Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is “embarking on a long and difficult war” as it deals with an unprecedented hostage crisis after Palestinian militants launched a surprise land, sea and air attack from Gaza, killing hundreds and infiltrating into Israeli territory.
Saturday’s shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory. Questions are also swirling over how the entire Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.
Israel’s political-security cabinet convened late Saturday and made a “series of operational decisions aimed at bringing about the destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, in a way that would negate their ability and desire to threaten and harm the citizens of Israel for many years to come,” according to a statement from the office of Israel’s Prime Minister.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Saturday’s shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory.
Netanyahu announced Israeli forces have started an “offensive formation” which will “continue without reservation and without respite until the objectives are achieved.” Among the decisions made by the cabinet is to stop the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.
The highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
“We had no warning of any kind, and it was a total surprise that the war broke out this morning,” Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Service, told CNN.
“This Iron Dome is being fired up all around us right now, it’s illuminating the sky here,” said CNN’s International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson in Zikim, Israel, referring to the Israeli rocket defense system.
On Saturday he tracked her phone and saw it was located in Gaza; later that day he recognized her in a viral clip of people loaded into the back of a truck flanked by Hamas militants.
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