Nearly 24 hours after the launch of Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” by Hamas against Israel, the toll stands in the hundreds of dead and several thousand injured on both camps. The Israeli army is giving itself 24 hours to evacuate residents around the Gaza Strip, IDF Brigadier General Daniel Hagari said on Sunday.
Seeking to regain control after the surprise offensive launched at dawn in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, Israeli forces continued to track fighters infiltrated into southern Israel this Sunday and continued their air strikes against targets in Gaza where buildings were flattened.
Rocket fire into Israeli territory
© / AFP
Israel was further attacked on its northern border with Lebanon. Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and Iran, fired shells into a contested area of the border, prompting an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah target in southern Lebanon.
The Hamas offensive was launched 50 years and one day after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war which took Israel completely by surprise, leading to the deaths of 2,600 Israelis in three weeks of fighting. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of Hamas, announced that they had launched the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation against Israel on Saturday and had fired more than “5,000 rockets” to “put an end to the crimes of the occupation”. Israel has occupied the West Bank, a Palestinian territory, and the eastern part of Jerusalem since 1967, and has imposed a blockade on Gaza for more than 15 years.