Israel-Gaza Conflict: Air-Raid Sirens in Israel Warn of Continued Strikes on Sunday (2024)

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‘We are at war,’ Netanyahu says after Hamas attacks Israel.

In an assault without recent precedent in its complexity and scale, the militants crossed into Israel by land, sea and air, according to the Israeli military, leading to some of the first pitched battles between Israeli and Arab forces on Israeli soil in decades.

Unverified video footage, circulated by Hamas, the Iran-backed militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, appeared to show some Palestinian gunmen arriving in Israel in a sort of makeshift hang glider.

Residents of Israeli border towns told broadcasters that gunmen were moving door to door, looking for civilians. Unverified footage appeared to show Palestinian fighters transporting captured Israeli civilians and bodies through the strip — to be bargained, analysts said, for Palestinian prisoners.

In Sderot, a southern city, photographs showed dead bodies strewn on the streets. The militants also targeted an all-night dance festival in the desert, prompting hundreds of young Israelis to sprint for safety.

“We are at war and we will win it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a televised statement, announcing a call-up of hundreds of thousands of Israeli military reservists.

Muhammad Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, said in a recorded message that the group had decided to launch an “operation” so that “the enemy will understand that the time of their rampaging without accountability has ended.” He cited Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which it captured during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, recent Israeli police raids on the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the detention of thousands of Palestinian militants in Israeli jails.

The potential role of Iran in the operation drew scrutiny in Israel as the violence spread to other parts of the region. In addition to Hamas, Tehran backs another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, providing all of them with weaponry and intelligence.

Hamas leaders called for Arabs living in Israel and the West Bank to seize the momentum created by the assault and carry out their own attacks on Israelis. Three Palestinians died in clashes on Saturday with Israeli security forces in the West Bank, according to Palestinian officials.

United Nations peacekeepers said they were bolstering their activity on Israel’s border with southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway, particularly after a skirmish with Israeli troops along the border on Saturday.

The timing of the assault was striking, hitting Israel at one of the most difficult moments in its history. It followed months of profound anxiety about the cohesion of Israeli society and the readiness of its military, a crisis set off by the far-right government’s efforts to reduce the power of the judiciary.

And the violence came 50 years and a day after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Israel was also surprised by an Arab attack on multiple fronts, leading to huge Israeli losses and soul-searching about the state of the country.

The shock of the attack appeared to rekindle a sense of unity among Israelis, as government critics who had resigned from reserve duty in protest of the judicial plan announced they would return to service in Israel’s hour of need. Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of the opposition, announced he was prepared to join a government of national unity — a move that would potentially postpone any further judicial changes and allow Mr. Netanyahu to end his alliance with the far right.

The attack also coincided with Israel’s escalating efforts to seal a landmark peace deal with Saudi Arabia, which has never recognized the Jewish state out of solidarity with the Palestinians, but had seemed ready to change its policy. It was not immediately clear how the normalization effort would be affected. The Saudi government issued a statement of concern about the situation and called for a cessation of hostilities.

Mr. Netanyahu spoke with President Biden by phone on Saturday afternoon, his office said, telling Mr. Biden that “a forceful and continued battle will be required, in which Israel will triumph.” In his own statement, Mr. Biden said that “the United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel” and that “Israel has a right to defend itself and its people.”

The ease with which Palestinian fighters entered Israel prompted recriminations and anger among Israelis. There were questions about the quality of Israeli intelligence gathering, normally a point of Israeli pride, and suggestions that the Israeli military — which has focused its recent activity on quelling an insurgency in the West Bank — had misdirected its energies.

Fighting often flares between Israel and Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel’s existence and regularly organizes attacks on Israelis.

After Hamas — listed as a terrorist group by the United States — seized control of Gaza in 2007 from more moderate Palestinian factions, Israel and Egypt placed the enclave under a blockade, deepening the dire humanitarian situation there. Unemployment is close to 50 percent in the Gaza Strip, and only 10 percent of Gazans have direct access to clean water, according to UNICEF.

