Escalation of Violence in Gaza: Aerial Strikes, Rocket Attacks, and Hostages

The Reuters agency wrote almost simultaneously with the announcement of the airstrikes that a witness had reported explosions in the central part of the Strip and in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it deployed dozens of aircraft and used over 16 tons of ammunition.

The aim of the attack was to destroy the facilities of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Authority, the Israelis also targeted a hospital in the north of the area. The Gaza Ministry of Health reported at least one dead at the time.

After Saturday morning’s Palestinian attack, the Israeli army announced the launch of Operation Iron Sword and is mobilizing tens of thousands of reservists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that “the enemy will pay a price he has never known before.”

AFP reported that hundreds of people had previously fled their homes in the northeastern Gaza Strip deeper into the area between Israel and Egypt.

The number of victims is increasing

At least 22 people were killed in Israel this morning after Hamas rocket attacks, the death toll rose to more than 300 on Sunday morning and 1,860 Israelis were injured. This is reported by Israeli and foreign media with reference to the Israeli rescue service. The toll from the surprise rocket and ground attack, which occurred during Shabbat and at the turn of the Israeli holidays of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, is expected to continue to rise. Aerial salvos were also reported in the evening, Hamas allegedly fired hundreds more rockets. Fighting with militants who have infiltrated border communities continues, and reports are mounting that the attackers are taking Israelis hostage and abducting them into the Gaza Strip.

According to the Israeli army, Palestinians fired over two thousand rockets during the morning, with impacts reported from Tel Aviv and the surrounding area, from the city of Ashkelon and areas further south. Israel’s Ministry of Health said after noon that over 70 injured were in serious condition.

Israel responded to the surprise attack with extensive airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. According to Palestinian health officials, at least 232 people died and another 1,700 were injured. Last night, according to BBC News, the Israeli army called on residents of seven areas of the Gaza Strip to leave their homes and move into shelters before the next wave of attacks against Hamas targets begins.

According to The New York Times (NYT), residents of Gaza reported heavy Israeli attacks throughout the night and into the early morning. One video shows a large commercial complex in Gaza City collapsing after the strike.

An unknown number of Palestinian militants have infiltrated areas near the borders of the Gaza Strip and are clashing with security forces. The Israeli police and military spoke about the fighting in several locations around midday, with the police reporting that they had 60 “terrorists” in 14 different locations.

Even in the evening, however, the Israelis still did not manage to get all the places under control. The reason for this is the fact that the Palestinians are being held hostage. In addition, the Israeli army cannot use heavy equipment in densely populated agglomerations.

In the Israeli media, there are statements from residents of the border areas who are begging the government for help barricaded in their homes. “They are massacring us. There is no army here, it is already six o’clock. People are begging for their lives,” Haaretz quoted an unnamed Israeli as saying.

“We know about civilians who are barricaded in various places. We urge everyone to stay behind closed doors, eventually we will get to everyone,” said Israeli police chief Kobi Shabtai. He said the police and army were dealing with several “war zones” and there were dead on both sides. One of the Israeli television stations previously reported the killing of five Palestinian militants in the city of Sderot near the Gaza Strip.

Hostages and civilian prisoners

At the same time, there are reports that militants are taking civilians hostage and even abducting them to the Gaza Strip. One woman told Channel 12 that she spoke to her father, who told her the attackers were at his house. “He told me he was kidnapping him… I saw pictures of him in Gaza,” she said.

Hamas subsequently published a video on social networks, which it says shows a group of captives, members of the Israeli army. The group also disseminates footage of alleged civilian captives being taken to Gaza. According to AFP, the images show at least three clearly frightened people being guarded by a group of men with digitally masked faces.

In addition to a large number of civilians and regular soldiers, the Palestinian fighters were also supposed to capture Israeli officers, Salih Aruri, the second-in-command of the Hamas movement, told Al Jazeera.

The Guardian newspaper, referring to Israeli media, wrote that Palestinians are holding hostages in several places in Israel and also in the Gaza Strip. According to the newspaper Haaretz, negotiations are now underway for the release of detained civilians, for example, in the kibbutzim in the cities of Beeri and Ofakim in the south of Israel.

For example, Channel 12 spoke to a man who claims he recognized his wife, two young children and mother-in-law in videos from Gaza. According to him, Hamas gunmen kidnapped them from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

“We will hold all hostages who are in the hands of resistance organizations until all our prisoners are released from Israeli prisons,” said a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad group, which operates in the occupied West Bank, according to Haaretz. “Everyone released from our side will have their price,” he added.

Surprised Secret Service

The Haaretz newspaper reports on its website that the Palestinian terrorists used parachutes or motor gliders during the attack and fought their way through the gates of the Gaza Strip guarded by the Israeli army. The Israeli secret services were apparently caught off guard by the offensive.

“The security of the Israeli border was completely unprepared, how could this happen? In some areas, the soldiers were not even there, and the Israelis called the media and called for help, that there was no one there to protect them,” explained analyst Břetislav Tureček from the Metropolitan University of Prague.

The Palestinian radical movement Hamas had to plan today’s attack on Israeli territory for months, today it called on Israeli Arabs and also militants in Lebanon to fight. “It is a tremendous shock that the Israeli state and the security apparatus will process for a long time,” said political scientist and security analyst Josef Kraus from Masaryk University in Brno.

He expects Israel to launch an investigation that will eventually show where the mistake happened. The fact that Israel has focused a lot on internal political events in recent months, on the problems of the government and Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose position according to experts is shaken, could have played a role.

“I can imagine that there were warning signals, information, but they have to be shared, evaluated, passed on, then someone has to react to them,” Kraus added. According to him, it is now impossible to predict whether the security apparatus made a mistake, or rather the political representation, which controls it.

According to Kraus, today’s incidents on the borders of Gaza and Israel are the most extensive in recent years, but the level of escalation still does not reach the level of war, even if that is how some Israeli officials describe the situation. On the part of Hamas, this is a typical asymmetric fight. The radicals are no match for the much better equipped Israeli army, so they choose hit-and-run tactics, trying to inflict maximum damage, their commandos attacking soldiers, police and civilians indiscriminately, then withdrawing again and expecting retaliation. “But the fact that they are able to cross that border is a real problem for the Israeli apparatus,” Kraus pointed out.

According to the expert, the further development of events in the region depends on how harsh the Israeli retaliation will be, which Hamas had anticipated in advance. If it causes civilian casualties on the Palestinian side, it could trigger a spiral of violence. It also depends on whether the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah becomes more active.

2023-10-08 05:00:00
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