JERUSALEM –
Israel fought Hamas intruders for a third day on Monday, massing tens of thousands of troops near the Gaza Strip and taking steps toward a full siege of the coastal area that has served as a springboard for Palestinian militants to launch the biggest attack on Israeli soil in decades.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called for a “complete closure” of the Mediterranean enclave and told army commanders in southern Israel that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into the Gaza Strip, where about 2.3 Millions of people live people.
Israel has long controlled all formal entry points into Gaza, except for a tiny border with Egypt, which is also blocked. Israel cut power to the territory soon after Hamas’s surprise cross-border attack on land, sea and air on Saturday – a devastating attack whose scale, complexity and death toll had military historians reaching back half a century for comparisons.
Stunned Israelis described the attack as the country’s 9/11, raising angry questions about how the country’s vaunted security establishment could have been so unprepared.
“We have difficult days ahead,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationally televised address on Monday evening. He called for national unity and repeated his promise that Hamas’s operating bases would be “totally destroyed.”
An Israeli land invasion of Gaza appeared increasingly possible as the total death toll on both sides exceeded 1,500, including at least 11 Americans.
From the air, Israeli warplanes, helicopters and artillery bombed the Gaza Strip for the second straight night, hitting more than 500 targets that the Israeli military said were linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller extremist group. Hamas, in turn, launched volleys of bombardment on Israeli cities, with rockets hitting the southern city of Ashkelon.
Israel has carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip since Hamas militants crossed the border in a surprise attack.
(Fatima Shbair / Associated Press)
Gaza residents described frightening scenes amid thunderous airstrikes, particularly in areas near targeted high-rise buildings that collapsed in thick clouds of dust and debris.
There were no vehicles on the streets and crowds of people fled the center of Gaza City on foot, many with only the clothes they were wearing or a few possessions they could steal. Some said they received messages from the Israeli army asking them to leave a neighborhood in central Gaza City.
The prospect of a siege and invasion emerged as Israel struggled to regain full control of a number of small southern communities that faced a highly coordinated, multi-pronged attack by Gaza militants before dawn on Saturday, a military spokesman told reporters.
Late Monday morning, the Israeli military said the fighting had fallen to “isolated” clashes but that some of the intruders could still be in the area.
“It is taking longer than expected to get things back to a defensive security situation,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, the military spokesman. “We thought we were in full control until yesterday. I hope we can do it at the end of the day.”
Hecht added that more militants could enter Israel from Gaza because not all breakthroughs in the border fence around the enclave have been blocked.
Across Israel, daily life was turned upside down as reservists reported for duty, harrowing news reports filled the airwaves and flights to the main international airport were restricted. Volunteers rushed to donate blood and most schools remained closed. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said Israel had mobilized 300,000 reservists in 48 hours – an unprecedentedly rapid call-up.
People take cover at a shelter in Ashkelon, Israel, as a siren warns of incoming rockets from the Gaza Strip.
(Ohad Zwigenberg / Associated Press)
Troops gathered in fields about five miles north of the Gaza border alongside tanks, towed artillery, Humvees and other military vehicles. Late Monday afternoon, a group of soldiers quickly got off a bus and sought the safety of a roadside when Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system kicked into action, firing a rapid stream of rockets into the sky to intercept incoming Hamas fire in a furious billow of smoke .
Another soldier nearby, a 20-year-old lieutenant who identified himself only as Sar for privacy reasons, marveled at the breathtaking nature of the past 48 hours.
“I never thought this would happen. On Saturday I sat at home. Then my commander calls me to the base. I’ll be here next,” he said. “I expect this will be hard for Gaza. My only hope is that my soldiers get home safely.”
Smoke and fire from an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip on October 8, 2023.
(Fatima Shbair / Associated Press)
The military said Israel’s death toll rose to at least 900, but the toll was marred by chaotic conditions in some of the areas overrun by the surprise attack, in which Israeli civilians were shot dead at bus stops and on highways. or they take refuge in barricaded rooms in their houses.
President Biden said at least 11 Americans were among the dead and that others were still missing.
“Although we are still working on confirmation, we believe it is likely that American citizens are among those held by Hamas,” he said. “I have directed my team to cooperate with their Israeli counterparts on all aspects of the hostage crisis, including sharing intelligence information and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult and assist Israeli counterparts in hostage recovery efforts advise.”