Hamas militants have occasionally broken out of Gaza, which is surrounded by both walls and fences, as well as subterranean fortifications to prevent tunneling into Israel. But they have never penetrated so deep into Israeli territory, for so long or in so many places. Militants are believed to have captured the remains of two Israeli soldiers during the 2014 war with Israel and held an Israeli soldier hostage for five years until 2011, when he was released in a prisoner swap.

The scale of the latest Palestinian attack shocked Israelis, many of whom were observing the Jewish Sabbath. Diplomats and analysts, too, were caught off guard. They had expected the Gaza front to remain quiet for the foreseeable future, after international mediators appeared to have persuaded Hamas to end a recent weekslong series of riots and protests on the border with Israel.

In recent months, Israel had been allowing up to 18,000 workers to cross daily from Gaza into Israel, helping Gaza’s economy and adding to a general sense that calm would prevail.

Hamas’s rocket arsenal was considered to be its primary weapon because the Israeli Army had secured the land border with walls and other fortifications, making a ground invasion difficult.

But early Saturday morning, Palestinian militants appeared to circumvent the border with relative ease, swiftly forcing their way through gaps in the fortifications and fanning out into several towns, army bases and the city of Sderot.

The head of a local council in southern Israel, Ofir Libstein, was killed in a subsequent gunfight with militants, the council announced.

In desperate interviews with Israeli broadcasters, residents of the Israeli border towns said the gunmen were walking through their houses, forcing them to barricade themselves in their bomb shelters — a common feature of Israeli homes.

The Israeli response came first by land, in the towns invaded by militants, and then by air, as its air force struck locations across the Gaza Strip.

Gazan civilians had first reacted with jubilation to the attacks on Israel, as crowds greeted returning militants like heroes, video showed.

But those celebrations quickly turned to fear as the Israeli response began.

The streets of Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban area, emptied out as residents gathered at schools to take shelter. Lines also formed at supermarkets, as people stocked up on supplies. And Gazans living close to the Israeli border fled to areas further inside the enclave, fearing an Israeli ground invasion.

“We can’t take it anymore,” said Jamila Al-Zanin, 39, a mother of three, who was one of those who fled with their families away from the border. “The situation is really, really bad.”

The Israeli government said Saturday evening that it was cutting off its electricity supply for Gaza, which gets two-thirds of its power from Israel.

Analysts expected the Gaza war could set off a surge in violence in the West Bank, which has already experienced its bloodiest year since the second intifada, a Palestinian uprising that left 1,000 Israelis and around 3,000 Palestinians dead by the time it ended in 2005.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank so far this year, often during gun battles between militants and the Israeli Army — a two-decade high. At least 36 Israelis had been killed this year before Saturday’s attack — also a two-decade high.

The Hamas assault was condemned by most Western countries, but praised by Israel’s enemies — including Hezbollah and Iran, which saw it as a sign of Israeli weakness.

The spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanani, said that “today’s operation opened a new chapter in the field of resistance and armed operations against the occupiers in the occupied territories.”

Reporting was contributed by Raja Abdulrahim from Istanbul; Jonathan Rosen and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; Iyad Abuheweila from Cairo; Aaron Boxerman from London; Euan Ward and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; and Rami Nazzal from Ramallah, West Bank.

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But the Chinese foreign ministry’s statement also suggested that Beijing has no appetite to step into mediation on its own. The international community must “find a way to bring about enduring peace,” it said. “China will continue to work relentlessly with the international community towards that end.”

Hamas attacks and Israel declares war. Now What?

The psychological impact on Israelis has been compared to the shock of Sept. 11 in America. So after the Israeli military repels the initial Palestinian attack, the question of what to do next will loom large. There are few good options for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has declared war and is being pressured into a major military response.

