The death toll continues to climb in Israel and Palestine after Hamas launched a series of rockets across a range of locations on Saturday morning, killing hundreds of innocent people.
The death toll among Israelis has risen to at least 700, including 44 soldiers.
Video footage emerging from the horror revealed several people being abducted by Hamas gunmen. Other survivors reported seeing militants roaming the streets and targeting civilians and soldiers.
Over a hundred Israeli civilians were taken hostage at gunpoint by Hamas militants who invaded several Israeli towns around the border, shooting at people in an attack that took Israel by surprise.
Some survivors said they played dead under other bodies to avoid being targets of the gunmen. Many Israeli victims were killed in their homes and on the streets across the towns bordering Gaza.
A state of emergency is expected to be announced today, as Israel reports a growing number of casualties from the Hamas attacks, including women, children, and IDF fighters.
According to rescue agency Zaka, over 260 people were shot dead at the Supernova festival, a popular music festival held in the Negev desert in southern Israel that coincides with the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
Thirty Israeli police officers and five Shin Bet domestic security members were reportedly killed on Saturday, in an attack that fell on the Simchat Torah, a celebratory day that marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings.
In a statement posted on Sunday on X, Hezbollah said that its rocket and artillery attacks targeted three posts including a “radar site” in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms “in solidarity” with the Palestinian people.
At an event in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in Lebanon to support Palestinian fighters, senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said “Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you.”
Family and friends of the missing victims gathered at hospitals and conducted online appeals, while the Israeli military launched a call centre for relatives of “unresponsive” soldiers seeking information about their whereabouts.
Israel announced on Sunday it had started ordering the evacuation of communities bordering Gaza. There were also reports on Sunday afternoon that Israel was preparing to evacuate areas along the Lebanon border.
Israel’s retaliation
Shortly after the first Hamas attacks on Saturday morning, Israel’s air force retaliated with airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing over 400 civilians, including dozens of children, including 20 children and more than 2,000 people injured.
Israel’s security cabinet quickly signed off on an authorisation for military action, and on Sunday afternoon, several Israeli jets carried out “intense” strikes on 800 targets in Gaza.
As Israel prepared its ground invasion of Gaza, the Israeli cabinet announced it suspended supply of all electricity, fuel and goods into Gaza – throwing the territory with over 2 million people into total darkness.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the decision was made in the hopes of destroying the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (the second-largest armed group in Gaza) and that it was their agenda to thwart “their ability and desire to threaten and harm the citizens of Israel for many years to come.”
According to reports from the Israeli military, fighting was still ongoing on Sunday in eight separate locations, while the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reclaimed up to twenty areas that had been briefly seized by Hamas militants.
Two hostage situations had been “resolved”, though they did not say whether the hostages were safely rescued. Reporters said dozens of Israeli armoured vehicles and tanks have been seen moving towards Gaza, indicating a ground offensive was on the horizon.
The Israeli military said its forces also made artillery strikes on Lebanon, leaving several people wounded.
The Lebanese army reported shells and rockets had been launched from the south of the country onto “occupied Lebanese territory,” though failed to declare who was responsible.
As of Sunday, Israel has not clarified whether it was trying removing Hamas from power in Gaza, nor how long their operation would last.
Responses / Reaction
In a televised address on Saturday night, Israel prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was embarking on a “long and difficult war” and that the military would use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities.
“Get out of there now,” he said, addressing the people of Gaza. “[the military will] take revenge for this black day,” he said. “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”
“All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into rubble.”
US president Joe Biden said that US military assistance was “now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days”.
On Saturday, Biden said he had spoken to Netanyahu to say the US “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop”.
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken described Hamas’ attack as an “indiscriminate terrorist attack,” adding that “it should be something that revolts the entire world.”
“This [is] a massive terrorist attack on Israeli civilians – indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilians, thousands of rockets; men and women and children dragged across the border into Gaza, including a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair; people gunned down in the streets, civilians,” he said.
Earlier this morning, foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong said “Australia unequivocally condemns the attack on Israel by Hamas.”
“We unequivocally condemn the indiscriminate rocket fire, the targeting of civilians and the taking of hostages, a particularly distressing and egregious act by Hamas,” she told reporters in Melbourne.
“These are abhorrent acts and I again reiterate our call for all hostages to be released.”
Wong said she has spoken to the Foreign Minister of Israel and expressed Australia’s support for Israel, “….our solidarity and our support for Israel’s right to defend itself.”
“I want to say at this time that Australia’s thoughts are with those lost, those injured, those taken hostage and all their loved ones,” she added. “We are working with local authorities and I spoke also over the weekend to our Head of Missions, our Ambassador in Israel and our Head of Mission in the Palestinian territories.”
Wong said she didn’t have any information about Australians hospitalised or about any fatalities, but that her department is seeking to ascertain the welfare and whereabouts of Australians on the ground.
She urged those in Israel to make contact with family and friends to assure the government of their safety.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese also condemned the attacks this morning, calling them an “indiscriminate” targeting of civilians and that the “unprovoked” attack was aimed at “creating terror”.
“This is a very traumatic time for, not just for Israel, but for the world,” Albanese told Sky News earlier this morning.
“We saw more than a thousand Hamas fighters go into southern Israel and have indiscriminate killing, including of civilians. We’ve seen more than six hundred deaths there. We’ve seen hundreds of deaths as well in the Gaza Strip. And this is a very dangerous period in a very volatile part of the world.”
“My heart goes out to anyone who loses an innocent civilian in such a dramatic and terrible way. This is a very difficult time for the community here, as well as the community in the Middle East. And the targeting of civilians is not acceptable, no matter who does it.”
Protests around the world
Across major cities around the world, including New York, Sydney, Barcelona, San Francisco and Chicago, Pro-Palestinian rallies have erupted.
Palestinian Americans demonstrated outside the Israeli consulates in Atlanta and Chicago. In New York City, pro-Palestinians marched, chanting “free, free Palestine, long live Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
In Sydney’s south-west suburb of Lakemba, a large group of Pro-Palestinian supporters gathered on Sunday night, chanting “occupation is the crime” and “Palestine will be free”.
The rally was condemned by the prime minister, who said, “There’s nothing to celebrate by the murder of innocent civilians going about their day.”
The Sydney Opera House is expected to be lit up in blue and white in support of Israel tonight.