‘Up to 700’ Israelis dead in Hamas attacks as ‘dozens’ of warplanes strike Gaza Strip
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”.
Netanyahu says war will ‘take time’ – follow live updates
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.
Israel-Hamas War – watch special programme on Sky News tonight at 9pm
A huge barrage of rockets was launched into southern Israel on Saturday morning before Hamas gunmen crossed into the country in a surprise incursion.
Explosions over Gaza City on Sunday. Pic: AP
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.
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.
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
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What is Hamas – and why has it chosen now to strike?
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.
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”.
An Israeli police station destroyed in Sderot after a battle with Hamas fighters
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”.
‘Record year for Palestinians deaths’
Hamas gunmen targeted up to 22 locations in the initial assault, with gun battles continuing well after nightfall.
Militants held hostages in two towns and occupied a police station in a third.
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
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.”
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
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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.
World
Boy, 8, and girl, 10, killed in US Catholic school shooting named – as father brands attacker ‘a coward’
The families of two children killed in the US Catholic school shooting have said their “hearts are broken” and branded the attacker a “coward”.
Fletcher Merkel who was eight and 10-year-old Harper Moyski were killed during mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Eighteen other people were injured, including children aged between six and 15 and three adults in their 80s.
Police said Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman, opened fire with a rifle through the windows of the school’s church as children sat in pews.
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New details released of US school shooting
‘Our hearts are broken’
Harper’s parents, Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin, remembered her as “a bright, joyful, and deeply loved 10-year-old whose laughter, kindness, and spirit touched everyone who knew her”.
“Our hearts are broken not only as parents, but also for Harper’s sister, who adored her big sister and is grieving an unimaginable loss. As a family, we are shattered, and words cannot capture the depth of our pain,” their statement said.
They urged leaders and communities to “take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country.”
“Change is possible, and it is necessary – so that Harper’s story does not become yet another in a long line of tragedies,” the statement added.
The family of Fletcher Merkel said there was a ‘hole in our hearts’. Pic: Family handout/AP
‘Fletcher loved his family’
In a statement reported by Sky’s US partner network NBC News, Fletcher’s father Jesse Merkel blamed the “coward” killer for why the boy’s family can’t “hold him, talk to him, play with him, and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming”.
He said: “Fletcher loved his family, friends, fishing, cooking, and any sports that he was allowed to play.
“While the hole in our hearts and lives will never be filled, I hope that in time, our family can find healing.”
Mr Merkel also praised “the swift and heroic actions of children and adults alike from inside the church”.
“Without these people and their selfless actions, this could have been a tragedy of many magnitudes more. For these people, I am thankful,” he added.
Families and loved ones reunite at the scene after the shooting. Pic: Reuters
Mayor calls for assault weapon ban
It comes after Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey called for a statewide and federal ban on assault weapons, a day after the deadly school shooting.
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Minneapolis mayor urges assault weapons ban
“Thoughts and prayers are not going to cut it. It’s on all of us to see this through,” the mayor said at a news conference. “We need a statewide and a federal ban on assault weapons.
“We need a statewide and a federal ban on high-capacity magazines. There is no reason that someone should be able to reel off 30 shots before they even have to reload.
“We’re not talking about your father’s hunting rifle gear. We’re talking about guns that are built to pierce armour and kill people.”
Meanwhile, Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara gave an update on the investigation, saying the suspect had fired 116 rifle rounds into the church.
“It is very clear that this shooter had the intention to terrorise those innocent children,” he added, before saying the killer “fantasised” about the plans of other mass shooting attackers and wanted to “obtain notoriety”.
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Thomas Klemond, interim CEO of Minneapolis’s main trauma hospital Hennepin Healthcare, said at an earlier news conference that the hospital was treating nine patients injured in the shooting.
One child at the hospital was in a critical condition, he added.
Children’s Minnesota Hospital also said that three children remain in its care as of Thursday morning.
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