Given that 250 Israelis have died so far and an unknown number been taken hostage by Hamas, an Israeli invasion of Gaza — and even a temporary re-occupation of the territory, something that successive Israeli governments have tried hard to avoid — cannot be ruled out.

As Mr. Netanyahu told Israelis in declaring war: “We will bring the fight to them with a might and scale that the enemy has not yet known,” adding that the Palestinian groups would pay a heavy price.

But a major war could have unforeseen consequences.

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Netanyahu’s foes say they’d consider joining him in a wartime governing coalition.

On Saturday evening, Mr. Netanyahu said he had discussed establishing an emergency government during meetings with Mr. Lapid and Mr. Gantz.

Mr. Netanyahu’s 64-seat coalition in Israel’s 120-member parliament, is led by his right-wing Likud party but also has powerful nationalist and ultra-Orthodox wings. Political analysts have deemed it the most conservative government in Israeli history; it has led a highly controversial overhaul of Israel’s judiciary that resulted in months of protests.

Mr. Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party commands 24 seats, has said he would willing to join a government led by Mr. Netanyahu if he ditched hard-line partners like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultranationalist national security minister.

“I’m willing to put aside our arguments and form an emergency, narrow, professional government with him to manage the tough, complex and extended battle ahead of us,” Mr. Lapid said he told Mr. Netanyahu.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu knows that with the current extreme and dysfunctional security cabinet, he can’t manage a war,” he added.

In a statement on Saturday evening, Mr. Gantz — whose National Unity party has 12 seats in Parliament — said he would consider forming an emergency government with Mr. Netanyahu that would “focus solely on security challenges” and allow his party to influence decision-making.

Military experts say the Hamas attacks were unusually sophisticated.

“The attack itself was very complex,” said Mick Mulroy, a former top Pentagon Middle East official and retired C.I.A. paramilitary officer.

Mr. Mulroy said the invasion was preceded by a barrage of thousands of rockets and missiles that likely stunned much of the Israeli armed forces and the police forces. Militants then used technical means to disrupt Israel communications, he said, before launching a multipronged air, sea and land attack with assaulters roaring in on tractors to clear Israeli defensive barriers. Pickup trucks loaded with soldiers, small boats and manned paragliders were also part of the assault.

“These multiple means of attack probably gave the IDF a significant tactical dilemma,” Mr. Mulroy said, referring to the Israeli military.

Javed Ali, a former White House counterterrorism official now at the University of Michigan’s Ford School, concurred, saying in an email that “the attack was stunning in its scope, complexity and impact in Israel. Never before had the group launched a multifaceted operation to this extent, which almost certainly required months of deliberate planning and coordination.”

The element of surprise played a large role in the attacks’ initial success, outside experts said.

“From a purely military perspective, the Hamas operation was groundbreaking,” said Bilal Saab, director of the Middle East Institute’s defense and security program in Washington. “The missiles were used for diversion. The goal was infiltration, which succeeded. This is what Hezbollah threatened Israel with in the 2000s.”

Mr. Ali said it was odd that Israeli intelligence appeared to have missed signs the attack was coming. “Significant questions arise over how Israeli intelligence was unable to detect strategic or tactical indicators of the operation, given their longstanding excellence in domestic and foreign intelligence,” Mr. Ali said.

Analysts also said they saw the probable influence, if not direct support, from Iran in the strikes, especially given Tehran’s longstanding relationship with Hamas and its supply of money, weapons, and training.

“The operation’s complexity indicates a nation-state like Iran was behind this supporting the attackers with weapons and munitions, intelligence, and possibly operational planning,” said Mr. Mulroy.

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Hundreds are said to be missing after fleeing a music festival near the Gaza Strip.

The outdoor music festival was held near Urim, a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. Israeli news media reported that some young Israelis were hiding for hours, some in their cars, at the site of the festival, and that dozens were still being evacuated by Israeli security forces to nearby towns and hospitals. Videos circulating on social media showed attendees running, yelling and escaping in cars.

