Harrowing images of injured and bloody children fleeing hellfire in Gaza and Israel show the devastating impact of the conflict, which has claimed over 1,500 lives in just three days.
Hamas leaders last night threatened to execute civilian hostages if Israel continued its retaliatory airstrikes against Gaza.
The Islamist group’s military wing said it would kill a prisoner every time houses were hit “without prior warning.”
Israel is bombing Gaza from the air after Hamas launched a surprise terror attack on Saturday that killed more than 900 people and arrested about 130 others. Authorities in Gaza said Israeli airstrikes hit a refugee camp, a hospital and mosques, killing 687 people and wounding another 2,900.
As the bloody conflict enters its fourth day, shocking photos from the ground offer a chilling glimpse of the atrocities taking place as both sides continue to trade blows and lives, with innocent children and civilians caught in the middle.
Amid the horrors of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, innocent lives are being claimed on both sides. Pictured: A fireball erupts in Gaza City on Monday
GAZA: A medic holds a little girl whose face is covered in blood and dirt from the impact of Israeli planes bombing Gaza on Monday
GAZA CITY: Palestinian girl walks on the rubble of destroyed buildings after Israeli airstrikes on the Shati refugee camp
GAZA CITY: As the war rages on, wounded children are being treated in hospital for their injuries
ASHKELON, ISRAEL: Police officers evacuate a woman and child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip
ASHKELON, ISRAEL: Israeli police officers evacuate a family from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip
ASHKELON, ISRAEL: Israelis – including a child – evacuate a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip
GAZA CITY: A wounded child is taken for medical care after being caught in an airstrike
GAZA CITY: A child injured in an Israeli airstrike is taken to hospital as the death toll rose higher
GAZA: A medic holds a crying little girl after she was pulled from the scene of the Gaza bombing on Monday
Desperate parents have been photographed with their children in their arms as they run through war zones in search of medical help.
Other photos show injured children receiving medical attention in hospitals, while young children look lost as they navigate the rubble and climb to safety through billowing smoke.
Images too shocking to publish show heartbroken parents carrying the bodies of innocent children who lost their lives at tragically young ages during the conflict.
Heartbroken parents also had to bury their innocent children who had no part in the bloody violence.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday evening: “I recognize the legitimate grievances of the Palestinians.” But nothing can justify these acts of terrorism and the killing, maiming and kidnapping of civilians. “I recognize Israel’s legitimate security concerns, but also remind that Israeli civilians must be respected and protected at all times.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Hamas worse than ISIS in a scathing speech in which he vowed to destroy it.
“Children were executed and entire families exterminated by Arab terrorists,” he complained. “There were atrocities that I will not describe here. “Hamas is ISIS and we will destroy them, just as the world defeated ISIS.”
It comes as pro-Palestinian activists lit flares and fireworks and declared: “There shall be bloodshed” as heated protests took place across Britain last night.
Police arrested three people on Monday evening following protests in front of the Israeli embassy in London. Further arrests are possible following damage to a property on Kensington High Street.
Of those arrested, one was arrested for assaulting an emergency worker, another for racially motivated assault and the third for possession of an offensive weapon, the Metropolitan Police said.
Palestinian and Israeli supporters clashed in a London Underground station as police desperately tried to maintain peace in a night of anger.
Video showed dozens of police trying to separate protesters at High Street Kensington tube station in west London, while more than 1,000 pro-Palestinian activists gathered on the streets outside.
On High Street Kensington, protesters were seen setting off fireworks – some towards the boarded-up Israeli embassy – as Palestine supporters told Web there is “no way to change the Middle East peacefully”.
In stark contrast to the dancing, chanting and torch-lighting in Kensington – and other heated protests across the UK – weeping Israelis gathered outside Downing Street to hold a vigil for Hamas’s victims and hostages.
GAZA CITY: An emergency worker carries an injured child at Al-Shifa Hospital
GAZA: A man carries the draped body of a child from the Palestinian Abu Hilal family, who was killed along with other relatives in an Israeli airstrike
GAZA: In this screenshot from a video, a paramedic runs while carrying an injured Palestinian child to the ambulance
GAZA CITY: A Palestinian child walks past damaged cars amid the rubble of an area devastated after Israeli airstrikes
A Palestinian carries a child rescued from the Tattari family’s home, which was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City
A rocket explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli airstrike on October 8, 2023. Israel, reeling from the deadliest attack on its territory in half a century, formally declared war on Hamas on Sunday as the death toll in the conflict rose to nearly 1,000
Flames and smoke rose from Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Monday
A member of the Israeli security forces stands near a car hit by a rocket fired from Gaza in the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 9
Rockets will be fired from Gaza into Israel on Monday. There are no signs of the conflict ending
Benjamin Netanyahu has called up 300,000 army reservists and announced a ground attack against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Pictured: Damage caused by Hamas bags in Ashdod, Israel
Israeli soldiers stand guard near damage caused by a rocket after it was fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on October 9
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men inspect a damaged road in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Beitar Illit after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip
On Monday there was destruction in Ashkelon, Israel, caused by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip
This photo shows damaged cars along a desert road after an attack by Hamas terrorists on a music festival
Benjamin Netanyahu has called up 300,000 army reservists and announced a ground attack against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister has reportedly told US President Joe Biden: “We have to go in, we can’t negotiate now.” “We have to restore deterrence.” He has vowed to use “tremendous force” to punish Hamas, and said Israel’s actions would “transform the Middle East.”
The rising death toll sparked chilling threats to execute hostages seized in Saturday’s deadly attacks, the bloodiest on Israeli soil in 50 years.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, threatened to execute the hostages one by one and film their killings.
