Fighting against Hamas continues in multiple locations inside Israel after war formally declared
Israeli forces are actively fighting Hamas in two locations inside Israel, after the country formally declared war.
Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, the international spokesperson for the IDF, told Sky News that Israeli troops have managed to regain control of some areas of southern Israel.
“There are two last pockets of fighting,” he said. “We have more or less stabilised control in all communities around Gaza.”
Earlier, the IDF said fighting was occurring in as many as eight locations.
It said it thought the situation would be in “a better place”, more than 48 hours since the beginning of the surprise attack.
More than 1,000 Palestinian targets hit – follow live updates
Lieutenant Colonel Hecht said he was unsure if more Hamas had come across the Gaza border.
“There could be a potential for more to come through. We are still looking at other options for them to infiltrate into Israel. We can’t deny that,” he said.
“We are trying to make sure our border is secure on the ground and in the sea.”
Other key developments include:
• Hundreds of Israelis are being held hostage by Hamas, including women, children and the elderly;
• Israeli civilians have been gunned down in towns, along roads and at a techno music festival being held in the desert near Gaza;
• The United Nations Security Council opted for no immediate action after an emergency meeting;
• More than 123,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, UN says.
Israel-Hamas War – watch special programme on Sky News tonight at 9pm.
Israeli forces moved to crush fighters still in southern towns and intensified their bombardment of the Gaza Strip with the number of dead reaching 1,100 and thousands wounded on both sides.
At least 700 people have reportedly been killed in Israel and around 493 have died in Gaza as Israel retaliated with airstrikes in an operation which has been dubbed “Swords of Iron”.
The IDF said it had struck more than 1,000 targets inside the Gaza Strip, including airstrikes that levelled much of the town of Beit Hanoun in the northeast corner.
Explosions over Gaza City on Sunday. Pic: AP
The Israeli rescue service Zaka said its paramedics removed about 260 bodies from a music festival attended by thousands that came under attack.
The total number of dead is expected to be higher as other paramedic teams were working in the area.
Video on social media and Israeli news outlets showed dozens of festival-goers running through an open field as gunshots rang out. Many hid in nearby fruit orchards or were gunned down as they fled.
Damaged building in Ashkelon, Israel. Pic: AP
Israeli police take cover in Sderot
“It’s the darkest day in our history,” Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, spokesperson for the IDF, said.
“You could say it’s 9/11 and Pearl Harbor together for us,” he told Fox News.
Major Nir Dinar, also from the IDF, added: “They got us. They surprised us and they came fast from many spots – both from the air and the ground and the sea.”
By late Sunday, Israeli airstrikes destroyed 159 housing units across Gaza and severely damaged 1,210 others, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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Gaza ablaze as conflict enters third day
The declaration of war foreshadows heavier fighting ahead, and a major question is whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought increased casualties.
Meanwhile, in northern Israel, a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group fanned fears that the fighting could expand into a wider regional war.
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip
During their rampage through southern Israel, militants dragged back into Gaza dozens of captives.
Authorities are still trying to determine how many civilians and soldiers were seized by Hamas fighters and taken back to Gaza.
Palestinians inspect damage in Gaza City
From videos and witnesses, the captives are known to include women, children and the elderly.
Hamas fighters crossed the Gaza border
Israeli cities targeted by Hamas rockets
The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, Ziad Nakhaleh, said his group, which took part in the attack, is holding more than 30 Israelis, among dozens he said were captive in Gaza.
He said they would not be released until all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are freed.
Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk told Arabic language news outlet al Ghad on Sunday that they were holding more than 100 people captive.
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Israeli city shocked by attack
Read more:
Haunting messages left by Israelis taken hostage
What is Hamas – and why has it chosen now to strike?
British man serving in Israeli army killed in Hamas attack
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said as many as 1,000 Hamas fighters were involved in the assault, a high figure that underscored the extent of planning by the militant group ruling Gaza.
Palestinians inspect a mosque destroyed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip
How Hamas carried out deadly Israel attack
Israeli Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters Hamas was using Beit Hanoun as a staging ground for attacks.
There was no immediate word on casualties in the town, with most of the community’s population of tens of thousands thought likely to have fled beforehand.
“We will continue to attack in this way, with this force, continuously, on all gathering (places) and routes” used by Hamas, Rear Admiral Hagari said.
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The faces of the people missing after the attack
At the UN, the United States called on all 15 members of the security council to strongly condemn “heinous terrorist attacks committed by Hamas” which has seen Israel declare war on the Palestinian organisation.