On social media, lists began to circulate naming attendees who were still missing on Saturday evening. One list viewed by The New York Times had over 500 names of people reported missing, along with their hometowns and the contact information of family members searching for them.

On a WhatsApp group dedicated to residents of southern Israel, several people shared messages claiming they were at the festival when the chaos broke out.

“People were shot in their cars as they tried to drive away,” read one message from a young man who said he was at the festival. “A lot of people just started running. It was crazy. Nobody knows where their friends are.”

According to one attendee interviewed by The Times of Israel, the festival was held to celebrate Sukkot, the Jewish harvest holiday. The festival, which thousands of young Israelis attended, began at 11 p.m. Friday and continued into Saturday morning.

Local Israeli television channels reported that phone lines were unstable in the region and that parents were advised not to try to reach the area.

Some Israelis are flying home to fight.

“It’s the thought that you have friends that will be in immediate danger, and you cannot help them,” said Yotam Avrahami, 31, one of the many Israelis who has been packing bags and preparing to join the fight.

Mr. Avrahami, who has lived in New York for four years, said he is lucky — his wife and 7-month-old daughter will stay in New York, safe from the violence. But his friends back home have already had loved ones die in the most recent attacks — and they have seen children killed, too.

“You’re trying to protect them,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Mr. Avrahami spent about $2,000 on a one-way plane ticket, he said, and he has planned to report to a base on Sunday to see where he is needed. He has also been messaging another friend who was waiting to fly home from Dubai.

“I’m not unique,” he said. “This is kind of Israelis across the board.”

But some flights into the country are being canceled, leaving Israelis abroad in limbo. Aaron Kaplowitz, the president of the United States-Israel Business Alliance, has spoken with friends across the world trying to get back, he said.

“Many of them are trying to sort out the logistics to find ways to get back to Israel, to either rejoin their reserve units or just to be around their friends and family,” he said.

Mr. Avrahami, for his part, said his wife is concerned for his safety. But, he said, “at the end of the day, she understands the necessity.”

They spent the day before his flight preparing: They went to The North Face to get supplies — comfortable clothes, a new pair of boots — to wear during what could be weeks of combat.

Avrahami, who works in investments and consulting with Deloitte, also said he had been emailing his colleagues and clients, letting them know that he would be out of the office for a while.

“I was planning on client engagement, workloads, managing next opportunities, business management, investment cycles and stuff like that,” he said. “My whole world was like that yesterday. Today, it just doesn’t matter anymore.”

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Here is a timeline of the clashes between Palestinian militants and Israel.

• On several occasions this year, hundreds of Israeli forces carried out military raids in the Palestinian city of Jenin. In January, a Palestinian man killed seven people outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem.

• After a spate of terrorist attacks in Israeli cities in 2022, Israeli forces killed at least 166 Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

• In May 2021, the Israeli police raided Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third-holiest site in Islam, which set off an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas that killed more than 200 Palestinians and more than 10 Israelis.

• In 2018, at least 170 Palestinians were killed as Israel responded to protests along the barrier fence that separates Gaza and Israel.

• In 2014, Hamas kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers, prompting attacks from Israel, and rocket launches from Gaza, in a conflict that killed more than 1,881 Palestinians and more than 60 Israelis.

• In November 2012, Israel killed Ahmed al-Jabari, Hamas’s military chief, setting off more than a week of an exchange of fire in which more than 150 Palestinians and at least six Israelis are killed.

• In January 2009, Israel and Palestinian groups declared unilateral cease-fires, then Israel withdrew from Gaza, and redeployed to the strip’s perimeter.

• In response to rocket fire from Gaza, Israel launched an attack on Hamas targets in December 2008 that killed 200 Palestinians. Shortly after, they opened a ground war against Hamas. In total, 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

• In January 2006, about a year after the death of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, the co-founder of the paramilitary organization Fatah, Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary election. One year later, Hamas seized control of Gaza, routing the Fatah forces.

