Hamas-Israel conflict as it happened: Israel ‘at war’ over Gaza attack, hundreds dead

The Israeli embassy in Turkey has issued an updated death toll from Hamas’ attack on Israel, telling the BBC that more than 300 Israelis have now been killed and almost 2,000 are in hospital, including 19 people in a critical condition.

Fighting is continuing on the ground in Israel, more than 24 hours after Hamas launched its shock attack on the country from the Gaza Strip, with officials warning of a protracted conflict.

An Israeli air strike on the Rimal district of Gaza City on Saturday.Credit: Bloomberg

Israel retaliated to the attack with air strikes through the night that killed 313 Palestinians, including 20 children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, wounded almost 2000, and destroyed buildings, tunnels and the houses of Hamas officials.

In southern Israel on Sunday morning, Hamas gunmen were still fighting Israeli security forces in several places, both sides said.

“We’re going to be attacking Hamas severely and this is going to be a long, long haul,” an Israeli military spokesman told a briefing with reporters.

with Reuters

That’s where we will leave our coverage of the ongoing violence in Israel, where fighting is into its second day after a highly coordinated attack by Hamas militants. A quick recap on today’s major developments:

• Several Israeli media outlets are reporting that the death toll from Hamas’ wide-ranging incursion into Israel has risen to 600, virtually doubling earlier estimates on Sunday.
• Two exchanges of fire took place on Israel’s border with Lebanon, after Hezbollah targeted Israeli-occupied land on Sunday morning and Israel retaliated. The UN is working to contain the situation.
• Gun battles in southern Israel continued through the weekend, while militants held hostages in stand-offs in two towns.
• Hundreds of Israelis have attended a central police station to provide DNA, and others have turned to social media searching for news of loved ones missing in the violence.
• Israeli air strikes on Gaza began soon after the Hamas attack and continued overnight and into Sunday, destroying the group’s offices and training camps, but also civilian houses and other buildings.
• Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he would take “mighty vengeance” on Hamas militants and threatened to turn parts of the Gaza Strip to ruins.
• Hamas continues to hold a large number of Israeli captives, including senior officials. Netanyahu said citizens taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip included children and the elderly.
• Hundreds of music festival revellers were sent running for their lives across the plains of the Negev Desert, close to the Gaza Strip, as Palestinian militants in vehicles followed in a terrifying pursuit and gunfire rang out.

Thank you for staying with us. Our live coverage will continue at 6am on Sunday.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post referred to crossfire at the Supernova festival. This was incorrect and has been updated.

A young German tattoo artist has been identified as the woman who was killed while fleeing a music festival - her naked body then paraded through the streets of Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

Shani Louk, 23, was among the hundreds of victims who attempted to flee as militants stormed an outdoor dance party near Kibbutz Urim, close to the border with Gaza.

Shani Louk, 23, was among the hundreds of victims that were caught in the crossfire as militants stormed an outdoor dance party.Credit:

As footage of the early stages of the raid circulated online, family members recognised the 23-year-old girl as one of the victims, The Telegraph reported.

A video clip, too disturbing to publish, showed Ms Louk’s motionless body in the back of a truck as Hamas fighters sat on her.

Some in the crowd appeared to spit on the woman’s body.

Some family members recognised Ms Louk’s distinctive tattoos and dreadlocks.

Ms Louk was among the hundreds of terrified young people who tried to flee for their lives on foot and in cars as Hamas gunmen reportedly opened fire.

A witness, Gili Yoskovich, described people “dying all around” as she stayed silent in a desperate attempt to escape the terror group’s hail of bullets.

London: A London-born man who was serving in the Israeli army died on Saturday on the Gaza border, his family said, and another British man is missing, Israel’s embassy in London said on Sunday.

Jewish News said Nathanel Young was one of the many Israeli soldiers who were killed in a multi-pronged attack by Palestinian gunmen. A family statement on Facebook said: “We’re heartbroken to share that our little brother Nathanel Young was tragically killed on the Gaza Border yesterday.”

A second man went missing early on Saturday, the embassy said.

An Israeli family arrives to a police station in Lod, Israel, to provide DNA samples to help identify a relative missing since a Hamas militant attack near the Gaza border.Credit:

His mother, Lisa, told Jewish News that Jake Marlowe, 26, had been providing security at a music festival and she last heard from her son via text message.

“He was doing security at this rave and called me at 4:30am to say all these rockets were flying over,” she said. “Then, at about 5:30, he texted to say, ‘signal very bad, everything OK, will keep you updated I promise you,’ and that he loves me.”