World
Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sacked for ethics violation after leaked phone call
Thailand’s prime minister has been sacked after a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian politician caused outrage.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was Thailand’s youngest PM, has been dismissed from office by the country’s Constitutional Court after only a year in power.
The court found Ms Shinawatra, 39, violated ethics in a leaked June telephone call, during which she appeared to kowtow to Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen as the bordering countries were on the verge of an armed conflict.
She also criticised a Thai army commander – a taboo move in a country where the military is extremely influential.
Fighting erupted weeks later and lasted five days. At least 35 people were killed and more than 260,000 were displaced.
Ms Shinawatra, who was new to politics when she took office in August last year, apologised over the call and said she was trying to avert a war. She was suspended in July.
Ms Shinawatra arriving at Government House in Bangkok ahead of the verdict on Friday. Pic: Reuters
She is now the fifth Thai PM from, or backed by, the billionaire Shinawatra family to be removed by the military or the judiciary in 17 years, amid a battle for power between the country’s warring elites.
The ruling thrusts Thailand into more political uncertainty at a time of public unease over stalled reforms and a stuttering economy.
Speaking after the court’s decision, the exiting PM said “all sides” in Thai politics now “have to work together to build political stability and to ensure that there won’t be another turning point again”.
The focus will now shift to who will replace Ms Shinawatra.
Her influential, billionaire father, Thaksin Shinawatra, who also once served as Thailand’s PM, is expected to be at the heart of a flurry of bargaining to keep the ruling Pheu Thai party in power.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more:
What happened between Thailand and Cambodia
Drug epidemic sweeps Southeast Asia
The leader of the main opposition People’s Party has called for the next prime minister to dissolve parliament once they are installed.
The deputy PM, Phumtham Wechayachai, and the current cabinet will act as government caretakers until a new leader is elected by parliament. There is no time limit on when that must take place.
After all those raised hopes of peace, Ukraine has been hit by the second-worst night of Russian air attacks since the war began.
So much for diplomacy, despite the Alaska summit, then the Washington DC meeting.
The Kremlin says it was aiming at military targets, but yet again, the pictures tell a very different story.
Follow latest: UK summons Putin’s ambassador
Firefighters work at the site of a burning building after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
One civilian building after another was hit, more than a dozen people were killed, and British Council and EU buildings were also damaged.
So what’s going on? Why is Vladimir Putin doing it?
Because he can.
The Russian president thinks he’s winning this war, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he’s using diplomacy to play for time while he carries on beating down the Ukrainians’ will to win.
And at the moment, no one is stopping him
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At least 14 killed in Kyiv attack
Ukraine is hitting back, particularly at Russia‘s oil installations, more of them going up in thick black smoke, after being hit by long-range Ukrainian drones.
It is taking a heavy toll on Putin’s ‘Achilles heel’, but on its own, analysts don’t expect it will be enough to persuade him to end this war.
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British Council building hit in Kyiv
The West can wring its hands in condemnation.
But it’s divided between Europe that wants a ceasefire and much more severe sanctions, and Donald Trump, who, it seems, does not – strangely always willing to sympathise with the Russians more than Ukraine.
He’s back to blaming Ukraine for starting the war, saying earlier in the week that Kyiv should not have got into a war it had no chance of winning.
It is a grotesque perversion of history. Ukraine, of course, had no choice but to fight to defend itself when it was invaded in an act of unprovoked aggression.
Every time the US president has condemned Russia for these kinds of attacks, he has never followed through and done nothing to punish them.
Rescue workers carry an injured woman after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
More worryingly for the Ukrainians, the Russians are getting the upper hand in the drones war, taking Iranian technology and souping it up into faster-moving drones that the Ukrainians are having increasing difficulty bringing down.
They expect as many as a thousand drones a night coming their way by the winter, and many, many more innocents to die.
Next week, Putin will join Chinese and North Korean leaders in a summit in Beijing, both supporting his war in Ukraine.
(L-R) Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. Pics: Reuters
Read more from Dominic Waghorn:
Ukrainians warn they’re in danger of losing drone arms race
We are further away from peace now than we were two weeks ago
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
A war that began as one man’s mad idea has, in three and a half years, metastasised into a titanic struggle between east and west, fought increasingly with machines in a dystopian evolution of war.
If Mr Trump is not prepared to use his power to bring this war to an end, what will another three and a half years of his presidency bring?
It is a chilling question.
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