At least 150 Israelis, including the elderly and entire families with children, are believed to remain held captive in Gaza. Many of them were arrested in the first hours of the attack and dragged into the enclave.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, said on the group’s messaging app channel Telegram that four “enemy prisoners” and their captors were killed in Israeli strikes overnight and Monday morning. Later, as fears for the hostages’ safety grew, Abu Ubaida threatened to execute civilian prisoners if the airstrikes continued, Hamas-affiliated media reported.
In the deadliest single episode of Saturday’s large-scale attack and one of the worst mass killings of civilians in Israel’s modern history, Palestinian gunmen staged a late-night outdoor dance party in the desert, not far from the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Traumatized survivors reported that militants systematically hunted down those who tried to flee in their cars or hide in nearby forest areas.
The Israeli rescue service Zaka said on Monday that paramedics had recovered at least 260 bodies. The festival site was cordoned off by police and soldiers on Monday and those who tried to approach were told there was ongoing fighting and the area remained dangerous.
Dozens remained missing and social media platforms were flooded with frantic appeals from relatives trying to locate their loved ones who were at the festival. Some of them were last seen in exuberant TikTok videos early Saturday, shortly before the strike.
On the highway from Jerusalem to southern Israel, Adir Oanunu stood and looked at a bloodstain on the divider that he said came from a Hamas fighter killed two days ago.
“He came with this bike and stood on the highway and shot at cars,” said Oanunu, 34, pointing to a vehicle riddled with bullets. “The police caught him.”
As evening fell, more checkpoints sprung up along the highway, with visibly nervous soldiers pointing their machine guns at passing vehicles while others stepped forward to question the occupants.
In Gaza, Israeli strikes targeted several multi-story buildings, including the residence of Rawhi Mustafa, a member of Hamas’ political leadership, which the Israeli military said was used as a command center.
Palestinian officials said the death toll in Gaza had risen to over 680 as of Monday evening, with more than 3,700 people injured.
Residents of Ashkelon, Israel, seek shelter in an emergency shelter as a siren warns of rocket fire.
(Ohad Zwigenberg / Associated Press)
The plight of the population held by Hamas will complicate any Israeli land invasion of the crowded coastal strip, as well as any political or diplomatic moves by Israel’s far-right government once the fighting stops.
Nobody knows when that will happen. Netanyahu warned his compatriots on Sunday of a protracted conflict as Israel seeks to retaliate and inflict a decisive defeat on Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for more than 15 years.
On a road south of Jerusalem, the signs of the country’s transition to a state of war were obvious. Hundreds of reservists gathered near a military base to join the mobilization for the “difficult war” that Netanyahu warned about. Further back, long lines of cars waited at a checkpoint, and police inspected each vehicle for Hamas fighters.
The Israeli Air Force said in a statement that targets in the Gaza Strip included rocket launchers, a mosque used by militants as a base of operations and 21 high-rise buildings where militant activity took place. In a statement, Hamas accused Israel of attacking “houses, mosques and schools inhabited by women and children.”
Underscoring fears about continued incursions from Gaza, officials in Sderot, a small Israeli town about 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Gaza Strip border, called on residents to barricade themselves in their homes.
“Lock doors and windows and do not open them to strangers,” the municipality of Sderot told residents in a bulletin.
A mosque in Gaza City was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.
(Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto)
Humanitarian conditions in Gaza, already dramatically desperate, worsened with the conflict. The U.N. humanitarian agency said nearly 125,000 people have been displaced in the impoverished enclave since hostilities broke out on Saturday.
The Israeli military says a quartet of armed men have slipped across the Lebanese border into northern Israel, underscoring the risk of the conflict escalating into a regional conflagration. It said Israeli soldiers had killed “armed suspects” and that their helicopters had carried out attacks in the area.
Portal news agency later quoted a source from Hezbollah, the anti-Israel Lebanese Shiite militant group, as saying it had not conducted any operations on Israeli soil on Monday. On Sunday, the group said it had fired artillery and guided missiles at the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon “in solidarity” with the Palestinians.
Bulos reported from Jerusalem and King from Toulouse, France. Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson and Courtney Subramanian in Washington contributed to this report.