In Saturday’s assault, Hamas fighters escaped back to Gaza with dozens of hostages, including both soldiers and civilians. Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, earlier told Sky News a British citizen was in Gaza. But she did not identify the name of the individual.

“I know that Israel is doing everything to make sure all the people being kept hostage at the moment in the hands of Hamas will be released,” she said.

Reuters

Several Israeli media outlets are reporting that the death toll from Hamas’ wide-ranging incursion into Israel has risen to 600.

The Kan public broadcaster and Channel 12, as well as the Haaretz and Times of Israel newspapers, reported the toll late on Saturday (AEDT).

The number is significantly higher than the 350 that has been widely reported and confirmed by reliable Israeli sources.

As reported by Nine’s Lucy Cormack, Israeli soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped, with harrowing videos spreading online depicting those taken captive in what has quickly become the deadliest attack on Israeli soil in decades. Earlier Sunday evening (AEDT), at least 350 Israelis were confirmed dead.

Reuters

Hundreds of stunned Israelis filed into a central police station on Sunday hoping for word on the fate of loved ones lost in the wake of a mass Palestinian infiltration from the Gaza Strip.

Not only was the number of those unaccounted for unknown, but many were believed to have been taken captive into Gaza -including young children - with others hiding in their besieged Israeli villages.

The Gaza border region, which is just an hour’s drive from the police information centre in Airport City, remained sealed off by the military as troops continued street-by-street battles with gunmen, learning with each stage the extent of the carnage.

Israeli police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Saturday.Credit:

One mother spoke with Reuters after giving her DNA sample and handing over a brush with hair follicles from her son, who was at an outdoor dance party that was stormed by Hamas gunmen. She declined to give her name.

“The last we heard from him, he was calling from the car, saying he was trying to get away and that they were shooting at him,” she said. “I’m doing whatever I can to find out what happened.”

Yoni Asher, who was back at his home in central Israel after countless attempts to get assistance from authorities, said his wife was visiting her mother in the community Nir Oz near the border with their two young daughters when Hamas attacked.

“She told me the terrorists are in the house,” he said. Then the call got cut off.

Later on he located her mobile phone through her Google account. Its location was Khan Younis, a city in Gaza. He then saw a video that spread on social media of them being taken to Gaza.

“I surely identified my wife, my two daughters and my mother-in-law on some kind of a cart, and terrorists of Hamas all around them,” he said.

“My little two girls, they are only babies, they are not even five-years-old and three-years-old ... I don’t know in what terms they are captive. I don’t know what happened to them.”

Reuters

Israeli air strikes on Gaza began soon after the Hamas attack and continued overnight and into Sunday, destroying the group’s offices and training camps, but also houses and other buildings.

Hamas said Israel had cut off water to some areas. Palestinian health officials said 313 people had been killed in Gaza and nearly 2,000 wounded in the retaliatory strikes.

Black smoke, orange flashes and sparks lit the sky from explosions. Israeli drones could be heard overhead.

A destroyed car following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Sunday.Credit:

Unlike in some previous rounds of strikes, Israel’s military did not give advance warning of strikes on residential buildings.

In a refugee camp in central Gaza, neighbours removed rubble to retrieve the bodies of seven people from one family, including five children, whose house had been bombed.

In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, people searched through the remains of a mosque early on Sunday. “We ended the night prayers and suddenly the mosque was bombed. They terrorised the children, the elderly and women,” said resident Ramez Hneideq.

Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in Rafah overnight. One of the strikes hit three homes in one of the most crowded refugee camps, Shaboura, killing 19 members of the same family, according to a family member who posted their names on his social media.

Surviving family members and neighbours filled al-Farouk mosque, holding funeral prayers as the bodies of those killed wrapped in white shrouds lined the floor. The crowd then marched to the nearby cemetery for burial, some carrying the bodies.

A major question now is whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.

The Hamas attack on Israel at dawn on Saturday has so far claimed the lives of more than 300 Israelis, according to officials, with almost 2000 more injured and dozens taken captive into Gaza. Palestinian officials report similar casualty numbers from Israel’s retaliatory air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price” and warned “this war will take time. It will be difficult.”

Israel’s military said it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers in the area surrounding Gaza, a narrow strip that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and planned to evacuate all Israelis living around the frontier of the territory.

It said it had regained control of most infiltration points, killed hundreds of Palestinian attackers and taken dozens more prisoner but was still fighting Hamas gunmen in some places.

