Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, said at least 300 people were killed.
Israeli policeman and a soldier talk near the police station that was overrun by Hamas on Saturday, in Sderot on Oct. 8, 2023. | AP Photo/Ohad ZwigenbergTEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli soldiers battled Hamas fighters in the streets of southern Israel on Sunday and launched retaliation strikes that leveled buildings in Gaza, while in northern Israel a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group raised fears of a broader conflict.
Civilians paid a staggering cost for the violence on both sides. Israeli TV news aired a stream of accounts from the relatives of captive or missing Israelis, who wailed and begged for assistance amid a fog of uncertainty surrounding the fate of their loved ones. In Gaza, residents fled homes near the border to escape Israeli strikes, fleeing deeper inside the territory after warnings in Arabic from the Israeli military.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military official, told reporters the situation at the northern border was calm after the exchange. But he said fighting was still underway in the south and that there were still hostage situations there. The surprise attack Saturday was the deadliest on Israel in decades. In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast. They rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip early Saturday morning, including towns and other communities as far as 15 miles from the Gaza border, while Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israeli cities.
Among the 313 killed in Gaza were 20 children, and close to 2,000 wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinians, said more than 20,000 Palestinians left Gaza’s border region to head further inside the territory and take refuge in U.N. schools. Israel’s military says it is bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area.
The official said Palestinian leaders claimed that they don’t yet have a “full picture” of hostages, but said those who were brought into Gaza were taken to “secure locations” across the territory.
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