In the midst of the Shabbat break and the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the war caught Israel off guard. The multiple and coordinated attacks by the Gaza militias, with thousands of rockets, the infiltration of their fighters and the kidnapping of Israeli civilians and soldiers, were not only unexpected and unprecedented, but have left the Jewish state and intelligence battered. and in evidence within its territory, and even in Gaza, where it always has its eyes.
Both, Israel and the Palestinian militias, are thus in an open war that has accumulated hundreds of deaths (more than 200 on the Israeli side and 256 on the Palestinian side, according to a latest report last night), after the armed groups - with Hamas at the head – will begin on Saturday a coordinated offensive by land, air and even sea from six-thirty in the morning.
An offensive that, apart from Hamas' war speeches, cannot be understood without the daily violence and inequality suffered by Palestinians in the occupied territories, plus the attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, the violations of the status quo in the esplanade of the Mosques or the imprisonment of Palestinians. All this, in the context of the current – but now uncertain – rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The usual projectile launches from the enclave served as a kind of smokescreen for militant incursions into communities bordering Gaza.
Without a doubt, this attack has represented a leap in scale in relation to previous ones: militiamen who, in some cases using parachutes, and causing gaps and large openings in the border fence, managed to enter Israel, invaded Israeli forces facilities and captured to residents.
Shoval Kahlon, a resident of Sderot, described the initial confusion to Israeli public radio Kan. “We thought they were the usual rocket attacks, but we started hearing gunshots in the street. We realized that it was something unprecedented and we began to see Hamas members in vans. “They knocked on the doors of the homes of residents, who they thought were Israeli soldiers, and took them hostage.”
The attack, of unusual timing, opened the way to an unthinkable scenario: while the incessant rain of rockets set off anti-aircraft alarms even in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem – and, in some cases, managed to breach the Iron Dome anti-aircraft defense –, Street-to-street clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militiamen occurred in several communities in the south.
The massive assault by Hamas and other Palestinian militias, dubbed the Al-Aqsa Flood and which consisted of the launching of more than 2,000 projectiles, left more than 300 Israelis dead and more than 1,100 injured, as well as an unknown number of kidnapped people ( some sources speak of fifty), about which there are few details, beyond videos that have circulated on social networks, with some of them supposedly being transferred to Gaza.
After the intense battles fought tonight, Hebrew troops have regained control of 29 places inside Israel that were taken yesterday by Hamas, but fighting continues in eight points. Among the places where clashes continue, the cities of Sderot and Beeri stand out, where the situation in terms of victims is critical.
In one of these recordings, Yoni Asher claimed to have seen that his wife, his two children and his mother-in-law had been taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz to Gazan territory. “I don't know what is happening,” he admitted in dialogue with Kan, while asking for help in different Israeli media to contact his family.
This is a point of extreme sensitivity and one that could be decisive in the dimension of escalation and the Israeli response. Without going any further, in 2006, the capture of Israeli soldier Gilat Shalit was the trigger for a large-scale ground invasion by Israeli forces in Gaza, the first since the deoccupation of the Strip in 2005. Rumors of an incursion by land they have been in the air all Saturday night, something that has not happened since 2014.
However, the initial response of the Israeli army, after the shock of the first hours, has been a series of bombings and air attacks on Hamas positions in Gaza, which have also been maintained and promise to be extended in the coming days, in an enclave with more than two million people under blockade, without space to react, with fear and, in attacks like this, with a greater shortage of medical, energy or food resources.
At the time of writing, the Gaza Ministry of Health had confirmed that, both as a result of the Israeli counteroffensive and the clashes in southern Israel, around 232 Palestinians have died and more than 1,600 have been injured, and that among them are a journalist, a nurse and an ambulance driver.
In addition, at least two members of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas have been killed and a missile launcher destroyed in an Israeli drone attack carried out tonight in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army reported.
Likewise, in another drone attack, "a terrorist cell" that was trying to infiltrate Israel through Zikim beach was destroyed, while another armed group that was trying to penetrate Israeli territory from the center of the strip was repelled, the source indicated. .
Meanwhile, warplanes struck a Hamas operational headquarters used by the Palestinian group to carry out rocket attacks, and another belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Israeli military said.
Early on, anticipating the foreseeable Israeli attacks, many Gazans left their homes in areas near the border with Israel and others rushed to get basic belongings for the coming days. “I'm scared,” Amal Abu Daqqa, a Palestinian woman, told Reuters news agency as she left her home in Khan Younis.
Already in the evening, Israel's Energy Ministry ordered the cutting of electricity supplies in Gaza, anticipating what retired Israeli Major General Giora Eiland said will be “a total and very strong siege” of the Strip.
“Israel is going to take all the measures typical of two nations at war. Not only will it suspend the passage of people from Gaza to Israel, but it will stop the supply of gasoline, electricity, food or water,” the military officer stressed.
Previously, in his first public appearance, Israeli Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu noted that Israel “is at war,” one that “we are going to win” and promised that “the enemy will pay a price never known.” Later, in a cabinet meeting, he outlined three objectives for the Israeli counteroffensive, called Iron Swords: regain control in the south, apply “a high cost to the enemy” in Gaza (with a “powerful and prolonged” operation, as he indicated Netanyahu in telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden) and “fortify other territories so that no one makes the mistake of joining this war.”
In a later speech, Netanyahu said that Israel was going to take revenge on Hamas, “but this will take time,” in a warning that the conflict may last more days than anticipated in the first hours. In addition, he urged Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, warning that he would reduce the militants' hideouts "to rubble."
This is another aspect that can set the tone for this escalation, the level of involvement of the Palestinian militias in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem or the eventual support of the Hizbullah militia from Lebanon or other Islamist movements in Syria. or Iraq, to which the head of Hamas's military wing, Mohamed Deif, appealed in an unusual message.
Along these lines, the political leader of the Islamist movement, Ismail Haniye, predicted that the assault launched from Gaza will expand to the West Bank and Jerusalem. A forecast that found its first echoes on the ground with riots, protests and confrontations in Jericho, Ramallah, Hebron and Qalqiliya, points in the West Bank in which the incidents left at least four dead. Some unrest was also reported in East Jerusalem, both in the Shuafat refugee camp and in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood.
