Netanyahu w*rns of “long and difficult” anti-H***s onslaught
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned of a “long and difficult” war, as fighting with Hamas left hundreds dead on both sides after a surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group.
The conflict’s bloodiest escalation in decades saw Hamas carry out a massive rocket barrage and ground, air and sea offensive Saturday that Israel’s army said had killed more than 200 Israelis and wounded 1,000, while soldiers and civilians were taken hostage.
Gaza officials said intense Israeli air strikes on the coastal enclave had brought the Palestinian death toll to at least 256, with nearly 1,788 wounded.
As fighting raged Sunday, Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said it had fired “large numbers of artillery shells and guided missiles” at Israeli positions in a contested border areas “in solidarity” with Hamas. Israel’s army had earlier said it fired artillery on southern Lebanon in response to a shot from the area without identifying the attackers.
“We are embarking on a long and difficult war that was forced on us by a murderous Hamas attack,” Netanyahu said on X, formerly Twitter, early Sunday.
“The first stage is ending at this time by the destruction of the vast majority of the enemy forces that infiltrated our territory,” he added, pledging no “respite” until victory.
Overnight Israel battered the Gaza Strip with air strikes as rockets from the blockaded Palestinians territory rained on Israel.
Sunday morning gun still battles raged between Israeli forces and hundreds of Hamas fighters in multiple locations, including at the Sderot police station across the border from Gaza.
Police and Israeli army special forces “neutralised 10 armed terrorists” who were holed up inside the station, a police statement said. The bloody air, sea and land attack launched Saturday by Hamas came half a century after the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, taking Israel and the world by surprise.
As the UN Security Council called an emergency meeting for Sunday, President Joe Biden voiced “rock solid and unwavering” support for the US ally and warned “against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation”.
The Israeli army said overnight its forces were still engaged in gun battles in a string of Israel locations, in an operation labelled “Swords of Iron”, as reservists were being called up.
Hamas earlier released images of several Israelis taken captive, and another army spokesman, Daniel Hagari, confirmed that soldiers and civilians had been kidnapped.
“I can’t give figures about them at the moment,” he said late Saturday, adding there was also a “severe hostage situation” in the Negev desert communities of Beeri and Ofakim east of Gaza.
According to Ynet Israeli news website “dozens of Israeli captives, including numerous women, children and elders, are believed to have been taken into the Gaza Strip”.The fighting prompted Israel to cut off Gaza’s electricity, fuel and goods supplies, Netanyahu said.
Israel’s nightmare scenario - armed Palestinian militants at large in the south of the country - began early on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath and festival of Simchat Torah.
Gunmen cut through the Gaza perimeter fence, storming into Israel on motorbikes, paragliders and by sea. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman said they numbered in the high hundreds, while more than 3,000 rockets were fired across Israel across the day. “They attacked dozens of Israeli communities and IDF bases and went door to door, house to house,” said Lt Col Jonathan Conricus.
“They executed Israeli civilians in cold blood in their homes and then continued to drag into Gaza Israeli civilians and military personnel. I’m talking women, children, elderly, disabled.”
Distressing videos emerged of Israeli civilians running for their lives from a festival in the desert, and of women being bundled into vehicles and kidnapped.
