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Hamas entered the village, burned houses and killed the residents
October 10, 2023, 2:25 p.m. 03
Updated 34 minutes ago
The Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on a village in Israel was a “massacre” that also left babies and children dead, Israeli officials said on Tuesday (October 10).
According to Israeli General Itai Veruv, bodies of entire families were found in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the border with the Gaza Strip.
“We saw babies, mothers and fathers in their beds and we saw the terrorists killing them,” the soldier told Portal.
“It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It is a massacre,” he added.
According to reports from militants to BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen, Hamas entered the village, burned houses and killed its residents.
An Israeli official said some of those killed had been beheaded.
Residents of border communities in Israel expected regular rocket attacks after Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, says Jeremy Bowen.
“They accepted danger as the price of living on the land in a closeknit community where traces of the pioneering spirit of the first Zionist settlements could still be found,” says the BBC journalist.
Residents of Kfar Aza and other Israeli communities near Gaza enjoyed a good quality of life despite the threat from Hamas.
“In the houses, lawns and open areas of the kibbutz, a concrete shelter was never more than a step away. All houses also had reinforced security rooms,” Bowen points out.
“But no one here in Kfar Aza or anywhere else in Israel would have thought that Hamas would be able to breach Israel’s defenses and kill so many people. The horror and anger of the Israelites were mixed with disbelief.”
In another kibbutz, a man said dozens of his friends and neighbors were killed when the place where he lives with his children and grandchildren was attacked on Saturday (October 8).
“Kibbutz Nir Oz no longer exists. “It was destroyed in a barbaric and inhumane attack that killed dozens of my friends and neighbors,” said Jonathan DekelChen.
“Dozens more people are known to be hostage or missing.”
New attacks
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Palestinians sit among the rubble of a residential building damaged after Israeli attacks in Gaza City
On Tuesday, Hamas fired rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel again after the extremist group’s deadline for the city to leave Ashkelon expired.
Explosions were heard shortly after 5 p.m. local time (11 a.m. Brazilian time).
BBC reporter Alice Cuddy is in Ashkelon and reported that residents were alerted by messages on their mobile phones telling them to seek shelter. Then sirens wailed.
Cuddy said after the initial explosions it was not possible to see any significant damage on the roads when he left the bunker where he was.
Shortly afterwards, residents of Ashkelon returned to seek shelter as the sirens sounded again and more rocket fire followed.
“The last two rocket shots occurred 30 seconds apart, and those who left the bunker quickly returned,” Cuddy said.
“We are starting to hear reports of injuries. People here are getting ready for a long night.”
The conflict between the Palestinian group Hamas and Israel begins in the early hours of Saturday (October 7, Brasilia time) and reaches its fourth day with hundreds of deaths, the prospect of new attacks on both sides and the abduction of several people held by Hamas.
So far, more than a thousand deaths have been recorded in Israel and 830 in the Gaza Strip.
Israel claims to have completely closed the border with Gaza. According to the country’s military, no Hamas fighters have crossed the border in recent hours.
The military also said it found the bodies of 1,500 Palestinian militants in Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Unicef, the United Nations agency that looks after children, has called for the opening of a humanitarian corridor in and out of Gaza as Israel has cut off fuel, electricity and water supplies to the area.
The UN also estimates that more than 187,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Gaza.
Hamas, for its part, announced that it would execute an Israeli hostage without prior warning for every new Israeli bombing of civilian buildings in the Gaza Strip.
The deputy head of Hamas’ political office, Saleh alArouri, said the hostages included “highranking officers” of the Israeli army.
He told Al Jazeera that “what is in our hands will free all prisoners in Israel” an apparent reference to Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
“There are a lot of dead Palestinians and a lot of dead Israelis, as well as prisoners, and the fighting is still raging,” alArouri said.
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Hamas’ surprise attack came from the Gaza Strip and spread to several locations (in red) in Israel
There are reports, not officially confirmed, that Qatar the country where some Hamas leaders live and which has financially supported the Gaza Strip for years would begin negotiations between the two sides to secure the release of some Hamas hostages.
