More than 700 Israelis murdered, 2,048 injured and a hundred kidnapped is the still not definitive balance of the bloodiest armed attack that Israel has suffered since the 1973 war.. The offensive launched this Saturday by the Islamist group Hamas under the name “Al Aqsa Storm” and the subsequent Israeli military retaliation called “Iron Swords” lead all parties to agree on one word: “War”. After hours of combat, the spokesman for the Israeli Army, General Daniel Hagari, assured this afternoon that “800 objectives had been reached” and that the surroundings of Gaza would be reinforced.. “The enemy is still on the ground,” he warned.
The Lebanese group Hezbollah, which supported the Hamas attack, has claimed responsibility for launching mortar shells against military targets this Sunday morning in a border area under Israeli control.. In response, a Tsahal drone has attacked the tent that this pro-Iranian movement had installed months ago in that area controlled by Israel in another sign of the loss of Israel's deterrence capacity against its enemies in 2023 as a result of deep internal division around the Government and its judicial reform proposal that also affected cohesion in the army.
Israel's Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, issued an “emergency order” this Sunday to the Firearms Licensing Division to facilitate the greatest possible number of Israeli citizens to arm themselves in the midst of war with Hamas.
“Any citizen who meets the criteria for possession of firearms, without a criminal or medical record, may receive approval to possess firearms,” the minister's office said.. The deadline to obtain the license will be only one week, after the interested party has undergone a telephone interview.
In addition, it will be expedited for citizens who have deposited their weapon in the last year due to not having renewed their license or training to recover it.. As part of the order, permits will be issued for the possession of firearms with a bonus for the purchase of up to 100 cartridges, down from the current limit of 50.
50 years and 15 hours after the surprise attack by Egypt and Syria that started the Yom Kippur War, the armed wing of Hamas broke the Shabbat calm in Israel. The biggest offensive of the fundamentalist group since it took control of Gaza in 2007 began at half past six in the morning with the launch of thousands of projectiles against large areas in Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and as a dramatic differential factor, with the infiltration of dozens of militiamen in numerous Israeli towns near the Palestinian enclave.
Israel, which until this morning was fighting with some of the terrorists infiltrated in cities and several kibbutzim that have not yet been killed or have not managed to return to Gaza, launched at noon its first retaliatory air strikes against Hamas which, along with the fighting, left a toll of at least 413 Palestinians dead and more than 2,000 injured. According to the army, most of those killed were from Hamas.
“Citizens of Israel, we are at war. Hamas terrorists invaded our territory and murdered innocent citizens, babies and elderly people in their homes.. “It is an enemy that murders babies and mothers in their homes, in their beds,” declared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after announcing “the broad mobilization of reservists and counterattacking with a strength and reach that the enemy has never known.”. At night, he announced revenge for “this black day” and asked Gazans to leave the places where Hamas operates.
Hamas and Hizbula attacks against Israel October 2023
Netanyahu, who gathered his mini-cabinet to study an unprecedented scenario due to the number of deaths in the rear and the kidnapping of dozens [many more than dozens, according to Hamas], faces the worst attack in decades precisely when his country is going through its biggest internal crisis. of its history due to the judicial reform proposal launched in January by its ultra-conservative government inaugurated days before. The shock of the Hamas attack is so great in Israel that the chances are growing for the creation of an “emergency unity government” between Netanyahu (Likud) and the centrist parties of Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz.
If the attack by Egypt and Syria began at 1:50 p.m. on October 6, 1973, the one carried out by Hamas, which has been ruling an isolated mini-state for years, took place at 6:30 a.m. on October 7, 2023.. Dozens of motorcycles and vans driven by Gaza militiamen crossed the border fence and entered two cities located three kilometers away (Sderot) and 25 kilometers away (Ofakim), a military base and kibbutzim that, like in past wars in Israel, became the scene. of harsh armed clashes and last opposition front. Hamas used rifles, drones, boats, projectiles and anti-tank missiles while harassing some bodies in front of the cameras.. Soldiers, young people participating in a massive open-air music festival, and elderly women with their foreign caregivers were kidnapped according to various reports.
“I woke up early and soon the alarms began, which were numerous and followed, unlike what I had experienced in the past,” says Spanish Lázaro Herrera, who lives in an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip.. As he explains to EL MUNDO, he also heard gunshots. “In a while I saw a video of terrorists in an SUV driving unopposed through the streets. “The security system has completely failed and is unacceptable considering where we live and the constant threat,” he adds.
“There are numerous terrorists here! I have never seen anything like this. Where are our soldiers?”, another resident of Sderot told us on the phone with fear and anger who, like other Israeli towns bordering the Palestinian enclave, has had a violent awakening that It preceded a day of great tension and fighting that continued in some kibbutzim late into the night.. After one in the morning, Israeli forces managed to rescue hostages in the Kibbutz Beeri dining room.
“We had already warned the enemy, who cursed the prophet in the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa mosque. We have decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation. The time for not being held accountable for their crimes is over,” declared the head of Hamas's armed wing, Mohamed Deif, in a rare appearance to explain and boast about an attack planned for months.. After revealing that they launched 5,000 projectiles, Deif asked to expand the fronts in reference to an intervention by other groups from Lebanon and Syria. All of them, also supported by Iran. Hezbollah and Tehran praised what they called “heroic operation” and “Palestinian liberation war” but without intervening directly and openly.
In an appeal to Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israel, Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Obeida said: “Today is your chance. You must now go to all the places where the occupation is. “The enemy is collapsed.”
Hamas announced the captivity of “dozens of Israelis, including soldiers and officers, who have already been transferred to tunnels”. The stated objective of the group led by Ismail Haniya and Yahya Sinwar is an exchange with Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel. Sinwar's house was bombed in the afternoon before Hamas launched a new burst of rockets against the Tel Aviv area, leaving several injured.. Since they started the fight, their political and military leadership took safety hours before in the numerous tunnels that cross houses and buildings in Gaza.
Beyond the euphoria over an attack that not even Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East, could or dared to carry out from Lebanon against populations in northern Israel, Hamas fears that the retaliation will endanger its regime.. The official in charge of civil affairs with Gaza and the West Bank, Major General Rasan Aliyan, sent a message in Arabic: “Hamas has opened the gates of hell for Gaza”. The Minister of Energy, Israel Katz, ordered the interruption of the electricity supply to Gaza where the inhabitants, beyond the demonstrations of joy from sympathizers and members of Hamas, fear long days and nights of bombings.
“Today we saw the face of evil. Hamas has launched a brutal attack against the citizens of Israel, indiscriminately attacking men, women, children and the elderly.. Hamas will quickly understand that it has made a serious mistake and will pay the price for it. What was, is not what will be. We will change the face of reality in Gaza in the years to come,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised as unprecedented images spread of Israeli military jeeps driven by Hamas on the streets of Gaza and Palestinian militia SUVs on the streets of Sderot. Images more typical of the Israeli series Fauda.