Palestinian militants experience an Israeli navy automobile that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, within the northern Gaza Strip October 7, 2023. – Reuters
Bloodied our bodies within the streets, gunmen raiding door-to-door and information of captives taken to Gaza left Israelis terrified and in shock after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a shock assault that was unprecedented in audacity and scale.
A resident reported seeing a number of our bodies and bullet-scarred autos within the southern Israeli city of Sderot the place teams of Hamas gunmen have been nonetheless combating Israeli troops 12 hours after the assault was launched.
“I went out, I saw loads of bodies of terrorists, civilians, cars shot up. A sea of bodies, inside Sderot along the road, other places, loads of bodies,” stated Shlomi from Sderot.
As evening fell, no less than 100 have been reported useless and greater than 1,000 wounded, in accordance with Israeli media, with combating nonetheless raging in additional than 20 places across the Gaza strip.
The assault, on the Jewish Sabbath and coinciding with the non secular vacation of Simchat Torah, is unfolding as a significant nationwide trauma in a rustic happy with its robust navy.
In a single incident, younger Israelis instructed of fleeing a dance occasion within the early hours of Saturday as Hamas gunmen backed by rocket barrages entered cities and villages by the border.
The rave occasion was attended by a number of hundred individuals close to the Israeli kibbutz of Reim, witnesses stated. Footage on social media confirmed dozens of individuals working by way of fields and alongside a street, escaping militants as gun photographs have been heard.
“The music stopped and there was a rocket siren,” a younger girl known as Ortal instructed Israel’s N12 Information tv. “Suddenly out of nowhere, they started shooting.”
One other occasion goer, Esther Borochov, stated a automotive had rammed her automobile as she tried to flee earlier than a younger man instructed her and her pal to leap into his automobile earlier than he was shot level clean whereas she performed useless till she was rescued.
“I couldn’t move my legs,” she instructed Reuters on the hospital. “Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes.”
Israel’s ambulance service stated its crews have been unable to achieve the wounded in cities the place combating was ongoing. An ambulance was additionally attacked, Magen David Adom medical service stated, one crew member was killed, it stated.
The assaults on Israeli civilians have been the deadliest for the reason that Palestinian suicide bombing campaigns of the Second Intifada that hit the nation’s primary cities some twenty years in the past.
Including to the shock, Palestinian militant teams circulated footage on social media displaying what they stated have been captured Israeli troopers and civilians being pushed into Gaza and hostages being held by extra fighters inside Israel.
Israeli TV stations carried phone calls from terrified residents of cities and kibbutzes talking whilst gunmen have been making an attempt to interrupt into their shelters.
A girl recognized as Ella, barricaded in a bomb shelter for hours in Be’eri kibbutz, the place there have been experiences of fifty Israelis held hostage by Hamas, spoke reside with N12 Information.
“We can hear a lot of gunfire, we were told that terrorists are in the dining hall, we can hear a lot of shooting,” she stated. “I’ve lost contact with my family. I know my father has been kidnapped … no one is telling us what’s going on. I don’t know if my mother is alive.”