Hamas has so far killed at least 700 Israelis in its terrorist attacks and taken more than a hundred hostages from Israel to the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian extremist organization Hamas started a series of brutal terrorist acts in Israel on Saturday.
Since Saturday, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, and Hamas fighters who have infiltrated Israel have killed and kidnapped hundreds of civilians. Hamas breaking through from Gaza into Israeli territory is highly exceptional, due to the border fence surrounding the area.
It is rare to get out of Gaza, and locals have long described it as the world’s largest open prison.
Israel has responded to Hamas’ terrorist attacks by carrying out strong counterattacks on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and moving ground forces to the Gaza border. The Israeli armed forces say they struck more than 500 Hamas targets in Gaza the night before Monday.
Head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Spokesperson’s Unit Daniel Hagari vows that Hamas leaders are doomed.
Hamas has so far killed at least 700 Israelis in its terrorist attacks. According to its own words, it has also taken over a hundred hostages from Israel to the Gaza Strip. At least 500 Palestinians living in Gaza have died.
Israel said on Monday that it had regained control of the Gaza border areas, but noted that individual Hamas soldiers may still be operating in various parts of Israel.
Hamas has continued to launch rocket attacks on Israel on Monday.
Israel has begun planning a ground operation in Gaza and has ordered Gaza residents to leave areas where Hamas forces are located. The only possible escape route from the area inhabited by about two million people is through Egypt. However, the country has not yet opened its border to Palestinians.
According to the Reuters news agency, Egypt is in constant contact with both Hamas and Israel, and hopes that the situation will subside soon.
Own administrations in the Palestinian territories
Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007. It won the parliamentary elections in the region in 2006 and immediately came into conflict with the Fatah organization that previously ruled the region.
Fatah, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, still controls the West Bank region east of Israel. Fatah has not openly participated in the violence started by Hamas.
Hamas receives support from Lebanon and the West Bank
According to Hamas, the attack that started on Saturday is a response to Israel’s occupation policy and the desecration of Jerusalem’s holy places. Since Saturday, the organization has urged Palestinians living in Israel and the West Bank, as well as Israel’s neighboring countries, to join the attack.
Hamas’s attack on Israel recently received a lot of support among the residents of the West Bank. For decades, Israel has established illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank from the point of view of international law. Smaller regional conflicts were seen on the Länsiranta over the weekend.
The extremist organization Hezbollah also fired grenades and rockets into Israeli territory from Lebanon, located north of Israel, on Sunday. Hezbollah, which holds power in the southern parts of Lebanon and is present in the Golan Heights, is a political and military actor, like Hamas, and a long-term opponent of Israel.
Hezbollah has relatively large armed forces at its disposal, even though it is not a state actor. Iran, acting as the guardian of the interests of the Islamic world, is known to arm both Hamas and Hezbollah. American magazine of The Atlantic according to Iran’s parliament on Saturday, they vowed “death to Israel”.
Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks with artillery fire and a drone strike. In addition, Israeli tanks were moving on the border with Lebanon on Sunday.
The fighting between Israel and Hamas has continued since the first intifada that started in 1987. At that time, Palestinians living in Israeli territory started a popular uprising against Israel in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.