Israel/Gaza crisis: Israel warns of ‘long war’ ahead as it battles to push Hamas fighters out

Jerusalem and Gaza
CNN
 — 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is “embarking on a long and difficult war” as it deals with an unprecedented hostage crisis after Palestinian militants launched a surprise land, sea and air attack from Gaza, killing hundreds and infiltrating into Israeli territory.

Saturday’s shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory. Questions are also swirling over how the entire Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.

Israel’s political-security cabinet convened late Saturday and made a “series of operational decisions aimed at bringing about the destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, in a way that would negate their ability and desire to threaten and harm the citizens of Israel for many years to come,” according to a statement from the office of Israel’s Prime Minister.

Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance” on the Palestinian militant group Hamas following its unprecedented assault on Israel.

Throughout Saturday and into Sunday, Hamas launched thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel – making direct hits on multiple locations inside the country including Tel Aviv – while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.

At least 350 Israelis have been killed, an Israeli official told CNN and more than 1,500 have been injured, Israeli media reported.

Israel responded by launching air strikes on what it said were Hamas targets in Gaza, while its forces clashed on the ground with Hamas fighters in villages, army bases and border crossings.

Israeli warplanes continued to pound Gaza on Sunday morning with the Israel Defense Forces saying it had struck 426 targets in Gaza, including 10 towers used by Hamas.

In Gaza, at least 313 Palestinians have died and nearly 1,990 wounded in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry said. The toll included 20 dead and 121 wounded children, the ministry added.

The Israeli leader said the “first phase” of the operation had ended with the “destruction of the majority of the enemy forces that penetrated our territory.”

Netanyahu announced Israeli forces have started an “offensive formation” which will “continue without reservation and without respite until the objectives are achieved.” Among the decisions made by the cabinet is to stop the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.

Complicating Israel’s response is that a “significant number” of Israeli nationals were taken by Hamas as hostages and are being held at locations across Gaza.

“Israel is waking up this morning to a terrible morning. There are a lot of people killed. People have been kidnapped into Gaza, not only soldiers but civilians, children, grandmothers,” said Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht on Sunday.

“We have lost soldiers, we have lost commanders, we have lost a lot of civilians,” he added, without giving an exact number.

It has been more than 17 years since an Israeli soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in an assault on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, towns and kibbutzim since town-by-town fighting in the 1948 war of independence.

Palestinian militant group Hamas said the captured Israeli hostages are being held across Gaza and warned against attacks in the area.

“Threatening Gaza and its people is a losing game and a broken record,” said Abu Obaida spokesman for the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas in a recorded audio message late Saturday. “What happens to the people of the Gaza Strip will happen to them and beware of miscalculation.”

Earlier the group claimed to have captured “dozens” of Israelis, including soldiers, and were holding them in “safe places and resistance tunnels.”

On Sunday, Hecht said the IDF had neutralized most of the significant battles that took place in the settlement of Otef, but there are still ongoing operations in numerous other parts of the country. The IDF’s goal for the next 12 hours is to “end the Gaza enclave … and kill all the terrorists in our territory,” he said.

“We are probably going to try to evict certain communities in areas of Gaza,” he added.

The IDF is now slowly evacuating communities Gaza, and searching the area for any Hamas militants left. It is also seeking to control breaches in the fence dividing Gaza and Israel.

“We are going to respond severely against Hamas. It’s going to take some time,” Hecht said.

Asked by a journalist about the intelligence failure that had allowed such a large scale attack to occur, Hecht said: “This is not a question for now … I am sure that will be a big discussion down the road.”

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Saturday’s attack prompted strong reactions from around the world. US President Joe Biden said his administration’s support of Israel’s security is “rock solid and unwavering” and many European leaders denounced the violence, while Brazil said it will call an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

The highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

“We had no warning of any kind, and it was a total surprise that the war broke out this morning,” Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Service, told CNN.

The number of rockets fired by Palestinian militants was at a scale “never seen before,” Halevy said, and this was “the first time” that Gaza has been able to “penetrate deep into Israel and to take control of villages.”

Air raid sirens and rockets could be heard in Israel throughout the night into the early hours of Sunday morning.

“This Iron Dome is being fired up all around us right now, it’s illuminating the sky here,” said CNN’s International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson in Zikim, Israel, referring to the Israeli rocket defense system.

Interceptor missiles could be seen streaking through the air to destroy incoming rockets in bright flashes, with booms heard in the background.

It is rare for Palestinian militants to be able to make it into Israel from Gaza which is sealed off and heavily watched by Israel’s military. Gaza is one of the most densely packed places in the world, an isolated coastal enclave of almost 2 million people crammed into 140 square miles.

Governed by Hamas, the territory is largely cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border crossing, Rafah. Israel has placed heavy restrictions on the freedom of civilian movement and controls the importation of basic goods into the narrow coastal strip.

Fighting between the two sides has surged in the last two years.

The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.

They also come at a moment of deep division in Israel, months after the country’s right-wing government pushed through a contentious plan to reduce the power of the country’s courts, sparking a social and political crisis.

Israelis are sharing photos of friends and family who they say have been kidnapped by Hamas militants, many of them women and children.

One Israeli mother told CNN she had been on the phone with her children, aged 16 and 12, who were home alone when they heard gunshots outside and people trying to enter.

“They were scared to death. I can’t even imagine what they felt. And I wasn’t there to help,” said the mother, who was away from the home at the time. CNN is not identifying the mother and her children for safety reasons.

Then, over the phone, she heard the door break down.

“I heard terrorists speaking in Arabic to my teenagers. And the youngest saying to them ‘I’m too young to go,’” the mother said. “And the phone went off, the line went off. That was the last time I heard from them.”

Several people were taken hostage during an attack by Hamas militants on an Israeli music festival near the Israel-Gaza border.

Video on social media shows an Israeli woman, Noa Argamani, and her boyfriend being kidnapped; she can be seen on the back of a motorcycle being driven away as she pleads for help. Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, is apprehended by several men and is walking with his hands held behind his back.

CNN cannot independently verify the video. Argamani’s roommate told CNN that her family asked him to share the video with CNN, and Avinatan’s brother also told CNN affiliate Channel 12 in Israel that he approves of the media showing the video – both in hopes that it will help secure the couple’s safe release.

Another video authenticated and geolocated by CNN shows Shani Louk, a German-Israeli dual national who attended the festival, taken hostages. The video shows Louk unconscious and motionless, being paraded around Gaza.

CNN has reached out to her family for comment but has not yet received a response. Louk’s mother Ricarda pleaded for help in a video obtained by German news outlet Bild, saying: “We were sent a video in which I could clearly see our daughter unconscious in the car with the Palestinians and them driving around the Gaza Strip.”

CNN does not know Louk’s whereabouts or condition at this time. CNN is not airing the video because it is graphic and disturbing.

Another Israeli resident Yoni Asher told CNN his wife, who was visiting near the Gaza border with their young daughters, was among those abducted. On Saturday he tracked her phone and saw it was located in Gaza; later that day he recognized her in a viral clip of people loaded into the back of a truck flanked by Hamas militants.

The video shows a militant putting a scarf around the head of a woman in the truck, who Asher says is his wife. CNN has not been able to independently verify the video.

An Israel Police spokesperson has told CNN that family members who wish to report their loved ones as missing to come to the nearest police station when it’s safe to leave their homes. The police suggested relatives bring photos and personal items from which DNA samples can be extracted to help with identification.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct a reference to the Israeli political-security cabinet’s aim to degrade the capabilities of Hamas and other organizations in Gaza.