ShareGAZA/SDEROT: Palestinian group Hamas launched a large-scale surprise attack against the Zionist entity on Saturday, firing thousands of rockets from Gaza and sending fighters to abduct prisoners of war as the Zionist entity retaliated with air strikes. At least 150 people were reported killed in the Zionist entity, while Gaza authorities released a death toll of 198 in the conflict’s bloodiest escalation in years which also left hundreds more wounded on both sides. Hamas labelled its attack Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and called on "resistance fighters in the West Bank" as well as in "Arab and Islamic nations" to join the battle.
"We decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation; their time for rampaging without being held accountable is over," said its armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, claiming to have fired more than 5,000 rockets. Hamas chief Ismail Haniya claimed the group was on the “verge of a great victory and a clear conquest on the Gaza front”. “Enough is enough,” he said in a televised address. “The cycle of intifadas (uprisings) and revolutions in the battle to liberate our land and our prisoners languishing in occupation prisons must be completed.”
Kuwait on Saturday expressed deep concern at the escalation in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories that happened as a result of the occupation's blatant violations and attacks on the brotherly Palestinian people. Kuwait’s foreign ministry affirmed in a statement Kuwait's call upon the international community, namely the United Nations Security Council, to shoulder its responsibilities, halt the ongoing violence, safeguard the brotherly Palestinian people, stop the provocative practices by the occupation, namely the recurring desecrations of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the policy of expanding settlements.
It also affirmed Kuwait's unwavering and principled stance of standing on side of the brotherly Palestinian people in their struggle for attaining their full rights, namely the right to establish an independent state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. The foreign ministry warned that continuation of the violence without deterrence may jeopardize the efforts aimed at establishing peace and attaining the two-state settlement. “We are at war,” said Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the military launched a series of strikes against targets in the blockaded coastal enclave, including several residential tower blocks that were completely destroyed.
“The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” the Zionist premier vowed after Hamas launched its first such combined air, sea and ground offensive, half a century after the outbreak of the 1973 Arab- Zionist war. Hamas has released images of several Zionists taken captive, and Zionist army spokesman Daniel Hagari confirmed that “there are kidnapped soldiers and civilians. I can’t give figures about them at the moment.” The Islamist group started the attack around 6:30 am (0330 GMT) with thousands of rockets aimed as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, some bypassing the Iron Dome defense system and hitting buildings.
Hamas fighters — travelling in vehicles, boats and even using motorized paragliders — breached Gaza’s security barrier and attacked nearby Zionist towns and military posts, opening fire on residents and passersby. Bodies were seen lying on the streets of the town of Sderot near Gaza. “Send help, please!” one Zionist woman sheltering with her two-year-old child pleaded as militants outside opened fire at her house and tried to break into their safe room, Zionist media reported. AFP journalists witnessed armed Palestinians gathered around a burning Zionist tank and others driving a seized Zionist Humvee military vehicle back into Gaza.
An AFP journalist in Gaza saw smoke billowing from the remains of a residential tower following Zionist strikes, which Gaza’s interior ministry said contained 100 apartments and was completely destroyed. The aid group Doctors without Borders said one strike had hit the enclave’s Indonesian hospital and an ambulance outside Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, causing multiple deaths. The escalation follows months of rising violence, mostly in the occupied West Bank, and tensions around Gaza’s border and at contested holy sites in Jerusalem.
Air raid sirens wailed across southern and central Zionist entity, as well as in Jerusalem, where multiple incoming rockets were intercepted by air defense systems. In Tel Aviv, an AFP photographer saw a gaping hole in a building, with residents boarding a bus to seek safety in a hotel. Rocket impacts left cars burning beneath residential buildings in the Zionist city of Ashkelon, north of Gaza. Among the dead was the president of a regional council for Zionist communities northeast of Gaza, who the council said was killed in a gun battle with attackers. Schools will remain closed on Sunday, the start of the week in the Zionist entity.
The conflict sparked major disruption at Tel Aviv airport, with American Airlines, Emirates and Ryanair among carriers with cancelled flights. In northern Gaza on Saturday, hundreds of people fled their homes, carrying food and blankets, an AFP correspondent said. At Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital an AFP journalist saw eight bodies in the morgue, while another reporter witnessed the funeral of a ninth person killed in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. In the West Bank, two Palestinians were killed, in Ramallah and Jericho, and around 50 wounded in clashes with Zionist forces and settlers, the Palestinian health ministry and Red Crescent Society said.
In Zionist-annexed east Jerusalem, some Palestinian residents cheered and blew their car horns as sirens blared. Western capitals condemned the attacks by Hamas, which the European Union, United States and the Zionist entity consider a terrorist group. UN Security Council chair Brazil said it would call an emergency meeting. But Hamas drew support from other foes of the Zionist entity, with Iran’s supreme leader declaring he was “proud” of the Hamas action. Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which fought a war against Israel in 2006, hailed the “heroic operation”.
US President Joe Biden was briefed on the “appalling Hamas terrorist attacks”, said the White House, stressing that Washington would ensure the Zionist entity has the means to defend itself. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the attack “terrorism in its most despicable form”. UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland said the assault had led to “a dangerous precipice” and called for all sides to “pull back from the brink”. – Agencies
