Up to 700 Israelis have reportedly died in attacks by Hamas militants as fighting continues and dozens of warplanes attack the Gaza Strip.
At least 413 Palestinians are confirmed dead, with a further 2,300 injured, according to the health ministry.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned people living in Gaza to leave as he vowed to turn parts of the territory “into rubble” in revenge for a “black day”.
The US military confirmed on Sunday it plans to move Navy ships and military aircraft closer to Israel in a show of support.
It is also sending additional support for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which will increase in the coming days, President Joe Biden told Mr Netanyahu in a phone call.
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A huge barrage of rockets was launched into southern Israel on Saturday morning before Hamas gunmen crossed into the country in a surprise incursion.
Image: Explosions over Gaza City on Sunday. Pic: AP
Image: A map shows where attacks have happened within Israel
One Briton confirmed dead and two missing
Corporal Nathanel Young, a 20-year-old British man serving in the Israeli army, was among those killed as tributes were paid by his “heartbroken” family.
Another British citizen, 26-year-old Jake Marlowe, is “missing near Gaza”, the country’s embassy in the UK has told Sky News.
Dan Darlington, who is originally from the UK but has been living in Germany, is also missing on a trip to Israel.
Image: Nathanel Young, 20, died on Saturday, the Israel Defence Forces said
It is understood that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is in contact with and assisting the families of several people in the region.
The FCDO has updated its travel advice to advise against all but essential travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It warns against all travel to Gaza and areas close to the border including southwest of Ashkelon and west of Be’er Sheva among others.
Several airlines, including United, Delta, American and Air France have suspended flights to Tel Aviv until the situation improves.
Image: A mosque destroyed in Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip. Pic: AP
800 Hamas targets struck by Israeli forces
Up to 700 Israelis have been killed so far, according to Israeli media, while the health ministry said at least 1,590 people had been injured.
According to the Israeli rescue service Zaka, 260 bodies were found after one of the Hamas strikes hit a music festival.
An Israeli military official said “hundreds” of Hamas militants have been killed and dozens captured.
The IDF began an intense air strike in the Gaza Strip using dozens of fighter jets on Sunday.
It says it struck 800 targets, including a compound housing the Hamas intelligence department and a 14-storey tower that held dozens of apartments as well as Hamas offices in central Gaza City.
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Sky’s chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay has been to a police station in Sderot
Fighting continued overnight with the IDF still conducting operations around eight areas near the Gaza Strip, according to an IDF spokesman, while Hamas armed wing said on Sunday its fighters are still engaged in fierce clashes in several sites inside Israel.
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Shootout in Israel as motorists duck for cover
More than 100 kidnapped
The Israeli embassy to the United States said women and children were among more than 100 soldiers and civilians kidnapped by Hamas fighters and that active hostage situations are “ongoing”.
Two hostage situations had been “resolved”, according to the IDF spokesman, who did not say whether all the hostages had been rescued alive.
The Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group – one of the first to openly support the Hamas incursion – struck Israeli positions in a disputed area along the border with Syria’s Golan Heights and Israel responded with drone strikes on Hezbollah targets.
On Sunday, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari accused Hamas of being “more brutal than ISIS”.
“Israeli intelligence indicates that Hamas are hiding among Gazan civilians inside Gazan homes, in schools, hospitals and mosques. Hamas behaves like ISIS. I repeat, Hamas behaves like ISIS,” he said.
In Egypt, a policeman opened fire on Israeli tourists in Alexandria killing at least two Israelis and one Egyptian on Sunday, according to Egypt’s Interior Ministry as local media reported the suspect was detained.
Image: Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets in Ashkelon, southern Israel. Pic: Reuters
Netanyahu threatens to ‘turn Hamas to rubble’
Mr Netanyahu has said Israel is at war with Palestinian militants from Hamas and in a televised address said the country’s military would “take revenge for this black day”.
But he warned: “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”
In a statement on X, he wrote: “All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble.