• In September 2005, Israeli troops pulled out of Gaza, but Israel came under criticism for restricting the movement of Palestinians coming in and out of the strip.

• In September 2000, a few months after negotiations between Israel and Palestine reached an impasse at Camp David, a Second Intifada began. Support for Hamas continued to grow within Palestine because of its readiness to fight Israel.

• In 1997, two suicide bomb attacks killed 27 people, and Israel’s prime minister, Shimon Peres, said he would wage an incessant war against Hamas.

• In 1993, Mr. Arafat signed the Oslo accords with Israel, and committed to negotiating an end to the conflict based on a two-state solution. Hamas, which opposed the deal, launched a series of suicide bombings in Israel.

• In December 1987, Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza started the First Intifada against Israel. Muslim Brotherhood members founded Hamas.

• On March 26, 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty at the White House which led to Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. The two countries agreed on the framework of an agreement to allow for self-rule for Palestinians living in occupied territories. Three years later, President Reagan expressed his support for their full autonomy with some Jordanian supervision, but Israel rejected the plan.

• On Yom Kippur in October 1973, Egypt and Syria invaded Israel with the aim of persuading it to negotiate better terms for the Arab countries. Nearly 2,700 Israeli soldiers died in the 19-day war and thousands were injured out of a population of about three million at the time.

• In June 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel gained control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled those territories or were displaced.

• In January 1957, Israel withdrew from Egyptian land, except for the Gaza Strip and the area of the Gulf of Aqaba, arguing that the Gaza Strip never belonged to Egypt.

• In October 1956, a few months after the Egyptian president nationalized the Suez Canal, cutting off Israel from shipping, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. In November that year, the United Nations called for Britain, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Egypt.

• Under the 1949 truces Israel signed with the Arab countries that had declared war on it, the Gaza Strip was under Egypt’s control.

• On May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself an independent state. Almost immediately after, the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria invaded, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. In the end, Israel got control of an even larger portion of territory that did not include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were removed from their land, in what they refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

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Renewed Palestinian rocket fire strikes central Israel late Saturday.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system fired interceptors in an attempt to destroy the rockets, which sent missile sirens blaring in cities across Israel’s heartland. But some managed to slip through and land in at least four cities, according to the Israeli police and medics.

Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service, said medics were treating at least three seriously wounded Israelis in the cities of Rishon LeZion and Yavne. Others were wounded by rocket strikes in Tel Aviv and Bat Yam, Magen David Adom said.

Soon after the nighttime rocket volley, the Israeli military said it was again striking Hamas militant targets in the Gaza Strip.

The fiercest fighting has taken place in Israel’s south, where firefights between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants continued into Saturday night, the Israeli military said.

At least 250 Israelis have been killed since the assault began on Saturday morning, according to Israeli health officials. At least 1,452 wounded Israelis have been admitted to hospitals for treatment, the Israeli Health Ministry said on Saturday night, with at least 18 critically wounded and 267 in serious condition.

According to Palestinian health officials in Gaza, at least 234 Palestinians have been killed since Saturday morning, most of them in battles inside Israel. Over 1,600 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said.

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Biden condemns the attack on Israel and warns Iran not to ‘seek advantage.’

“The world is watching,” he said.

The president, whose relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been strained for months, sought to put forward a united front in defense of Israel. He said he had spoken to Mr. Netanyahu and with Arab leaders.

“Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop,” he said. “There is never a justification for terrorist attacks. In my administration, support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.”

Mr. Biden avoided any mention of what intelligence the United States might have had in the days leading up to the attack, which took Israel by surprise when Hamas launched a coordinated early-morning assault on Saturday. After completing his remarks, he ignored a question shouted by a reporter about whether he thought there was an “intelligence failure in the lead up to this attack.”

