Israel said it recaptured Gaza border areas from Hamas on Tuesday, the fourth day of fierce fighting that has left thousands dead on both sides since the militants launched a surprise attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israel’s military campaign following Saturday’s onslaught is only the start of a sustained war to destroy Hamas and “change the Middle East”.
Fears of a regional conflagration have surged ahead of an expected Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, the crowded, impoverished enclave from where Hamas launched its land, air and sea attack on the Jewish Sabbath.
The death toll in Israel has surged above 1,000 following the worst attack in the country’s 75-year history, while Gaza officials reported 900 people killed so far, and Israel’s army said the bodies of roughly 1,500 militants had been found.
International NGOs issued a stark warning over the health and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. Hamas gunmen killed more than 100 people in the kibbutz of Beeri alone, said Moti Bukjin, a volunteer with the charity Zaka that recovers bodies in accordance with Jewish law.
United States President Joe Biden condemned the Hamas attacks as “sheer evil”, and Netanyahu said the militants committed “savagery never seen since the Holocaust”, including the beheading of soldiers.
Condemnation from Western leaders contrasted markedly with pro-Palestinian sentiment in the Arab world where people distributed sweets, danced and chanted prayers in support of “resistance” to Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories.
“My entire life, I have seen Israel kill us, confiscate our lands and arrest our children,” said Farah al-Saadi, 52, a coffee vendor from Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank who praised the Hamas assault.The Israeli army has called up 300,000 reservists and massed tanks and other heavy armour both near Gaza and on the northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire continued.
The military said its forces had largely reclaimed the embattled south and the border around Gaza, and dislodged holdout Hamas fighters from more than a dozen towns and kibbutzim.
Source: SABC
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