By JOSEF FEDERMAN and ISSAM ADWAN (Associated Press)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s navy ordered a whole siege on the Gaza Strip on Monday, halting deliveries of meals, gas and provides to its 2.3 million folks because it pounded the Hamas-ruled territory with waves of airstrikes in retaliation for the militants’ bloody weekend incursion.
More than two days after Hamas launched its shock assault, the Israeli navy mentioned it had largely gained management in its southern cities the place it had been battling Hamas gunmen. Israel’s vaunted navy and intelligence equipment was caught utterly off guard by Hamas, leading to heavy battles in its streets for the primary time in a long time.
Israeli tanks and drones have been deployed to protect breaches within the Gaza border fence to forestall new incursions. Thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from greater than a dozen cities close to Gaza, and the navy summoned 300,000 reservists — a large mobilization in a short while.
The strikes, together with Israel’s formal declaration of warfare on Sunday, pointed to Israel more and more shifting to the offensive in opposition to Hamas, threatening better destruction within the densely populated, impoverished Gaza Strip.
A significant query stays whether or not Israel will launch a floor assault into the tiny Mediterranean coastal territory, a transfer that previously has introduced intensified casualties.
Israel and Hamas have had repeated conflicts in previous years, usually sparked by tensions round a Jerusalem holy website. This time, the context has change into probably extra explosive, and each side discuss of shattering with violence a years-long Israeli-Palestinian impasse left by the moribund peace course of.
Israel has been shocked by a shock assault and dying toll unseen for the reason that 1973 warfare with Egypt and Syria. That is fomenting calls to crush Hamas irrespective of the associated fee, relatively than persevering with to attempt to bottle it up in Gaza. Israel is run by its most hard-right authorities ever, dominated by ministers who adamantly reject any Palestinians statehood.
Hamas, in flip, says it’s prepared for a protracted battle to finish an Israeli occupation it says is now not tolerable. Desperation has grown amongst Palestinians, a lot of whom see nothing to lose underneath never-ending Israeli management and rising settler depredations within the West Bank, the blockade in Gaza and what they see because the world’s apathy.
“I ask you to stand firm because we are going to change the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advised authorities from the south Monday. “I know you have been through terrible and difficult things. What Hamas will go through will be difficult and terrible … we have only just begun.”
In the early night, the sound of explosions echoed over Jerusalem when a volley of rockets fired from Gaza hit two neighborhoods – an indication of Hamas’s attain. Israeli media mentioned seven have been wounded.
On Sunday, Israeli strikes leveled a lot of the Gaza city of Beit Hanoun, which Israel mentioned Hamas was utilizing as a staging floor. On Monday, the Israeli navy blared messages to residents to evacuate Rimal, a residential and industrial district of central Gaza City the place workplaces of The Associated Press and different worldwide media are positioned, a sign that heavy strikes have been to come back.
As Israel hit greater than 1,000 targets in Gaza, Palestinian militants continued firing barrages of rockets, setting off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Around 700 folks, together with 73 troopers, have been killed in Israel, based on Israeli media retailers, citing rescue service — a staggering toll by the dimensions of its latest conflicts. The Gaza Health Ministry mentioned 493 folks, together with 78 youngsters and 41 girls, have been killed within the territory. Thousands have been wounded on each side.
Palestinian militant teams claimed to be holding over 130 folks kidnapped in Israel and dragged into Gaza. The armed wing of Hamas claimed on its Telegram channel that 4 of them have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. That couldn’t be independently confirmed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza, saying authorities would reduce electrical energy and block the entry of meals and gas.
Gallant mentioned Israel was at warfare with “human animals,” utilizing the type of dehumanizing language usually employed by each side at occasions of hovering tensions.
Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza of various strictness since Hamas seized energy in 2007. In latest years Israel has offered restricted electrical energy and allowed the import of meals, gas and a few client items, whereas closely proscribing journey out and in.
The Israeli seal will depart Gaza nearly fully depending on its crossing into neighboring Egypt at Rafah, the place cargo capacities are decrease than different crossings into Israel.
An Egyptian navy official, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of he was not approved to speak to the press, mentioned greater than 2 tons of medical provides from the Egyptian Red Crescent have been despatched to Gaza and efforts have been underway to prepare meals, and different deliveries, however the query of permitting in gas was not but determined.
Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari advised reporters that Israeli bombardment was transferring from district to district to destroy homes and buildings Israel says are being utilized by Hamas. Israel is planning to hit hundreds of targets, he mentioned. He mentioned “hundreds” of Hamas militants have been buried underneath rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel prior to now 48 hours. His claims of the numbers – and his characterization of the useless as Hamas – couldn’t be confirmed.
In the southern Gaza metropolis of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed 19 folks, together with girls and youngsters, mentioned Talat Barhoum, a health care provider on the native Al-Najjar Hospital. Barhoum mentioned plane hit the house of the Abu Hilal household, and that a kind of killed was Rafaat Abu Hilal, a frontrunner of a neighborhood armed group. The strike prompted harm to surrounding properties.
The U.N. mentioned greater than 123,000 folks have fled their properties in Gaza – many after Israeli warnings of imminent bombardment. The U.N. company for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, mentioned a faculty sheltering greater than 225 folks took a direct hit. It didn’t say the place the hearth got here from.
Meanwhile, after about 48 hours of pitched battles, Hagari mentioned the navy has “control” of its border communities in southern Israel. He mentioned 15 of 24 border communities have been evacuated, with the remaining anticipated to be emptied within the coming day.
Earlier, Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua advised The Associated Press over the cellphone that the group’s fighters continued to battle outdoors Gaza and had captured extra Israelis as not too long ago as Monday morning.
He mentioned the group goals to free all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which prior to now has agreed to lopsided change offers wherein it launched massive numbers of prisoners for particular person captives and even the stays of troopers.
Among the captives are troopers and civilians, together with girls, youngsters and older adults, principally Israelis but in addition some folks of different nationalities. Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper mentioned Monday that Egyptian officers are attempting to mediate a launch of Palestinian girls in Israel’s prisons in change for Israeli girls captured by militants.
Mayyan Zin, a divorced mom of two, mentioned she discovered that her two daughters had been kidnapped when a relative despatched her images from a Telegram group exhibiting them sitting on mattresses in captivity. She then discovered on-line movies of a chilling scene in her ex-husband’s dwelling: Gunmen who had damaged in converse to him close to the 2 weeping daughters, Dafna, 15, and Ella, 8. Another video confirmed the daddy being taken into Gaza.
“Just bring my daughters home and to their family. All the people,” Zin mentioned.
Hamas has dominated Gaza since driving out forces loyal to the internationally acknowledged Palestinian Authority in 2007 and its rule has gone unchallenged by means of the blockade and 4 earlier wars with Israel.
After breaking by means of Israeli boundaries with explosives at dawn Saturday, an estimated 1,000 Hamas gunmen rampaged for hours, gunning down civilians and snatching folks in cities, alongside highways and at a techno music pageant attended by hundreds within the desert. Palestinian militants have additionally launched round 4,400 rockets at Israel, based on the navy.
On Sunday, the U.S. dispatched an plane provider strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to be prepared to help Israel, and mentioned it will ship extra navy support.
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This story has been up to date to right the title of Palestinian household to Abu Quta, not Abu Outa.
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Adwan reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Wafaa Shurafa in Gaza City; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Bassem Mroue in Beirut; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”