A surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, which combined gunmen breaching security barriers with a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza, was launched at dawn during the Jewish high holiday of Simchat Torah.
The attack came 50 years and a day after Egyptian and Syrian forces launched an assault during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in an effort to retrieve territory Israel had taken during a brief conflict in 1967.
This is how it took place:
COVERING ROCKET BARRAGE
About 6.30am on Saturday, Hamas fired a huge barrage of rockets across southern Israel, with sirens heard as far away as Tel Aviv and Beersheba.
Hamas said it had fired 5000 rockets in a first barrage. Israel’s military said 2500 rockets were fired.
Smoke billowed over residential Israeli areas and people sheltered behind buildings as sirens sounded overhead. At least one woman was reported killed by the rockets.
DAWN INFILTRATION
The barrage served as cover for an unprecedented multi-pronged infiltration of fighters, with the Israeli military saying at 7.40am that Palestinian gunmen had crossed into Israel.
Most fighters crossed through breaches in land security barriers separating Gaza and Israel. But at least one was filmed crossing on a powered parachute while a motorboat was filmed heading to Zikim, an Israeli coastal town and military base.
Read the article in The West Australian. (