Spokesman Abu Obeida said: “We have decided to put an end to this with immediate effect and we declare that any attack on our people in their homes without prior warning will unfortunately result in the execution of one of the civilians we are holding hostage.” ‘
Israel warned that any harm to the hostages constituted a war crime and “will not be forgiven.”
The threats of escalating violence came as follows:
- Israel warned its citizens to prepare and store food in safe rooms and bomb shelters for three days;
- Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel after four of its members were killed by Israeli fire;
- At least ten British citizens were reportedly among the dead and missing;
- Harrowing stories continued to emerge about families killed in Saturday’s attacks;
- As pro-Palestinian groups celebrated the terrorist attacks, anti-Semitic graffiti was spotted across London.
- Labor’s conference was marred by another anti-Semitism scandal after a shadow minister posed with a pro-Palestinian group;
- The BBC has been criticized for its refusal to call Hamas terrorists.
Al Qassam’s threat to execute hostages has further heightened tensions in the region. Hamas has continued to send rockets from Gaza to Israel, which has promised a “complete siege” of the territory to cut off supplies of food, water, electricity and fuel.
Gaza has been hit by up to 1,000 airstrikes since Israel’s Operation Swords began. His officials compared Saturday’s attacks to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States or the Pearl Harbor bombing.
In a televised address to the nation last night, Mr Netanyahu warned that the three days of air strikes so far were just the beginning.
“We have just started attacking Hamas,” he said. “What we do to our enemies in the days to come will affect them for generations.”
He vowed to “do everything” to free those trapped in Gaza, adding: “I promise you, citizens: at the end of the war, our enemies will realize that attacking Israel was a terrible mistake.”
He compared Hamas’ actions to the atrocities of the Islamic State group, in which prisoners were tied up and killed.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said: “In my opinion, not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day.”
“And since the Holocaust, we have not seen scenes of Jewish women and children, grandparents – even Holocaust survivors – being crammed into trucks and taken into captivity.”
Smoke rises above buildings as Israeli airstrikes continue in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza, on October 9
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said Israelis had been warned to “prepare for a three-day stay in bomb shelters/safe spaces.”
Rishi Sunak chaired an emergency Cobra meeting and was due to speak to Mr Biden and key European leaders to coordinate a response.
The prime minister pledged to provide diplomatic, intelligence and security support to Israel upon request. At an event last night, Mr Sunak said: “Terrorism will not prevail.”
He told the Future Resilience Forum: “Israel has the absolute right to defend itself and deter further incursions.”
“We are working with the Israeli authorities to support them and we are doing everything we can to support British citizens caught up in the attacks and the families of those who lost their lives.”
Downing Street said up to 60,000 British nationals could be in Israel and Gaza.
Mr Sunak visited a London synagogue last night to show his support for Israel – and later condemned Hamas in a joint statement with his French, German, American and Italian counterparts.
The prime minister was hailed as a “great and wonderful friend” of Israel and the Jewish people.
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis told a congregation at Finchley United Synagogue in north London that Mr Sunak had “turned your schedule upside down to be here”.
Sir Ephraim said: “Good friends are able to distinguish between the forces of darkness and the forces of light, between true and false, between right and wrong.” And Prime Minister, you are a great and wonderful friend to our Jewish community and from the State of Israel.’
Mr Sunak told those present: “I wanted to come here this evening to stand with you, to stand with you in this hour of grief, as we mourn the victims of an absolutely heinous terrorist attack, to stand with you in this hour of prayer,” if we think of the hostages and their friends and relatives who are seeking refuge in air raid shelters or risking their lives at the front.
Israeli soldiers scan an area as sirens sound as rockets are fired from Gaza towards Israel near Sderot in southern Israel on Monday
Israeli army reinforcements take up positions in front of the southern town of Sderot, near the border with Gaza, on Monday
Israeli soldiers gather near tanks as violence increases in the nearby Gaza Strip following a mass attack by armed Palestinian invaders on Monday
In the early hours of the morning, Israel continued its relentless attacks on the Gaza Strip
After the attacks on Saturday morning, Hamas took dozens of Israeli civilians hostage
Israelis walk past a blown-up police station in Sderot, which was destroyed in a battle with Hamas militants who had taken over the building
An Israeli soldier drives armored vehicles en route to the southern border with the Gaza Strip in Sderot, Israel, Oct. 8, 2023. The country is preparing a comprehensive counteroffensive against the terrorist organization
“And perhaps most of all, I wanted to come here tonight to stand with you in solidarity in Israel’s hour of need.”
“As Prime Minister of this country, I am clear. The people who support Hamas bear full responsibility for this horrific attack.
“They are not militants.” They are not freedom fighters. They are terrorists.’
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.
In a joint statement with his French, German, American and Italian counterparts on Monday evening, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed his “unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and its horrific acts of terrorism.”
The communique was issued after a joint phone call between Mr Sunak, French President Macron, German Chancellor Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Meloni and US President Biden.
The five leaders said: “We make clear that Hamas’s terrorist actions have no justification, no legitimacy and must be universally condemned.”
Israel has no choice but to meet force with force. The only democracy in the Middle East has every right to defend itself (Image: Gaza on Sunday)
Fire and smoke rise after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City
“There is never any justification for terrorism.” In recent days, the world has watched in horror as Hamas terrorists massacred families in their homes, slaughtered over 200 young people at a music festival, and kidnapped elderly women, children and entire families are now being held hostage.
“Our countries will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities.”
They added: “We all recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and support equal standards of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.” But make no mistake: Hamas does not represent these aspirations and offers nothing but the Palestinian people more terror and bloodshed.
“In the coming days, we will remain united and coordinated, together as allies and as mutual friends of Israel, to ensure that Israel is able to defend itself and ultimately to create the conditions for a peaceful and integrated Middle East region create.”