Tel Aviv/Gaza, 8 October 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Israel's military on Sunday conducted a series of aerial strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip following a major assault by Palestinian militants the previous day.

 

Hundreds of people on both sides have been killed in the fighting so far, with medical sources in Israel reporting some 300 dead there and about 1,600 injured as of Saturday evening.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to avenge the surprise attack which came on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, warning of "a long and difficult war" forced upon his country by Hamas, which rules in Gaza.

 

Hamas is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU, the United States and Israel.

 

Retaliatory Israeli strikes have killed 313 Palestinians and injured almost 2,000 in the Gaza Strip so far, local health authorities said.

 

Among the dead was high-ranking Hamas leader Ayman Younis, whose body was recovered from the rubble on Sunday after the shelling of his house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the civil protection agency confirmed.

 

Palestinian militants launched more rockets at Israeli border towns on Sunday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that warning sirens sounded repeatedly in towns near the Palestinian coastal area throughout the morning.

 

According to media reports, one person was seriously injured when a rocket hit the border town of Sderot. The IDF wants to evacuate the border area and move the population to safer parts of the country.

 

In addition to the casualties from military action, dozens of Israelis are reported to have been forcibly taken into the Gaza Strip, including women, children and elderly persons.

 

At the same time, concerns grew about an expansion of the fighting in the Middle East. Another militant group, the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, fired rockets at Israeli-occupied territory from the north on Sunday morning, according to the IDF.

 

Israeli forces shelled the area in Lebanon from which the rockets were fired, an IDF spokesman said. Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Iran, claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, which was also confirmed by the United Nations Observer Mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL). At noon on Sunday, there was a second round of shelling from Lebanon.

 

Following a meeting of security chiefs on Sunday, Netanyahu pledged to destroy the military and governance capabilities of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad organization "so that they will no longer be able and willing to threaten and attack the citizens of Israel for many years."

 

"We are beginning a long and difficult war forced upon us by a murderous attack by Hamas," Netanyahu said.

 

Accordingly, Israel announced a defensive action dubbed Iron Swords after the attack from Gaza and called up reservists.

 

In earlier comments, Netanyahu vowed to turn "all of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in [...] into islands of ruins." Addressing the residents of Gaza, he said, "leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere."

 

"This war will take time," said Netanyahu. "Challenging days are ahead of us."

 

Joining condemnation overseas of the Palestinian attacks, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was among those warning of a possible major escalation in the region.

 

"This day is a caesura, an unprecedented act of escalation by Hamas," Baerbock said in Berlin. "Because of these terrorist attacks, there is now an incalculable danger of a major regional escalation." She could only "warn in the strongest terms against others joining this terror," the Foreign Minister said.

 

Speaking to the BBC, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said the group had received direct support for the attack from Iran. Tehran had pledged to "stand by the Palestinian fighters until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem," he said.

 

Having been initially taken by surprise, the Israeli military on Sunday coordinated counter-attack operations in Gaza. Troops interdicted five more Palestinian militants who were trying to enter Israel on the beach, the IDF said. Israeli radio reported that the men had been killed, although there was no confirmation by the IDF.

 

In the West Bank, six Palestinians also died in clashes with the Israeli army in several locations on Saturday, including a 13-year-old boy, according to the Health Ministry in Ramallah.

 

Another man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers after an attempted knife attack, according to Palestinian sources.

 

Meanwhile, talks were under way in Israel to form an emergency government. Netanyahu had offered the two opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz entry into an emergency government, a spokesman for Netanyahu's Likud party announced.

 

Lapid had previously signalled his willingness to do so. According to media reports, however, a meeting between Lapid and Gantz remained without agreement.

 

Photo: MIA archive