Israel war leaves 22 people as militants storm through Gaza

Palestinian militants had begun a “war” against Israel which they infiltrated by air, sea and land from the blockaded Gaza Strip on Saturday, Israeli officials said, a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “we are at war” and vowed severe retaliation after ordering an extensive mobilisation of army reserves. “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price” for the surprise attack, he warned.

Iran-backed Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, released a video showing its fighters had captured three men dressed in civilian clothes and described as “enemy soldiers” in the video caption.

“We decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation (Israel). Their time for rampaging without being held accountable is over,” said the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas armed wing.

“We announce Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and we fired, in the first strike of 20 minutes, more than 5,000 rockets.”

Israel’s army said its forces were fighting Palestinian militants on the ground in several locations near the Strip. It dubbed its operation “Swords of Iron”.

Army spokesman Richard Hecht said the militants conducted a combined raid “which happened through paragliders, through the sea and through the ground”.

He would not be drawn on reports that Israelis had been captured.

Unverified videos on social media showed bodies of a number of people in military fatigues as well as dead motorists and passengers on a highway.

“Send help, please!” one woman sheltering with her two-year-old child pleaded as militants shot at her house and tried to break into their safe room, according to Israeli media.

Militant infiltration from Gaza, an impoverished enclave home to 2.3 million people, has been rare since Hamas took control in 2007, leading to Israel’s crippling blockade. Gaza is sealed off from Israel by a militarised border barrier.

Unverified videos on social media showed bodies of a number of people in military fatigues as well as dead motorists and passengers on a highway.

“Send help, please!” one woman sheltering with her two-year-old child pleaded as militants shot at her house and tried to break into their safe room, according to Israeli media.

Militant infiltration from Gaza, an impoverished enclave home to 2.3 million people, has been rare since Hamas took control in 2007, leading to Israel’s crippling blockade. Gaza is sealed off from Israel by a militarised border barrier.

The rocket barrage from Gaza — which Hecht said numbered at least 2,200 — left cars burning beneath residential buildings in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, about 10 kilometres (six miles) north of Gaza.

The attack occurred on Shabbat and during a Jewish holiday.

Netanyahu said in a statement that the Hamas attack will be riposted at “a magnitude that the enemy has not known”.

Israeli Major General Ghasan Alyan warned Hamas had “opened the gates of hell” and would “pay for its deeds”.

AFP journalists said Israel’s military began air strikes on Gaza, after rockets began streaming across the sky from inside the territory beginning at 6:30 am (0330 GMT).

The military said dozens of its fighter jets “are currently striking a number of targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in the Gaza Strip.”

An AFP journalist saw armed Palestinians gathered around an Israeli tank, which was partially in flames, after they crossed the border fence from Khan Yunis in Gaza.

Another AFP journalist saw Palestinians returning to Gaza City driving a seized Israeli Humvee.

Air raid sirens wailed across southern and central Israel, as well as an unusual number of times in Jerusalem, where AFP journalists heard multiple rockets being intercepted by Israeli air defence systems.

The army urged people to stay near bomb shelters.