“I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”
Rockets were seen landing on Gaza hours after Mr Netanyahu issued the threat, while much of the territory was thrown into darkness by nightfall after electricity from Israel was cut off earlier in the day.
Palestine’s representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said late on Sunday that messaging about Israel’s right to defend itself will be interpreted as a “licence to kill”.
While his Israeli counterpart, UN ambassador Gilad Erdan, told reporters at its headquarters in New York that it is the time to “obliterate Hamas terror infrastructure… so that such horrors are never committed again”.
Image: An Israeli police station destroyed in Sderot after a battle with Hamas fighters
Image: Israelis walk past the rubble of a building in Tel Aviv. Pic: AP
Leaders around the world have expressed their countries’ support for Israel.
Speaking on Sunday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned Hamas for its “appalling act of terror” and confirmed he had spoken to his Israeli counterpart again by phone.
“I want to express my absolute solidarity for the people of Israel. Now is not a time for equivocation and I am unequivocal,” he said.
“Hamas and the people who support Hamas are fully responsible for this appalling act of terror, for the murder of civilians and for the kidnapping of innocent people including children.”
More than 300 UK politicians, including serving cabinet ministers, wrote a letter of support to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on Britain and Israel.
The government has also asked that all its buildings fly the Israeli flag in a show of solidarity.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would ramp up diplomatic efforts to restore peace between the two sides.
Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs said it was observing violence in the region with “grave concern”, particularly between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israeli forces over the border.
Its counterpart in the United Arab Emirates urged that the international community “remain resolute in the face of these violent attempts to derail ongoing regional efforts aimed at dialogue, cooperation, and co-existence, and must not allow nihilistic destruction”.
Analysis: The consequences of Hamas’ attack will be truly terrifying for the people of Gaza
The seriousness of this moment cannot be overstated. It represents a truly bloody turning point in this decades-long conflict.
Short term, we can predict what will happen. An Israeli military ground operation into Gaza seems certain.
The civilian loss of life will be huge. The consequence of Saturday’s terrorism against Israel will be truly terrifying for the people of Gaza who cannot leave the blockaded strip.
Beyond that, so many unknowns. To what extent will the West Bank be drawn into the conflict? The Palestinian Authority which runs the West Bank (and cooperates with Israel) is distinct from Hamas who run Gaza. But across the West Bank, hopelessness has pushed people away from the moderation of their own leaders to the extremism of Hamas.
To the north, how will Hezbollah in Lebanon respond? Their well-rehearsed opportunist tactics are to attack from the north, to pressure Israel on another front. Lebanon’s broken politics and economy makes things even more dangerous.
Then there is the Hamas and Hezbollah puppet master, Iran. How will Israel respond to their conviction that all this is, in the end, an Iran problem?
The potential for spillover in the Israel-Palestinian conflict is always there. It’s just got so much more real.
‘Record year for Palestinians deaths’
Hamas gunmen targeted up to 22 locations in the initial assault, with gun battles continuing well after nightfall.
Hamas’ military wing claimed it was holding dozens of Israeli soldiers captive in “safe places” and tunnels in Gaza.
The Israeli military confirmed that a number of Israelis were abducted but would not give a figure.
Palestinian activist Nour Odeh, a former Palestinian Authority spokesperson, told NBC News that the attack comes after a record year for the number of Palestinians killed by Israel.
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Video shows aftermath of Gaza airstrike
Image: The ruins of a tower destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City
He said Saturday’s incursion was not the “beginning of the story” and that Israeli forces have occupied Palestinian territories for over 50 years.
Mr Odeh said: “It’s a record-setting year for the number of Palestinians killed, the number of Palestinian children killed, the number of homes demolished, the number of attacks by armed settlers that, you know, burned down homes and attack people and wounded and killed Palestinian civilians.”
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
Image: David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
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“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
Image: The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Image: Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Image: Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Image: Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Image: Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Image: Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
Image: Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.