The israeli attack on Gaza, 50 years after the opening of the 1967 Jewish High Holidays, as announced by the Israeli military wing of Hamas
According to the military wing of Hamas, there was an operation to protect the Aqsa mosque, one of the holiest places in Jerusalem, where thousands of Jews have visited in recent weeks.
The ambulance service called for blood and planned on holding a blood drive at the hospital in Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military said that armed gunmen had crossed the border fence in several locations and infiltrated Israeli communities in a ground assault from Gaza, a poor coastal enclave that has been under blockade by Israel and neighboring Egypt for about 15 years.
The Israeli military said that at least 2,200 rockets had been fired into Israel by 11 a.m. on Saturday. It declared “a state of alert for war” and said that its fighter jets had begun airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
The assault began without warning the morning of the Jewish Sabbath and the day before the festival, the last of a series of Jewish high holidays. It was 50 years almost to the day after the surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian forces over Israel’s northern and southern borders at the opening of the 1973 war that traumatized the nation.
The leader of Hamas’ military wing, Muhammad Deif, said in a recorded message that the group was going to launch an operation in order to show the enemy that the time of rampaging without accountability was over.
Israel and Gaza are on war footing after heavy shell shells are directed at the southern border, Israel’s largest city, according to Netanyahu
According to the ambulance service there were at least 22 deaths. Three Israeli hospitals reported large numbers of wounded. Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba had admitted more than 80 people, with some “in very difficult condition,” a hospital spokeswoman said.
Netanyahu said that he had called in the army to clear the towns from the militant group.
Israel and Gaza were on a war footing on Saturday, after Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired thousands of rockets into southern and central Israel.