Drone captures the devastation in Gaza during an Israeli counterattack
Gaza was hit by Israeli airstrikes in retaliation for the surprise attack by the militant group Hamas.
Israel stepped up its attack on Gaza on Tuesday, stepping up rocket attacks and tightening the blockade of food and fuel as the war entered its fourth day.
Israeli forces said they regained control of the Gaza border early Tuesday, three days after Hamas militants broke a barrier and launched an invasion that killed or kidnapped over 1,000 Israelis. At least 14 Americans were among the dead, US officials said.
Israeli Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the bodies of 1,500 militants were found in southern Israel. Hundreds more have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas health officials said.
A spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Obeida, said the group would kill a captured Israeli civilian every time Israel attacks civilians in Gaza “without prior warning.” Israel’s Arabic-language channels and social media platforms have given Gaza residents instructions to evacuate during the Israeli bombardment.
French President Emmanuel Macron backed US officials’ statements, saying his country had no evidence that Iran was directly involved in the Hamas attack. Involvement by Iran, which has denied any involvement in the attacks, could lead to an expansion of the war.
Developments:
∎ Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Israel on Thursday to “directly brief our Israeli partners on the situation on the ground” and offer U.S. assistance, the State Department said.
∎ Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday blamed US foreign policy for the war. Moscow has spoken to both Israel and the Palestinians to help find a solution, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
∎ According to the United Nations health agency, medical supplies provided to seven hospitals in the Gaza Strip have already been used up.
Israeli retaliation: Noticeable “for generations”; The FBI is searching for Americans affected by the attack
President Joe Biden expressed the United States’ full support for Israel in the crisis while condemning the “pure, unadulterated evil” that Hamas unleashed through its attack.
In a speech Tuesday afternoon, Biden also updated the U.S. death toll to 14 and confirmed that Americans were among the hostages in Saturday’s attack. The number remains unclear, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan said 20 or more Americans remain missing, although that does not mean all are being held captive.
Biden spared no details as he detailed the atrocities committed by Hamas militants as they “slaughtered” more than 1,000 civilians.
“Parents were slaughtered using their bodies to protect their children,” Biden said. “Harrowing reports of the killing of babies. Entire families killed. Young people massacred while attending a music festival to celebrate peace – to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted and displayed as trophies. … These traumas never go away.”
The president branded those actions as terrorism, saying they evoked thoughts of “the worst rampages of ISIS” and vowing that Israel would have the means to respond.
Tehran was not involved in the Hamas attack, but Israel was responsible for the war, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday. However, Iran has also denied providing Russia with drones for its invasion of Ukraine, despite ample evidence that the armed drones were built in Iran.
The Tehran Times said Khamenei praised Hamas fighters at a graduation ceremony for military cadets and said Israel and its supporters must know that Israel’s retaliatory bombings on Gaza would result in “an even stronger slap in their ugly face.”
“When injustice and crime escalate, when cruelty reaches its peak, one should wait for a storm,” Khamenei said.
The US and Israeli governments say they have no direct evidence yet that the Tehran government is behind Hamas’ terrorist attacks. But a senior U.S. official said Monday evening that Iran was undoubtedly involved in funding the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, providing weapons and training its paramilitary forces.
Analysts say direct Iranian involvement could have a significant impact on a rapidly worsening crisis that has so far been limited to fighting between Israeli and Hamas forces.
Iran “has historically been the largest state sponsor of terrorism,” said Andrew Borene, a former senior official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “And they are the most active state sponsor of terrorism. So there’s no reason for people to investigate this thread.”
−Josh Meyer
Families plead for missing Americans in Israel’s war with Hamas
Family members of U.S. citizens missing in Israel during the war with Hamas spoke to the media and called for increased efforts to find their loved ones.
Israeli forces said they killed Hamas Economy Minister Jawad Abu Shamala. The IDF said he provided money to finance and direct terrorism inside and outside the Gaza Strip. Abu Shamala previously held security positions and led several operations against Israeli citizens, the IDF said.
An IDF plane also killed Zakaria Abu Ma’amr, a senior member of Hamas’ political bureau and head of the Ministry of National Relations, the military unit said. Abu Ma’amr “has done a lot of work to incite and act against the sovereignty of the State of Israel and endanger its residents,” the IDF said, adding that he also served on the organization’s senior forum and was involved in decision-making was planning terrorist attacks.
The Israeli retaliation was not only limited to the border towns from which the Hamas attack was launched, but was also directed against the heart of Gaza City, the upscale Rimal district with shopping centers, restaurants and residential and office buildings – but also against the Hamas government ministries.
The extent of the destruction caused by hundreds of air strikes on Monday is astonishing. From destroyed mosques and university buildings to destroyed luxury apartment towers and high-rise offices – including those of the Gaza Bar Association – Israeli anger was felt far and wide.
“Israel has destroyed the center of everything,” Palestinian businessman Ali al-Hiyak said from his home near Rimal. “This is the space of our public life, our community.”
Residents said the Israeli bombings were stronger and more destructive than anything they had experienced in the four previous wars with Hamas, which took power in 2007.
