Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel was “at war” after Hamas launched the biggest attack inside the nation in decades, firing a barrage of rockets and sending militants across the border from Gaza.
At least 22 Israelis were killed in the unprecedented multipronged dawn assault on Saturday as Hamas gunmen targeted civilians and military posts in southern Israel around the Palestinian strip. Hamas also claimed to have taken hostages, but Israelis authorities did not confirm the reports.
As the fighting continued inside Israel, Netanyahu said in a televised address that he had ordered “an extensive mobilisation of reserves” and that they would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known”.
“The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” the Israeli prime minister added, as Israeli jets responded by striking targets in the coastal enclave, which has been subject to a crippling blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took control there in 2007.
The multi-front assault, during which Hamas militants entered Israel by paragliders, by land and from the sea, drew expressions of support from other militant groups in the region, and analysts said its complexity was unlike anything that Israel had witnessed in decades.
“Since 1948 there was not such a military assault inside Israeli territory, all the other wars were on distant fronts. Right now it’s inside Israel,” said Michael Milshtein, a former IDF military intelligence officer. “This is an invasion, I have no other term to describe it.”
The attack, which took place on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah and appeared to catch the military off-guard, poses a serious challenge for Netanyahu’s far-right government, which came to power last year with hardliners in important posts pledging to bolster security.
Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, said the Palestinian militant group had fired more than 5,000 rockets at Israel and called on Palestinians and other Arab states for support.
Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group in Gaza, said that it had joined the fighting. The Iran-backed Hizbollah militant group in Lebanon said the attack was a “message” to countries such as Saudi Arabia seeking to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel. It said it was “direct in contact with the leadership of the Palestinian resistance”.
Richard Hecht, a spokesman for Israel’s military said the army was watching the situation on Israel’s northern border, where Hizbollah, which has a far bigger and more sophisticated arsenal than Hamas, is based, and that multiple firefights were taking place in the area around Gaza.
“We’re fighting in certain locations around the Gaza Strip, in the Erez crossing, in Nahal Oz . . . also in the Re’im camp, which is the [Gaza] division headquarters,” he said, adding that thousands of reserve soldiers had been mobilised.
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence analyst, said the attack had exposed failings in Israeli intelligence.
“It’s a very significant failure of the whole system”, he said. “Israel’s strategy of defence vis-à-vis the threat of Gaza . . . built through many years, basically failed.”
The rocket fire from Gaza set off warning sirens across the south and centre of Israel, with missiles targeting cities including Tel Aviv and Ashkelon, and the thud of interceptions heard as far north as Jerusalem, a city rarely targeted by missiles from Gaza.
The military closed roads around Gaza, ordering people near the coastal enclave to stay inside their shelters.
The fighting caps 18 months of simmering Israeli-Palestinian tensions with outbreaks of violence in both Gaza and the West Bank, which Palestinians seek as the heart of a future state but which Israel has occupied since 1967.
According to the latest UN data, which does not include Saturday’s clashes, Israeli forces have killed 212 Palestinians this year, while Palestinians have killed 30 Israelis.
Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, who advises Iran’s supreme leader on military issues, said Tehran “backs [Hamas’s] operation” and that “we believe the resistance movement also supports it” — a reference to other militant groups in the Middle East.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for “restraint”, urging all involved to “stay away from impulsive steps that will escalate tensions”.
Additional reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran, and Samer Al-Atrush in Riyadh and Adam Samson in Ankara
