Israel trades fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah as battles with Hamas continue for 2nd day

The latest:

• Israeli media reports at least 300 people in Israel killed since Saturday’s attacks; Palestinian officials say more than 300 people killed in Gaza.
• Hezbollah claims responsibility for strike in northern Israel; Israeli military fires back into southern Lebanon.
• PM Netanyahu convenes security cabinet, halts supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza and warns civilians to leave homes.
• United Nations Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Sunday; Palestinian Authority calls for Arab League to meet.

Israeli soldiers fought to repel Hamas militants Sunday and exchanged fire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, raising the prospect of a broader regional conflagration a day after an unprecedented surprise attack on southern Israel by Palestinian militants.

Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and rampaged through nearby Israeli communities, taking captives, including women, children and the elderly, while Israel’s retaliation strikes levelled buildings in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was “at war.”

Fears of conflict spreading to other fronts escalated Sunday morning after Lebanon-based Hezbollah claimed responsibility for strikes on Israeli positions in a disputed area along the border with Syria’s Golan Heights.

Israel’s military responded with armed drone strikes on Hezbollah targets in a disputed area where the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria meet.

The flareup on Israel’s northern border threatened to draw into the battle a fierce enemy of Israel’s that is backed by Iran and estimated to have tens of thousands of rockets at its disposal.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military official, told reporters the situation at the northern border was calm after the exchange.

But he said fighting was still underway in the south and that there were still hostage situations there.

He said troops had moved into every community near the Gaza frontier, where they planned to evacuate all civilians and scour the area for any remaining militants.

“We will go through every community until we kill every terrorist that is in Israeli territory,” he said. In Gaza, “every terrorist located in a house, all the commanders in houses, will be hit by Israeli fire. That will continue escalating in the coming hours.”

Hamas fighters have killed at least 300 people, including 26 soldiers, according to Israeli media, in a multi-front assault.

Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip early Saturday morning, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometres from the Gaza border and took hostages as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response, while the militant group launched thousands of rockets at Israeli cities.

On Sunday, the Israeli military said its forces were fighting Hamas incursions in eight places. An Israeli military spokesperson said that two hostage situations in Gaza had been “resolved,” but did not say whether all the hostages had been rescued alive.

Israel struck 426 targets in Gaza, its military said, flattening residential buildings in giant explosions. That included a 14-storey tower that held dozens of apartments as well as Hamas offices in central Gaza City. Israeli forces say they fired a warning just before.

At least 313 people in the Gaza Strip were killed in Israeli strikes, including 20 children, and close to 2,000 wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Seven people were also killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank, including a child, it added.

Hamas to pay ‘unprecedented price’ for attacks

In Gaza, much of the population was thrown into darkness after nightfall as electrical supplies from Israel — which supplies almost all the territories’ power — were cut off.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel would stop supplying electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.

In a televised address Saturday night, Netanyahu said the military will use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities.

“All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins,” he added. “Get out of there now,” he told Gaza residents, who have no way to leave the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory.

Overnight, the Israeli military issued warnings in Arabic to communities near the border with Israel to leave their homes for areas deeper inside the tiny enclave.

UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinians, said more than 20,000 Palestinians left Gaza’s border region to head further inside the territory and take refuge in UN schools.

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

Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.”

But, he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.” Israel’s military was bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area, a spokesperson said.

Hamas attack on ‘a whole new level,’ says Canadian Israeli

Carey Fruitman spent Saturday morning in and out of the bomb shelter in his home in Rishon LeZion, Israel, following Hamas’s surprise attack. Fruitman, who has lived in Israel for the past 30 years, says rocket strikes are nothing new but Saturday’s attacks are unprecedented.

Rising tensions ahead of surprise assault

Asked by reporters how Hamas had managed to catch the army off guard, Lt.-Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesperson, replied, “That’s a good question.”

The strength, sophistication and timing of the Saturday morning attack shocked Israelis.

Hamas fighters used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast. In an amateur video, hundreds of terrified young people who had been dancing at a rave fled for their lives after Hamas militants entered the area and began firing at them.

The leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, and a series of recent incidents that have brought Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch.

Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

“Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message.

He said the attack was only the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and called on Palestinians from East Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight.

Hamas said it had planned for a potentially 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.”

Hamas operation designed to ‘change the status quo,’ expert says

Hamas militants caught Israel off guard with a barrage of rocket attacks and surprise infiltration of its borders on Saturday. ‘This is an attempt to shatter not just Israeli sense of complacency but also of the region and of the great powers like the United States and Europe,’ says Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow and director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs with the Middle East Institute.

Hezbollah attacks support ‘Palestinian resistance’

Hezbollah, which effectively controls southern Lebanon, said in a statement that its Sunday morning attack using “large numbers of rockets and shells” was in solidarity with the “Palestinian resistance.”

It said the Israeli positions were directly hit.

Israel’s military fired back using armed drones at the Lebanese areas. By attacking Israeli positions in a disputed area rather than Israel proper, Hezbollah appears to be trying to avoid an all-out conflict with Israel.

Israel and Hezbollah are archenemies and have fought several wars in the past, the most recent a 34-day conflict in 2006 that left 1,200 dead in Lebanon and 160 in Israel.

 

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