“These sounds are different,” wrote Saman Ashour, 30, from northern Rimal as she listened to the explosions. “It’s the sound of revenge.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was trying to gain access to people held on both sides to provide them with medical care and to find out news about their fate for their relatives. Fabrizio Carboni, regional director for the Middle East, said kidnappings are prohibited under international humanitarian law and that anyone detained, including combatants, must be treated “humanely and with dignity.” Health care workers need to be protected to ensure people who need help can receive treatment, he said.
“The violence directed against civilians is appalling and cannot be justified,” Carboni said in a statement. “If the situation continues to escalate, civilians on both sides will suffer enormously.”
Is Iran behind Hamas’ terrorist attacks? What it would mean for U.S. and Middle East security
Aryeh Ziering grew up in Israel but had American parents. He lived in a mixed Hebrew and English-speaking neighborhood. He spent summers in Maine, loved baseball and hiking, and felt enlisted as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. Ziering, 27, a canine unit captain who served in the Israeli military for six years, was killed on Saturday.
“We are devastated,” said his aunt Debby Ziering, who lives in Connecticut. “I know they’re preparing for war, but you never really think it’s going to be his family. It’s just so hard.” Read more here.
− Alexandra Rivera, Rockland/Westchester Journal News
More than 30 University of Florida students were taken to a local hospital late Monday after chaos broke out at a vigil for victims in Israel and students trampled others. Rabbi Berl Goldman of Chabad UF said he was with school President Ben Sasse at the “United with Israel” candlelight vigil in UF’s Turlington Plaza when someone in the crowd fainted or fell and people began calling “911,” campus police said. In earlier reports of the incident, some feared they heard gunshots, although no shots were fired. It is believed that the person’s bag or items fell and caused a loud noise.
−Andrew Caplan, Gainesville Sun
The Israeli military estimates that 1,000 Hamas militants burst across the Israeli border on Saturday, setting off a rampage in which hundreds of civilians were shot and dozens kidnapped and transported back to Gaza. Hamas, the largest Palestinian militant group, has also fired rockets from Gaza that devastated Israeli cities.
Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, said “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” was in response to activity at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site. The site, which is also located at Jews’ holiest site – which they call the Temple Mount – has long been a flashpoint between Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli security services regularly search the area.
“Enough is enough,” Deif said in a recorded message. “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”
Hamas and Iran are also concerned about the development of diplomatic relations between Israel and some Arab countries. The war could force these Arab nations to choose sides.
Fears and countless prayers for an end to the violence swept through the Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian communities in the United States this week. Some groups held prayer meetings, while others worried about local attacks immediately stepped up security measures and urged community members to be vigilant as the death toll from the battle abroad rose.
The attacks came near the end of Sukkot, a week-long celebration commemorating the time when Jews lived in the desert after escaping slavery in Egypt. As news of the tragedy spread, many Jewish and Israeli communities across the United States moved from celebration to vigils and protests.
“There is an unspoken deep bond and connection that no matter where we are, we have this shared pain,” said Melissa Chapman, executive director of the Jewish Community Center in Berkeley, California. Read more here.
− Cybele Mayes-Osterman, Christopher Cann, Terry Collins, Leora Arnowitz
Maps and graphics Show how the deadly attack by Hamas militants unfolded – and how the fighting is getting worse
Gaza or the Gaza Strip is a densely populated Palestinian exclave with around 2.3 million inhabitants. The narrow strip of land — about 150 square miles, or less than half the size of New York City — is about 25 miles long and six miles wide. Gaza borders Israel to the north and east and Egypt to the southwest, while its western side borders the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and took control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007. The Palestinian Authority, controlled by the rival Fatah movement, administers semi-autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Since coming to power, Hamas has fought four wars against Israel.
Deif leads the military wing, while Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh are Hamas’ senior leaders. Haniyeh has warned Arab countries against taking diplomatic steps with Israel.
“We are on the verge of a great victory and a clear conquest on the Gaza front,” he said in a speech broadcast on Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV on Saturday. “Enough is enough, the cycle of intifadas and revolutions in struggle. The liberation of our country and our prisoners languishing in (Israeli) occupation prisons must be completed.”
Hamas was founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Hamas is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or Islamic resistance movement. The group’s charter calls for the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state to replace the current state of Israel. The militant organization advocates the destruction of Israel and has been designated a terrorist group by the US, EU and various nations. Hamas’s political wing has controlled Gaza since 2007.
It was founded by a Palestinian activist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist organization with ties to Egypt. Iran supports Hamas financially, materially and logistically. Hamas also cooperates with Hezbollah, another Iranian-backed and U.S.-designated terrorist group based in Lebanon.
The dispute has its roots in pre-biblical times. Although borders have shifted over the years, the Palestinian territories formerly included what is now Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. The history, culture and identity of both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are linked to the Palestinian territories. Jewish migration from Eastern and Central Europe increased sharply from 1922 to 1947 as Jews fled persecution and the destruction of their communities, particularly during World War II. As the number of Jewish immigrants increased, many Palestinians were displaced. They began to fight back and violence ensued.
In 1948, the Jewish People’s Council met in Tel Aviv and founded the State of Israel. The United States officially recognized the new nation later that day; the USSR recognized it three days later. Read more here.
− George Petras, Janet Loehrke and Kim Hjelmgaard