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Latest situation
Bombing in Gaza has continued and Israel has warned about half of the Gaza Strip’s population to relocate from the north to the south of the enclave with what the UN said was a 24-hour deadline.
Israel said on Saturday that it would restrict firing on some indicated streets to allow movement between 10am and 4pm.
After last Saturday’s mass attack by Hamas, the death toll of Israeli civilians and troops already surpasses that of the Second intifada that lasted for five years in the early 2000s. Palestinian casualties have also mounted rapidly since Israel began its retaliatory air strikes.
Saturday 7 October — how events unfolded
As much of Israel slept, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented, multipronged dawn assault on the country from the Gaza Strip. The Middle East’s most powerful security force was caught off guard.
Launched on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the assault began in the early hours with thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities. The barrage set off warning sirens across the south and centre of the country, sending citizens fleeing to air-raid shelters.
Israel’s military said Gaza-based militants launched more than 4,500 rockets over the weekend. Many were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, but satellite imagery showed fires and plumes of black smoke rising from some locations that had been hit.
Hundreds of Hamas fighters simultaneously attacked by land, air and sea, repeatedly breaching the fortified barrier between Gaza and Israel.
Images and videos showed motorbikes carrying armed militants riding through a hole in a wire fence along the border and a bulldozer destroying part of the barrier. Bombs, rockets and drones could also be seen blowing up the fence as well as defensive positions.
Militants used motorised paragliders to attack the Supernova music festival, not far from the Gaza border, flying in and turning the two-day rave into the site of a massacre.
Gunmen chased young Israelis across the desert, shooting and snatching people to take back to Gaza as hostages. The Israeli military failed to respond for hours, apparently caught by surprise by the attack. Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from the site.
Attacks on Israeli cities
After breaching the Gaza fence, armed Hamas fighters began targeting Israeli communities at several locations, going door-to-door and taking hostages.
Images and video show people lying dead in the streets after execution-style killings and residents including women, children and the elderly being taken away.
The militants also attacked military sites.
More than 1,200 Israeli civilians and troops have died since Saturday with 2,700 wounded, the Israel Defense Forces said. It marks the deadliest attack on the country since its foundation in 1948.
Israel’s response
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, calling up a record 300,000 reservists and ordering the strip to be pounded from the air.
The complexity of the assault by Hamas is unlike anything Israel has witnessed in decades. It raises serious questions about the security service’s intelligence gathering and the military’s preparedness for an attack.
Visual and Data team: Peter Andringa, Steven Bernard, Chris Campbell, Sam Joiner, Lucy Rodgers and Alan Smith
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