Both Hamas and Israel denied that they were exploring the possibility of exchanging prisoners previously held in Israel for hostages taken by Hamas in recent days.
Sebastian Usher, BBC Arab world affairs editor, said the Hamas hostage situation was “understandably an extremely emotive issue in Israel.”
“Israelis traumatized by the events of the last three days may lack the courage to negotiate with Hamas, even though the country has long held to the principle that no prisoner, living or dead, should be left behind,” it said it ushers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government must therefore urgently decide how it will deal with the hostage issue a pressure compounded by the fact that American President Joe Biden has said there are “probably” citizens of the country United States, Israel’s great ally, among the hostages.
“How can Israel secure liberation? [dos reféns] It’s a big deal whether through special forces operations, a fullscale invasion of Gaza, negotiations or a combination of these methods.”
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Locations where there was active fighting between Israel and Hamas and which were recaptured by Israeli forces
Nearly 690 people died in Gaza after Israel launched airstrikes in retaliation, according to the Palestinian Authority. Another 3,700 were injured.
Three Brazilians are missing. According to Itamaraty estimates, around 14,000 Brazilians live in Israel and 6,000 in Palestine the majority outside the conflict zone.
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Flames and smoke fill the sky during Israeli attacks on Gaza
“Just the beginning,” says Netanyahu
In the early hours of Tuesday (10) local time, there were power and internet outages in several parts of the Gaza Strip, in addition to bombings by Israel.
BBC reporter Rushdi Abu Alouf, who is in Gaza, reported that there were also shortages of fuel and medicine for hospitals. Palestinian authorities announced that health resources could be exhausted within 48 hours.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address that there were still several Hamas snipers in Israel. He promised that the “bombings in Gaza are just the beginning.”
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Doctor carries injured child after attacks on Gaza; Civilians were affected on both sides of the conflict
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military had regained control of all communities near the Gaza barrier but isolated clashes with Palestinian gunmen continued.
The military had previously said the fighting was taking place in “seven or eight” locations on Israeli territory.
There are reports that rockets were fired from Gaza at some Israeli cities. Some explosions were heard in Jerusalem. Bomb alarm sirens sounded in several locations across the country.
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Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepts airstrikes from Gaza
The beginning of the conflict
In the early hours of Saturday (07), the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, dozens of armed men from the Palestinian group Hamas entered southern Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The invasions took place on land, at sea and in the air with the help of paragliders.
Thousands of rockets were also registered from Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas.
Shortly after the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video on social media in which he said the country was “at war.”
Israel’s defense minister said Hamas had “committed a serious mistake and started a war” against itself.
“The troops [israelenses] They fight the enemy everywhere,” Yoav Gallant added. “The State of Israel will win this war.”
Shortly afterwards, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared that his people had the right to defend themselves against the “terror of the settlers and occupying forces.”
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A police station in Sderot, Israel, was the scene of a battle following a mass infiltration by armed Hamas militants from Gaza.
refugees
According to the United Nations, 187,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, mostly “out of fear, concern for protection and the destruction of homes.”
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) added that 137,000 people were being housed in 87 UNrun schools.
Adnan Abu Hasna, spokesman for the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), expects the numbers to rise.
“In these schools there is electricity and we provide food, drinking water, psychological support and medical treatment,” he said.
2.3 million Palestinians live in Gaza. Before launching retaliatory attacks on Saturday, Israel warned people in certain areas to leave their homes.
“I say to the people of Gaza: Get out now, because we are in the process of acting with all our might everywhere,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday (October 7).
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Palestinians watch a house destroyed in Israeli attacks in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip
“Intelligence failure”
“This is our 9/11. They got us,” a spokesman for the country’s armed forces admitted, while another military officer compared recent events to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
In an interview with the BBC’s “Today” program, the former head of an Israeli secret service judged that the country’s tactics “completely collapsed” on Saturday.
