- Recasts with Israel say border is secured, Blinken adds in talks with Israeli foreign minister
- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
- Israel says it is restoring control of the Gaza border
- Israel says there have been no new attacks since Monday
- Blinken discusses support for Israel in conversation with Cohen
JERUSALEM/GAZA, Oct 10 (Portal) – Israel said on Tuesday it had restored control of the Gaza border and was laying mines where Hamas militants collapsed the barrier in their bloody attack over the weekend, the enclave after another night of relentless Israeli airstrikes.
Israel’s latest round of airstrikes came after Hamas threatened to execute an Israeli prisoner every time Israel bombed a Palestinian home without warning.
The Israeli military also called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists and imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip, raising fears that it was planning a ground attack in response to the boldest and deadliest Hamas attack in decades.
The violence, which left more than 1,500 dead, sparked international declarations of support for Israel, street protests in support of Palestinians and calls to end the fighting and protect civilians.
Israeli television channels reported the death toll from the Hamas attack had risen to 900 Israelis, with at least 2,600 injured and dozens captured. The Israeli dead included 260 mostly young people who were shot at a music festival in the desert and some of the hostages kidnapped.
In remarks broadcast on Israeli Army Radio, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesman, said there had been no new infiltrations from Gaza since Monday. In an apparent response to rumors that gunmen were using cross-border tunnels, he said the military had no such intelligence.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday that at least 687 Palestinians had been killed and 3,726 injured in Israeli airstrikes on the blockaded enclave since Hamas’ attacks on Saturday.
According to media reports and eyewitnesses, apartment blocks, a mosque and hospitals were attacked, among others, and the strikes destroyed some streets and houses.
Israel also bombed the headquarters of the private Palestinian telecommunications company, which could affect landline telephony, Internet and cell phone services.
The strikes continued into the night on Monday. The Israeli military said it attacked targets in the Gaza Strip from sea and air, including a weapons depot said to belong to Islamic Jihad and Hamas targets along the Gaza Strip coast.
Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida threatened Monday to kill Israelis among the dozens held captive after Saturday morning’s surprise attack. He said that for every Israeli bombing of a civilian home, Hamas would execute an Israeli prisoner without warning and broadcast the execution.
There was no immediate response from the Israeli military to this threat. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were captured by Hamas in the deadly cross-border attack over the weekend.
Expelled from home
Palestinians reported receiving calls and cellphone audio messages from Israeli security officials urging them to leave areas mainly in the northern and eastern areas of the Gaza Strip and warning them that the army would operate there.
Dozens of people fled their homes in the Remal district of Gaza City.
“We took ourselves, children, grandchildren and daughters-in-law and ran away. I can say that we have become refugees. We have no safety and security. What kind of life is this? This is not life,” resident Salah Hanouneh, 73, said.
In southern Israel, the scene of the Hamas attack, Israel’s top military spokesman said troops had restored control of overrun communities inside Israel, but scattered clashes continued as some gunmen remained active.
The announcement that 300,000 reservists had been activated in just two days increased speculation that Israel might consider a ground attack on Gaza, a territory it abandoned nearly two decades ago.
[1/5]Palestinians watch as a fire burns in the rubble of a damaged residential building following Israeli attacks in Gaza City, October 10, 2023. Portal/Mohammed Salem acquires license rights
“We have never drafted so many reservists on this scale,” said Hagari. “We’re going on the offensive.”
Washington – which provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid each year – said it was sending new shipments of air defense, ammunition and other security assistance to Israel.
The United States’ top general warned Iran against interfering in the crisis, saying he did not want the conflict to worsen. Iran has made no secret of its support for Hamas and welcomed the weekend attack but denied any involvement.
“We want to send a pretty strong message. We don’t want this to escalate, and the idea is for Iran to send that message loud and clear,” Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him to Brussels.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed U.S. support for Israel in a phone call with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, the State Department said in a statement early Tuesday.
Blinken “reaffirmed our efforts to ensure the immediate release of all hostages,” the statement said.
Governments such as Italy, Thailand and Ukraine reported that their citizens died in Hamas attacks. In Washington, President Joe Biden announced that at least eleven Americans had been killed and that the hostages were likely to include US citizens.
As Israel carried out heavy retaliatory strikes against Gaza, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant sparked international condemnation by announcing a tightened blockade to prevent food and fuel from reaching the strip, home to 2.3 million people.
Hamas-affiliated media said at least 20 people were killed in Israeli attacks on homes in the Gaza Strip late Monday. Palestinian media also reported that two Palestinian journalists were killed and a third was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike on a building in Gaza City.
Portal could not immediately confirm the reports. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
INTERNATIONAL ANSWER
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said about 137,000 people were seeking protection from UNRWA, the U.N. agency that provides vital services to Palestinians.
The governments of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the US issued a joint statement recognizing the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and advocating equal standards of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
They also said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end the violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.
Qatari mediators urged to negotiate the freedom of Israeli women and children seized by Hamas in return for the release of 36 Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons.
The prospect that fighting could spread worried the region and the world.
The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in an Israeli shelling of Lebanon. Israel said one of its deputy commanders was killed in an earlier cross-border attack from Lebanon.
Reporting by Emily Rose, Maayan Lubell and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Ammar Anwar in Sderot; Additional reporting by Henriette Chacar and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Steven Scheer in Modiin and the Washington bureau; writing by Michael Perry and Stephen Coates; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
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