JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip on Monday, halting deliveries of food, water, fuel and supplies to its 2.3 million people as it pounded the Hamas-ruled territory with waves of airstrikes in retaliation for the militants’ bloody weekend incursion.
Around 1,400 Israelis and Palestinians are dead two days after Hamas launched an attack that caught Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence apparatus completely off guard and led to fierce battles in its streets for the first time in decades.
The Israeli military said it had largely gained control in its southern towns where it had been battling Hamas gunmen. But Hamas and other militants in Gaza say they are holding more than 130 soldiers and civilians snatched from inside Israel.
Israeli tanks and drones were deployed to guard breaches in the Gaza border fence to prevent new incursions. Thousands of Israelis were evacuated from more than a dozen towns near Gaza, and the military summoned 300,000 reservists — a massive mobilization in a short time.
The moves, along with Israel’s formal declaration of war on Sunday, pointed to Israel increasingly shifting to the offensive against Hamas, threatening greater destruction in the densely populated, impoverished Gaza Strip.
Already, civilians on both sides have suffered a terrible toll. Around 900 people, including 73 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, according to media. More than 100 of those were in Beeri, a small farming community of only 1,000 people that was the scene of a hostage standoff during the Hamas rampage, according to the Israeli rescue service Zaka.
In Gaza, 493 people have been killed, according to authorities there. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
In response to Israel’s bombardment, the spokesman of Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Obeida, said in an audio released Monday night that the group will kill one Israeli civilian captive any time Israel targets civilians in their homes in Gaza “without prior warning.” Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen warned Hamas against harming any of the hostages, saying, “This war crime will not be forgiven.”
A major question remains whether Israel will launch a ground assault into the tiny Mediterranean coastal territory, a move that in the past has brought even greater casualties.
Israel and Hamas have had repeated conflicts in past years, often sparked by tensions around a Jerusalem holy site. This time, the context has become potentially more explosive, and both sides talk of shattering with violence a years-long Israeli-Palestinian deadlock left by the moribund peace process.
Israel has been stunned by a surprise attack and death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. That is fomenting calls to crush Hamas no matter the cost, rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza. Israel is run by its most hard-right government ever, dominated by ministers who adamantly reject any Palestinians statehood.
Hamas, in turn, says it is ready for a long battle to end an Israeli occupation it says is no longer tolerable. Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending Israeli control and increasing settler depredations in the West Bank, the blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world’s apathy.
“I ask you to stand firm because we are going to change the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told authorities from the south Monday. “I know you have been through terrible and difficult things. What Hamas will go through will be difficult and terrible … we have only just begun.”
In the early evening, the sound of explosions echoed over Jerusalem when a volley of rockets fired from Gaza hit two neighborhoods – a sign of Hamas’s reach. Israeli media said seven were wounded.
Monday evening, Israeli warplanes carried out an intense bombardment of Rimal, a residential and commercial district of central Gaza City, after issuing warnings for residents to evacuate. Amid continuous explosions, the building housing the headquarters of the Palestinian Telecommunications Company was destroyed.
