At least 500 Israelis have died and more than 2,400 have been wounded as of Sunday since the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack a day earlier on Israel, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Israeli army radio.
At least 313 Palestinians have been killed and 2,000 injured in Israeli counterstrikes in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Reports from Israel said about 100 soldiers and civilians had been captured and taken into Gaza. The fighting continued Sunday.
The Hamas attack early Saturday included the launch of 5,000 rockets in a coordinated attack by land, sea and air.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was at war following the attacks.
Israel Defense Forces, in a series of posts on X, the former Twitter, said the military was “initiating a large-scale operation to defend Israeli civilians against the combined attack launched against Israel by Hamas this morning.”
“We are at war, not in an operation, not in rounds of fighting—at war,” Netanyahu said in a statement via video on Saturday. “I instructed a wide-scale call for reserves to respond militarily at an intensity and scale that the enemy has not known before. The enemy will pay a price they have never paid before.”
Hamas called the attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.”
“We decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation (Israel), their time for rampaging without being held accountable is over,” Hamas said in a statement, according to Agence France Presse, adding it launched more than 5,000 rockets.
Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s secretive military chief, blamed an unspecified Israeli “desecration” of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the Journal reported. The site is the most sacred site for Jews, and the third holiest site in Islam. Another senior Hamas official said the attacks on Israel would be “expanding” and the battle could be long. Netanyahu late Saturday said Israel was entering a “long and difficult war.”
President Joe Biden said in a statement the United States “unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the government and people of Israel.”
Biden added his administration’s support for Israel’s security was “rock solid and unwavering.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the “Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”
The attack came on Simchat Torah, a joyous Jewish holiday.
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