Hours after Hamas suddenly launched a sweeping land, sea and air surprise attack on Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are still battling with Palestinian fighters, with an unknown number of casualties believed to be mounting.
The surprise assault began early Saturday, a Jewish holiday, as Hamas fired thousands of rockets against Israel and reportedly sent fighters by land and sea into the country in a comprehensive operation it declared “Al-Aqsa Flood” after the revered holy site in disputed East Jerusalem.
As the IDF scrambled to respond to hostilities on multiple fronts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his country was “at war.” The IDF retaliation has been named “Sword of Iron” and includes airstrikes against Hamas and another Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad, in the Gaza Strip.
“We are fighting in 22 locations,” IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a briefing shared with Newsweek. “There is no community in Southern Israel where we do not have forces, in all the towns. There are communities that have been rid of terrorists, but we want to finish additional scans of the area before declaring so.”
Additionally, he stated, “there are hostage situations” and “live fire fight” in Ofakim and Beeri, where Israeli special forces and senior commanders are present.
Also, “there are deaths—including deaths of IDF soldiers,” Hagari added, “when we have all the numbers we will give them.”
OREN ZIV/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli emergency services have reported on the deaths of at least 100 civilians since the fighting broke out. Hagari said that the IDF has begun a “wide mobilization of reserves,” bringing four divisions to Gaza to join 31 regular battalions already active on the frontline with the Palestinian enclave, which is also home to Jewish settlements, and across southern Israel.
“We will do a very sharp and thorough review,” Hagari said. “We are currently busy regaining control of the area, striking broadly and especially taking care of the area around the Gaza Strip.”
“The citizens of the State of Israel are require great resilience, with an emphasis on the residents of the Gaza Strip,” he added. “These are difficult hours of fighting— but at the end we will reach full security in the Gaza Strip.”
Reached for comment, a Hamas spokesperson shared with Newsweek the latest remarks by the group’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, who said the operation came in response to Israeli abuses against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem.
“We warned the whole world, with this fascist government that unleashed the settlers to wreak havoc in Al-Aqsa Mosque and in Jerusalem,” Haniyeh said, “and we told them not to play with fire, and not to cross the red line, but they deafened their ears and blinded their eyes.”
The ongoing conflict comes amid a sharp uptick in Israeli-Palestinian violence in the West Bank, where the IDF has stepped up raids against suspected militants. It also comes at a fluid moment for global geopolitics as a growing number of Arab countries pursue reconciliation with both Israel and its top foe, Iran, and a significant amount of attention is fixated on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Haniyeh cited these events gave Israeli leadership the notion that they could achieve a victory in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The occupation believed that the surrounding environment, the calmness of the Arab and Islamic peoples, and the world’s preoccupation with the Ukrainian-Russian war, meant that the time had come to resolve the battle of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa,” Haniyeh said, going on to cite the Quran.
“But as God Almighty said,” he added, “‘You did not think that they would emerge, and they thought that their fortresses would protect them from God.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Lebanese militant Islamist group Hezbollah, which expressed support for Hamas, and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations for comment, as well as to the IDF for further details.
This is a developing news story. More information will be added as it becomes available.