Israeli forces clashed with gunmen from the Palestinian group Hamas on Sunday, 24 hours after the militants launched a surprise attack on Israel in which about 500 people were killed in the deadliest day of violence in Israel for 50 years.
The conflict was spreading, with fire from Lebanon into northern Israel, which the armed group Hezbollah said it carried out “in solidarity” with the Palestinian people.
Israeli forces responded with artillery strikes into Lebanon and a drone attack on a Hezbollah post near the border, the military said. There were no reports of casualties.
The incursion from Gaza into southern Israel, the biggest in decades, could undermine US-backed efforts to forge regional security alignments that could threaten Palestinian aspirations for statehood and the ambitions of the group’s main backer, Iran.
Hamas fighters began their attack at dawn on Saturday with a huge barrage of rockets into southern Israel, giving cover to an unprecedented, multi-pronged infiltration of fighters into Israel from Gaza, a narrow strip that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
Hamas fighters killed at least 250 Israelis in clashes throughout Saturday and into Sunday, and escaped back into Gaza with dozens of hostages. More than 250 Gazans were killed when Israel responded with one of its most devastating days of retaliatory strikes.
“We will take mighty vengeance for this wicked day,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
Read the article by Maayan Lubell, Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Ammar Awad in Sight Magazine.