’s armed forces.
Israeli troops occupied Gaza for almost four decades between the 1960s and 2000s. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the enclave. Shortly afterwards, however, the area fell under the complete control of Hamas, which expelled moderate Palestinian politicians and imposed a fundamentalist regime. Since 2007, Israel and Egypt – which also opposes Hamas – have imposed a severe economic and circulation blockade on the enclave, which has become even more impoverished during this period.
However, Hamas’ seizure of dozens of Israeli hostages, including women and elderly people, who were taken through Gaza, should complicate potential ground invasion plans. A spokesman for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of Hamas, said on Monday that Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip has already killed four Israeli hostages. Hamas has also threatened to kill hostages if the Israeli bombardment of the enclave continues.
A new land invasion also raises fears of another bloodbath. Gaza’s urban areas are among the most densely populated on the planet.
More than 900 killed in Israel’s “9/11”
The Hamas attack is already one of the most serious events in Israeli history. The last comparable major episode, the bloody Second Intifada in the early 2000s, killed more than a thousand Israelis, but over the course of four years of open conflict with the Palestinians. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, more than 2,500 Israeli soldiers died in two weeks of conflict with Syria and Egypt. The hundreds of Israeli deaths in the Hamas attack were recorded in just one day. The latest tally showed that of the 900 killed by Hamas in Israeli territory, 123 were military or police. The rest were civilians.
As well as murdering hundreds, including children, Hamas has kidnapped dozens in Israel, including foreign citizens, and taken them to Gaza. Many were kidnapped from the music festival that was the target of the attack, but military and police personnel were also reportedly taken.
Earlier on Monday, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, described Saturday’s events as devastating. “This is by far the worst day in Israel’s history. Never before have so many Israelis been killed by a single thing in a single day.”
He also said that the day could be compared to a combination of “9/11 and Pearl Harbor”, in reference to the attacks suffered by the US in 2001 and the Japanese surprise attack on the Pearl Harbor base in 1941, which marked the American entry into the Second World War.
jps (DW, ots) *** Translated by DEFCONPress FYI Team ***