JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military ordered a full siege of the Gaza Strip on Monday, cutting off deliveries of food, fuel and supplies to its 2.3 million residents as it retaliated against the Hamas-ruled militants’ bloody attacks Area bombed with waves of airstrikes weekend getaway.
More than two days after Hamas’ surprise attack, the Israeli military said it had largely gained control in its southern cities where it had been fighting Hamas gunmen. Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence apparatus was caught completely unprepared by Hamas, leading to heavy fighting on its streets for the first time in decades.
Israeli tanks and drones have been used to guard breaches in the Gaza border fence and prevent new attacks. Thousands of Israelis were evacuated from more than a dozen towns near Gaza and the military called up 300,000 reservists – a massive mobilization in a short period of time.
These moves, as well as Israel’s formal declaration of war on Sunday, indicate that Israel is increasingly taking the offensive against Hamas and threatening greater destruction in the densely populated, impoverished Gaza Strip.
The big question remains whether Israel will launch a ground attack on the tiny Mediterranean coastal area, a move that has led to greater casualties in the past.
In recent years there have been repeated conflicts between Israel and Hamas, often triggered by tensions surrounding a holy site in Jerusalem. This time the context has become potentially more explosive, with both sides talking about using force to break a years-long Israeli-Palestinian deadlock created by the moribund peace process.
Israel was stunned by a surprise attack and a death toll unprecedented since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. This is fueling calls to crush Hamas at all costs rather than continuing to try to contain it in Gaza. Israel is led by the most right-wing government ever, dominated by ministers who strongly oppose any Palestinian statehood.
Hamas, for its part, says it is prepared for a long fight to end the Israeli occupation, which it says is no longer tolerable. Desperation has grown among Palestinians. Many of them see nothing to lose from endless Israeli control and increasing settler looting in the West Bank, the blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world’s apathy.
“I ask you to stand firm because we will transform the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told authorities in the south on Monday. “I know you have been through terrible and difficult things. What Hamas will go through will be difficult and terrible…we have only just begun.”
In the early evening, explosions reverberated across Jerusalem as a volley of rockets fired from Gaza hit two neighborhoods – a sign of Hamas’s reach. Israeli media said seven were injured.
On Sunday, Israeli strikes leveled much of the Gaza city of Beit Hanoun, which Israel says Hamas uses as a staging area. On Monday, the Israeli military loudly urged residents to evacuate Rimal, a residential and commercial district in central Gaza City that is home to offices of the Associated Press and other international media, a sign that serious attacks are imminent.
As Israel struck more than 1,000 targets in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian militants continued to fire rocket fire and set off airstrike sirens in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
According to Israeli media citing emergency services, around 700 people were killed in Israel, including 73 soldiers – a shocking number given the scale of recent conflicts. The Gaza Health Ministry said 493 people, including 78 children and 41 women, were killed in the area. Thousands were injured on both sides.
Palestinian militant groups said they were holding more than 130 people kidnapped in Israel and trafficked to Gaza. Hamas’ armed wing claimed on its Telegram channel that four of them had been killed in Israeli airstrikes. This could not be independently confirmed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip and said authorities would cut off electricity and block imports of food and fuel.
Gallant said Israel was at war with “human animals,” using the dehumanizing language both sides often use at times of rising tensions.
Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of blockade on Gaza since Hamas came to power in 2007. In recent years, Israel has provided limited electricity and allowed imports of food, fuel and some consumer goods, while severely restricting entry and exit.
The Israeli seal will leave the Gaza Strip almost entirely, depending on its passage to neighboring Egypt in Rafah, where cargo capacities are lower than other crossings to Israel.
An Egyptian military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said more than two tons of medical supplies had been sent to Gaza by the Egyptian Red Crescent and that efforts were being made to deliver food and other supplies organize. but the question of fuel approval had not yet been decided.
Israeli Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that Israeli bombings were moving from district to district, destroying homes and buildings that Israel says are used by Hamas. Israel plans to attack thousands of targets, he said. He said “hundreds” of Hamas fighters were buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel in the last 48 hours. His information about the numbers – and his classification of the dead as Hamas – could not be confirmed.
An Israeli airstrike killed 19 people, including women and children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah early Monday, said Talat Barhoum, a doctor at the local Al-Najjar hospital. Barhoum said planes hit the Abu Hilal family home and one of those killed was Rafaat Abu Hilal, a leader of a local armed group. The strike caused damage to nearby homes.
According to the United Nations, more than 123,000 people have fled their homes in Gaza – many following Israeli warnings of impending bombardment. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school housing more than 225 people was hit directly. It was not said where the fire came from.
Meanwhile, after about 48 hours of open fighting, Hagari said the military was in “control” of its border communities in southern Israel. He said 15 of 24 border communities had been evacuated and the rest were expected to be cleared next day.
Earlier, Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua told the Associated Press by telephone that the group’s fighters continued to fight outside the Gaza Strip and had captured more Israelis as recently as Monday morning.
He said the group aims to free all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which has in the past agreed to unilateral swap deals in which it has released large numbers of prisoners in exchange for individual prisoners or even the remains of soldiers.
The prisoners include soldiers and civilians, including women, children and older adults, mostly Israelis but also some people of other nationalities. Egypt’s state-run newspaper Al-Ahram said on Monday that Egyptian officials are trying to broker the release of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons in exchange for Israeli women held captive by militants.
Mayyan Zin, a divorced mother of two, said she learned that her two daughters had been kidnapped when a relative sent her photos from a Telegram group of them sitting on mattresses in captivity. Then she found online videos of a frightening scene in her ex-husband’s house: armed men who had broken in were talking to him near his two crying daughters, Dafna (15) and Ella (8). Another video showed the father being taken to Gaza.
“Just take my daughters home and be with their family. All the people,” Zin said.
Hamas has ruled Gaza since ousting troops loyal to the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007, and its rule has remained unchallenged during the blockade and four previous wars with Israel.
After breaching Israeli barriers with explosives at dawn on Saturday, an estimated 1,000 Hamas gunmen rampaged for hours, gunning down civilians and kidnapping people in cities, along highways and at a techno music festival attended by thousands in the desert. According to the military, Palestinian militants also fired around 4,400 rockets into Israel.
On Sunday, the United States sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean to support Israel and said it would send additional military aid.
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This story has been updated to correct the Palestinian family’s name to Abu Quta, rather than Abu Outa.
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Adwan reported from Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Wafaa Shurafa in Gaza City; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Bassem Mroue in Beirut; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.