The president did not mention the broader political situation in the Middle East or discuss how the attacks might affect his administration’s efforts to help broker a better relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Officials have said for months that such a move would have required efforts to resolve the disputes between Israel and the Palestinians — a possibility that seemed more remote after Saturday’s attacks.

In his remarks from the State Dining Room, Mr. Biden focused on what he called a “terrible tragedy on a human level,” citing the killing of Israeli citizens and the fact that Hamas appears to have taken Israeli hostages.

“It’s hurting innocent people,” he said. “Seeing the lives that have been broken by this, families torn apart. It’s heartbreaking. Jill and I are praying for those families who have been impacted by this violence.”

At least 100 Israelis had been reported dead and more than 1,100 wounded, emergency medical groups said, while at least 198 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,600 wounded in either gun battles or airstrikes, the Gazan Health Ministry said.

Blinken also spoke on Saturday with Isaac Herzog, president of Israel, and Eli Cohen, the country’s foreign minister, the State Department said, and “reiterated his condolences for the victims of the terrorist attacks against Israel and condemned those attacks in the strongest terms.” The department added that Blinken discussed measures to bolster Israel’s security and underscored the United States’ “unwavering support for Israel’s right to defend itself.”

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Some Israelis are barricading themselves in their homes, pleading for help.

Panic, disbelief and fear rippled throughout Israel on Saturday morning as Palestinian militants caught the country off guard with a broad and coordinated assault — reaching 22 Israeli towns and army bases, and abducting civilians and soldiers. They fired thousands of rockets that reached as far away as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

As world leaders condemned the attacks — and questions arose about how Israeli intelligence had been so surprised — ordinary citizens tried to make sense of what was happening.

In Sderot, an Israeli city close to the Gaza border, videos and photographs verified by The New York Times showed multiple casualties and the taking of civilian hostages.

Mike and Adele Rubin, a couple in their 90s, were huddled in their home in Sderot with their doors locked, watching reports on television about gun battles unfolding in the streets not far away. They couldn’t hear the gunfire because of the noise from sirens warning of incoming rocket fire, and from Israeli fighter jets flying to bomb targets in Gaza.

“I don’t think anybody can describe what’s happening,” Mr. Rubin said by telephone. He said he learned from television that a building about 150 meters from their house had come under attack.

In Jerusalem, sirens sounded numerous times in the center of the city, followed by loud booms. It was initially unclear if any rockets had struck the city or if the booms were caused by Israel’s aerial interceptions of the incoming rockets by its Iron Dome antimissile defense system. But one witness said rockets had struck in the wooded hills on the western edge of Jerusalem.

By Saturday evening, the continuing battles added to a nationwide sense of colossal government and military failure, and chaos.

Adele Raemer, a resident of Nirim, a small community about a mile from the Gaza border fence, told reporters in a brief call, “Nothing like this has ever happened on our kibbutz.”

“There are still terrorists in our community,” she added, speaking as dusk fell. She said that it took about seven hours for Israeli troops to arrive, and that they were working their way through the kibbutz, house by house, bringing residents to a safe gathering point.

“We had two minutes to leave,” she said, adding that she grabbed some medication that she cannot do without, her wallet and shoes. “We literally ran for our lives.”

Graphic images of violence flood social media.

Underneath some of the videos and images posted on X, people warned that they could be spread as part of a campaign to stoke fear among Israelis. Some of the accounts claimed to be working on behalf of Hamas.

On WhatsApp, Israelis warned one another not to look at X, which often auto-plays videos without warning.

“Don’t look, you might see someone you know,” wrote one person on a WhatsApp group dedicated to a neighborhood of South Tel Aviv.

There is a long history of misinformation being shared among Israeli and Palestinian groups, with false claims and conspiracy theories rising during moments of heightened violence in the region.

Since Elon Musk took ownership of the platform a year ago, he has eliminated many of the content moderation teams that once removed violent imagery from the platform.

X did not respond to a request for comment on whether it was working to remove the images.