“We’re going to be attacking Hamas severely and this is going to be a long, long haul,” a military spokesman said.

Hamas said it had planned for a long fight.

“We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, told Al-Jazeera TV.

“We are ready to do whatever is necessary for the dignity and freedom of our people.”

The Associated Press, Reuters

As Israel reeled from a deadly attack by Hamas militants who broke through barriers around Gaza and roamed at will, killing scores of civilians in Israeli towns and taking others captive, defence chiefs faced growing questions over how the disaster could have happened.

A day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when Israeli forces were caught off guard by Syrian and Egyptian tank columns, the military appeared once again to have been surprised by a sudden attack.

A digger removes the rubble from the Sderot police station on Sunday, which Hamas fighters overran.Credit: AP

“It looks quite similar to what happened at that time,” retired General Giora Eiland, a former head of Israel’s National Security Council, said.

“As we can see it, Israel was completely surprised, by a very well co-ordinated attack.”

An army spokesman said there would be discussions on the intelligence preparation “down the road” but for the moment the focus was on fighting. “We’ll talk about that when we need to talk about it,” he said.

For the past 18 months as violence has raged across the West Bank, Gaza had been relatively quiet, apart from sporadic cross border clashes mainly involving the smaller Islamic Jihad movement, with Hamas remaining largely on the sidelines.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has always made great play of its security credentials and taken an uncompromising stance towards the Palestinian militant factions including Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007.

However when the time came, Israel’s security apparatus appeared to break down as a force of Hamas gunmen estimated in the hundreds by the military broke through security fences and scattered into towns.

“This was an intelligence failure; it could not be otherwise,” former US intelligence officer on the Middle East Jonathan Panikoff said.

“It was a security failure, undermining what was thought to be an aggressive and successful layered approach toward Gaza by Israel.”

For Israelis, images of dead bodies lying in the streets or groups of civilians being driven or marched into captivity in Gaza came as a profound shock.

More than 300 Israelis were killed and almost 2000 wounded, an unprecedented number of Israeli victims in a single day. The military suffered significant losses and Palestinian militant groups said they had captured dozens of soldiers.

The gunmen also seized security posts including a police station in the southern town of Sderot and overran the Erez crossing, a high security facility that channels people entering and leaving Gaza through a tight series of controls.

On Saturday, Hamas media circulated footage showing fighters ranging through abandoned offices and running past the high concrete walls of the site.

“They’ve been planning this for a long time,” former Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata said.

“Obviously this is a very co-ordinated attack and unfortunately they were able to surprise us tactically and cause devastating damage.”

Reuters

Pope Francis has called for end to the attacks and violence in Israel, saying terrorism and war would not solve any problems but only bring further suffering and death to innocent people.

“War is a defeat, only a defeat. Let’s pray for peace in Israel and Palestine,” the Pope said in his weekly address to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

Family and friends mourn a Palestinian man in Gaza City on Sunday.Credit: Ahmad Hasballah/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Air France has suspended flights to Tel Aviv, where buildings were destroyed by rockets during the Hamas assault on Israel.

So far, 30 hours of fighting has left more than 600 dead and thousands injured on both sides of the Gaza border, with Israel launching retaliatory air strikes on the Gaza Strip through Saturday and into Sunday.

Reuters

As oil traders prepare for the market to open after the sudden eruption of violence in Israel, one question is key: will the conflict spread to the rest of the region?

Crude traders don’t expect a massive price surge as there’s no immediate threat to supply. But all eyes are on Iran, a major oil producer and key backer of Hamas, which launched the unprecedented assault on Israel on Saturday.

All eyes are on Iran, a major oil producer and key backer of the Hamas group.Credit: AP

A retaliatory strike against the Islamic Republic would inflame fears over the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping artery which Tehran has previously threatened to shutter. There’s also the prospect of the United States cracking down again on a resurgent flow of Iranian oil exports.

The “oil-disruption scenario,” according to Former White House official and Rapidan Energy Group president Bob McNally said the “oil-disruption scenario would be if conflict spread to Iran” but for now, that looked unlikely.

Global crude supplies have already been depleted by months of sharp production cutbacks by Saudi Arabia and Russia, which last month briefly pushed Brent futures to almost $100 a barrel.

“It is unlikely to impact oil supply in the short term,” hedge fund trader Pierre Andurand said of the latest Middle East conflict. “But it could eventually have an impact on supply and prices.”

Bloomberg