Netanyahu spoke after the attacks on Hamas

The Israeli-Jewish War and the Status of the Interaction Between Israel and the Palestinians: a Statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that there was a military operation “in defense of the Aqsa mosque,” the hotly contested holy site in Jerusalem that thousands of Jews have visited in recent weeks, and against the Israeli blockade.

The ambulance service, Magen David Adom, issued an urgent call for blood and was organizing a special blood donation drive at a hospital in central Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military claimed that militant crossed into Israel by land, sea and air in an assault that was unprecedented and led to some of the first fought battles between Israelis and Arabs in decades.

The Israeli military said that there had been a lot of rocket fire into Israel. Fighter jets had begun airstrikes on the Gaza Strip after it declared a state of alert for war.

The scale of the latest Palestinian attack shocked Israelis, many of whom were observing the Jewish Sabbath. Diplomats and analysts, too, were caught off guard. They had expected the Gaza front to be quiet for the long haul, after international mediation seemed to have persuaded Hamas to end recent riots on the border with Israel.

In a recorded message, the leader of the military wing of Hamas, Muhammad Deif, said that the group had decided to launch an operation so as to end the rampaging of the enemy.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that 198 Palestinians have been killed and 1,610 Palestinians have been wounded on Saturday. Yousef Abu al-Rish, the top Palestinian health official in Gaza, said that most of the casualties resulted from firefights inside Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a call up of reserve soldiers because operations were underway to clear the towns of the militant group.

A surprise attack on southern and central Israel by Palestinian militant groups on Saturday was one of the biggest in Gaza in years, and Israel and Gaza were on a war footing.

Mr. Netanyahu spoke with President Biden by phone on Saturday afternoon, his office said, telling Mr. Biden that “a forceful and continued battle will be required, in which Israel will triumph.” In his own statement, Mr. Biden said that “the United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel” and that “Israel has a right to defend itself and its people.”

The video footage, which was made public by Hamas, appears to show at least one Palestinian man arriving in Israel in a hang glider.

The residents of the border towns of Israel said that the people walking through their houses forced them to barricade themselves in their bomb shelters, a common feature of Israeli homes.

There were dead bodies on the streets in Sderot. Hundreds of young people sprinted for safety after the militant group targets an all night dance festival in the desert.

Israel’s War with the Arabs: Israeli Defense and Popular Repression Against the Hamas Insurgency in the Gaza Strip

“We are at war and we will win it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a televised statement, announcing a call-up of hundreds of thousands of Israeli military reservists.

Hezbollah and Iran saw the Hamas assault as a sign of Israeli weakness, and they were thrilled with the condemnation by most Western countries.

Arabs living in the West Bank and Israel were urged by Hamas to carry out their own attacks on Israelis. Three Palestinians died in clashes on Saturday with Israeli security forces in the West Bank, according to Palestinian officials.

United Nations peacekeepers said they were bolstering their activity on Israel’s border with southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway, particularly after a skirmish with Israeli troops along the border on Saturday.

The loss of life in the attack appeared to reignite a sense of unity among Israelis, as those who had resigned from reserve duty because of the judicial plan announced they would return to service. A government of national unity, which would allow Mr. Netanyahu to end his alliance with the far right, was announced by Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of the opposition.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have been negotiating a landmark peace treaty in the hopes of ending the conflict with the Palestinians. Israeli officials said they were prepared to change their stance towards the Palestinians, which had been supported by Saudi Arabia. It was not immediately clear how the normalization effort would be affected. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia issued a statement of concern about the situation and requested a cessation of hostilities.

The ease with which the Palestinians entered Israel made many angry and recriminations. There were questions about the quality of Israeli intelligence gathering, normally a point of Israeli pride, and suggestions that the Israeli military — which has focused its recent activity on quelling an insurgency in the West Bank — had misdirected its energies.

The enclave of Gaza was placed under a blockade by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took control of the area from the more moderate Palestinian group. Unemployment is close to 50 percent in the Gaza Strip, while only 10 percent of the people there have access to clean water.

In recent months, Israel had been allowing up to 18,000 workers to cross daily from Gaza into Israel, helping Gaza’s economy and adding to a general sense that calm would prevail.

Hamas’s rocket arsenal was considered to be its primary weapon because the Israeli Army had secured the land border with walls and other fortifications, making a ground invasion difficult.

The streets of Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban area, emptied out as residents gathered at schools to take shelter. Lines also formed at supermarkets, as people stocked up on supplies. And Gazans living close to the Israeli border fled to areas further inside the enclave, fearing an Israeli ground invasion.

“We can’t take it anymore,” said Jamila Al-Zanin, 39, a mother of three, who was one of those who fled with their families away from the border. “The situation is really, really bad.”

Source: ‘We Are at War,’ Netanyahu Says After Hamas Attacks

Observations of the Gaza War with the United Nations. II. Nasser Kanani: “Today’s Operation opened a new chapter in the field of resistance against the occupiers in the occupied territories”

The West Bank has already seen its bloodiest year since the second intifada, with around 3,000 Palestinians dying by the time the rebellion ended in 2005, and analysts expected a surge in violence during the Gaza war.

The spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanani, said that “today’s operation opened a new chapter in the field of resistance and armed operations against the occupiers in the occupied territories.”

Reporting was contributed by Raja Abdulrahim from Istanbul; Jonathan Rosen and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; Iyad Abuheweila from Cairo; Aaron Boxerman from London; Euan Ward and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; and Rami Nazzal from Ramallah, West Bank.