Danny Yatom, former head of the Mossad spy agency and politician from the opposition Labor Party, says “everything went wrong” and “nobody had any idea” that Hamas would attack Israel from Gaza.
He said Israel’s second layer of defense was insufficient to stop the attacks, recalling how the country was caught by surprise almost 50 years after the Yom Kippur War.
“The troop numbers were very low and that is largely due to the failure of the intelligence services, who said, ‘Although we witnessed many Hamas exercises, they had no intention of doing this.’ [atacar Israel]’.”
Frank Gardner, security correspondent for BBC News, estimates that “the events reveal a colossal failure by Israel’s intelligence services.”
“The country has one of the most extensive and sophisticated intelligence networks in the Middle East. “Israel maintains informants about militant groups not only in the Palestinian territories, but also in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere.”
“Hamas managed to plan and launch this carefully coordinated attack on Israel in apparent secrecy,” writes Gardner.
For Jeremy Bowen, international editor at BBC News, recent developments in Israel are unprecedented in the more than 15 years since Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip.
“The attack comes after months of violence and growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, although the conflict is largely centered in the West Bank, the area between Jerusalem and the Jordanian border occupied by Israel since 1967,” he writes.
“The current situation is rapidly evolving and is likely to get worse. A big question is what happens now not just on the outskirts of Gaza, but also in Jerusalem and the West Bank, where violence has been increasing for months.”
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The map shows the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (dotted), as well as the Israeli city that was one of the epicenters of the Hamas attack: Sderot
International reaction
World leaders reacted differently to Hamas’ attack and Israel’s retaliation:
US: President Joe Biden said his country’s support for Israel is “solid and unwavering.” The US has sent ships and planes to the region and said it would send additional ammunition to Israel. In addition, the country has made its intelligence agencies and experts available to help “in all aspects of the hostage crisis,” as Biden put it.
UNITED KINGDOM: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged “unwavering support” to Benjamin Netanyahu. “We will do everything we can to help. Terrorism will not prevail,” he said.
Will: President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran supports the Palestinians’ right to selfdefense and warned that Israel must be held accountable for years of endangering the region. Hamas is supported by Iran.
Lebanon: Hezbollah, a powerful armed group also backed by Iran, exchanged fire and rockets with Israel on Sunday. This raised fears of a larger conflict between Israel and its opposing states.
China: Beijing called on both sides to “immediately cease fire.” State media reiterated the “twostate solution,” which includes the creation of an independent state of Palestine.
Russia: the State Department called for an “immediate ceasefire” and negotiations for “a comprehensive, lasting and longawaited peace.”
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Lula expressed his condolences to the victims and reiterated his rejection of terrorism
In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Saturday (07) that he was “shocked by the terrorist attacks carried out today against civilians in Israel, causing numerous victims.”
“In expressing my condolences to the families of the victims, I reiterate my rejection of terrorism in any form.”
Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) issued a statement condemning “the series of bombings and ground attacks carried out today in Israel from the Gaza Strip.”
“Brazil regrets that in 2023, the year of the 30th anniversary of the Oslo Peace Accords, there will be a serious and increasing deterioration in the security situation between Israel and Palestine. As President of the United Nations Security Council, Brazil will convene a meeting of the organ emergency.”
“The Brazilian government reaffirms its commitment to the twostate solution, in which Palestine and Israel live in peace and security within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders. “It also reiterates that simply managing the conflict is not a viable alternative to resolving the IsraeliPalestinian question, with the urgent need to resume peace negotiations,” the text concludes.
In the latest update on the situation of Brazilians in the region, the MRE reported that “to date, the embassy in Tel Aviv has identified three missing Brazilians and one injured person, all binational nationals, who attended a music festival in the southern district of Israel, less than 20 km from the Gaza Strip.
“The injured Brazilian, also binational, was discharged from hospital today and is doing well.”
“The embassy in Tel Aviv has so far collected data via an online form from around a thousand nationals and their relatives, most of whom are tourists staying in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem,” the statement concludes.