Fears of a massive ground invasion of Gaza are reverberating across the Middle East as Israel plans its response to its worst attack in decades.
Hamas gunmen rampaged through Israeli cities on Saturday, killing at least 250 people as they retreated with soldiers and civilian hostages, in the deadliest day of violence for Israel since the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.
Israel responded with devastating retaliatory strikes, killing more than 230 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military was still fighting with Hamas in some parts of southern Israel as of 1:30 a.m. (10:30 GMT) and the situation in the country was not fully under control.
Hamas, which rules Gaza, said its unprecedented offensive on land, air and sea was a response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa mosque and decades of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to fight Hamas to the bitter end and called on the people of Gaza, who are under Israel’s land, air and sea blockade, to “leave the area immediately.”
“We will take mighty revenge for this black day,” Netanyahu said in a televised address. “We will take revenge for all the young people who lost their lives. We will target all Hamas positions. We will turn Gaza into a desert island. To the citizens of Gaza, I say. You have to go now. We will target every single corner of the strip.”
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the attack, which began in Gaza, would spread to the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
“This was the morning of defeat and humiliation of our enemy, his soldiers and his settlers,” Haniyeh said in a speech. “What happened shows the greatness of our preparation. What happened today reveals the weakness of the enemy.”
“Kill and Capture”
Late Saturday evening, residents in southern Israel had not yet been given the all-clear to leave the shelters where they had been hiding from the attackers since the early hours of the morning.
In Gaza, black smoke and orange flames rose into the evening sky from a high-rise building hit by an Israeli airstrike. Crowds of mourners carried bodies of fighters wrapped in green Hamas flags through the streets.
The dead and wounded in Gaza were taken to dilapidated and overcrowded hospitals with severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment. According to the Ministry of Health, 232 people were killed and at least 1,700 were injured.
Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, told Al Jazeera that Hamas was holding a large number of Israeli prisoners, including senior military officials. He said Hamas had enough prisoners to allow Israel to release all Palestinians in its prisons.
“We managed to kill and capture many Israeli soldiers,” he said.
While world leaders called for restraint, many observers predicted that a major ground attack on Gaza was likely in the pipeline.
“There will be a second act, and that is an invasion of Gaza, and I believe it will be bigger than in 2014, when Israel called up 80,000 reserve forces,” said Yonah Jeremy Bob, a military analyst at The Jerusalem Post.
“Within a day or two, Israel will have a huge force that will be able to overwhelm Hamas forces in Gaza,” Bob told Al Jazeera.
“The world is watching”
US President Joe Biden condemned the “ruthless” attack by Hamas militants and vowed to ensure Israel “has what it needs to defend itself”. He told Netanyahu that the US “stands with the people of Israel.”
“Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, period. There is never justification for terrorist attacks, and my administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock-solid and unwavering,” Biden said.
Biden also warned Israel’s enemies: “This is not the moment for a party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to gain an advantage. “The world is watching.”
Egypt is currently negotiating with Saudi Arabia and Jordan to defuse tensions between Palestinians and Israelis, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.
Across the Middle East, demonstrations in support of Hamas took place in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, with Israeli and US flags set on fire and protesters waving Palestinian flags.
In Iran, Israel’s regional nemesis, lawmakers opened their session on Saturday chanting “Death to Israel” and “Israel will be doomed, Palestine will be the conqueror.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said: “Today’s operation has created a new page in the field of resistance and armed operations against occupiers.”
In the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, hundreds took to the streets to celebrate the Hamas operation.
‘Do whatever it takes’
Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, said a backlash against Hamas was imminent.
“The people of Gaza must expect to pay a price. Unlike Hamas, we have no intention of harming civilians, but when we hunt Hamas, we will be strong, we will be efficient and we will do whatever it takes to take them down,” Danon said told Al Jazeera.
“We will not stand idly by as more than 200 Israeli civilians were slaughtered and massacred today on our Jewish holiday.”
Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the website The Electronic Intifada, said 80 years of Israeli oppression and “massacres” in Palestine were the reason for Saturday’s violence.
“The Palestinian people are fighting righteously for their liberation. “An indigenous people fighting for their existence will fight back with great motivation after decades of living under the boot of this colonial regime, whose brutality is evident in the response of Israeli leaders,” he told Al Jazeera.