JERUSALEM/GAZA – Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday ordered a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip as the military pounded the Palestinian territory with air strikes following a surprise attack by Palestinian armed group Hamas.

“We are putting a complete siege on Gaza... No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” Mr Gallant said in a video message. The Gaza Strip is an exclave that is part of the Palestinian Territories and home to 2.3 million people.

Last Saturday, Hamas militants from Gaza stormed the border with southern Israel, shooting people in the communities and towns nearby before Israeli security forces began fighting back.

At least 700 people were killed and dozens were taken hostage.

The death toll includes an estimated 250 people who were killed at a music festival attended by young Israelis and foreigners near Kibbutz Reim, close to Gaza, according to an organisation that helped to recover the bodies.

It was the deadliest such incursion since Egypt’s and Syria’s attacks in the Yom Kippur War years ago, and has threatened to ignite another conflagration in the never-ending conflict.

In the Gaza Strip, the death toll rose to at least 560, according to the Health Ministry, after the Israeli military launched air strikes on the exclave in response to the Hamas attack. These include 20 children, in keeping with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow of “mighty vengeance”. 

On Monday, Mr Netanyahu said Israel’s response to the attack will “change the Middle East”.

Meanwhile, Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, said 300,000 reservists have been called up by the military since Saturday. The number suggests preparations for a possible invasion, though any such plans have not been officially confirmed.

“We have never drafted so many reservists on such a scale,” he said. “We are going on the offensive.”

Palestinians reported receiving calls and mobile phone audio messages from Israeli security officers telling them to leave areas mainly in the northern and eastern territories of Gaza, and warning that the army would operate there.

Since Saturday’s surprise assault, Israeli aircraft have been pounding Gaza targets while its ground forces have battled to retake control of border villages and towns overrun by Palestinian gunmen.

Rear-Adm Hagari said control of those communities had been re-established but that isolated clashes continued as some gunmen remained active. “We are now carrying out searches in all of the communities and clearing the area,” he said in a televised briefing.

Military officials had previously said their focus was on securing Israel’s side of the border before carrying out any major escalation of the counter-offensive in Gaza.

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht, also a military spokesman, said earlier on Monday that fighting was ongoing in seven or eight locations near Gaza.

Hamas fighters also continued to cross into Israel from Gaza, he added. “It’s taking more time than we expected to get things back into a defensive, security posture,” he told journalists.

Fighter jets, helicopters and artillery struck more than 500 Hamas and militant group Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza overnight, including command centres and the home of senior Hamas official Ruhi Mashtaa, who allegedly helped direct the infiltration into Israel.

“Our job is to make sure that at the end of this war, Hamas will no longer have any military capabilities to threaten Israeli civilians with, and in addition to that, we also need to make sure Hamas will not govern the Gaza Strip,” said another Israeli military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus.

Beyond blockaded Gaza, Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia exchanged artillery and rocket fire. In Egypt, two Israeli tourists were shot dead along with a guide on Sunday.

Hamas says its attack on Saturday was justified by the plight of Gaza under a 16-year blockade and the deadliest Israeli crackdown for years in the occupied West Bank.

Mainstream Palestinian groups who deplored the attacks said violence was predictable with a peace process frozen for nearly a decade and far-right Israeli leaders talking of annexing Palestinian land once and for all.

Israel and Western countries said nothing justified the intentional mass killing of civilians.

Iran, Hezbollah and protesters in some Middle Eastern nations lauded Hamas.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denounced what it called a “barbarous campaign of death and destruction” by Israel.

“As an occupying power, Israel has no right or justification to target the defenceless civilian population in Gaza or elsewhere in Palestine,” it said on Sunday.

Appeals for restraint have meanwhile come from around the world.

Egypt, which has mediated between Israel and Hamas at times of conflict in the past, was in close contact with the two sides, trying to prevent further escalation, according to Egyptian security sources.

Qatari mediators have also held urgent calls with Hamas officials to try to negotiate freedom for the Israeli hostages seized by the militant group in exchange for the release of 36 Palestinian women and children from Israel’s prisons, a source told Reuters.

The negotiations, which Qatar has been conducting in coordination with the United States since Saturday night, are “moving positively”, said the source, who has been briefed on the talks.

But there are no signs of breakthroughs as both sides dig in.

House-to-house terror

Hamas gunmen were reported to have gone house to house, gunning down civilians or abducting them back into Gaza, as panicked residents hid in their homes or died fighting back.

Among the hostages taken back into Gaza were children and a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair, Israeli officials have said.

“The cruel reality is that Hamas took hostages as an insurance policy against Israeli retaliatory action, particularly a massive ground attack and to trade for Palestinian prisoners,” said Dr Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Up to 250 bodies were strewn across the site of the music festival in a Negev desert kibbutz, mostly young people, while other revellers were feared to be among the hostages abducted into Gaza.

“They butchered people in cold blood in an inconceivable way,” said Mr Moti Bukjin, a spokesman for the Zaka volunteer group that helped to collect the bodies.

Israel’s military, which faces awkward questions for not thwarting the attack, said it has regained control of most infiltration points along security barriers, killed hundreds of attackers and taken dozens more prisoner.

It said it has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around Gaza, and was starting to evacuate Israelis around the frontier.

“This is my fifth war. The war should stop. I don’t want to keep feeling this,” said Mr Qassab al-Attar, a Palestinian in a wheelchair in Gaza whose brothers carried him to a shelter.

Several Americans were killed by Hamas attackers, a White House National Security Council spokesperson confirmed, saying the US would continue to monitor the situation closely.

The shocking flare-up may undermine US-backed moves towards normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia – a security realignment that could threaten Palestinian hopes of self-determination and hem in Hamas’ main backer, Iran.

Teheran’s other main regional ally, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fought a war with Israel in 2006 and said its “guns and rockets” stand with Hamas.

Inside Gaza

The situation was dire inside Gaza, which has been blockaded by Israel since Hamas assumed control there 15 years ago, a period that has seen multiple wars with Israel.

Air strikes have levelled residential tower blocks, mosques and the central bank. More than 120,000 people in Gaza have been displaced, according to the United Nations.

“The situation is unbearable psychologically and economically,” said Ms Amal al-Sarsawi, 37, as she took shelter in a school classroom with her terrified children.

In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, people searched through the remains of a mosque early on Sunday.

“We ended the night prayers and suddenly the mosque was bombed. They terrorised the children, the elderly and women,” said resident Ramez Hneideq.

Many Gaza residents have voiced defiance.

“We will not give up, and we are here to stay,” said Mr Mohammed Saq Allah, 23. “This is our land, and we will not abandon our land.”

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have rallied in support and clashed with Israeli security forces in violence that has killed 15 Palestinians since Saturday.

Pro-Palestinian groups have also demonstrated in Iraq, Pakistan, the United States and other countries, while Germany and France were among nations stepping up security around synagogues and schools.

Unabated violence

US President Joe Biden spoke to Mr Netanyahu for the second straight day, saying in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that he expressed his “full support for the people of Israel in the face of an unprecedented and appalling assault by Hamas terrorists”.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said he had ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean as a show of support to Israel, and would also begin providing fresh munitions to Washington’s closest Middle East ally.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem condemned the US announcement as “an actual participation in the aggression against our people” and said the group would not be intimidated.

The escalation follows surging violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian authority exercises limited self-rule, opposed by Hamas that wants Israel destroyed.

Conditions in the West Bank have worsened under Mr Netanyahu’s hard-right government, with more Israeli raids and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages, and the Palestinian Authority called for an emergency Arab League meeting.

Peacemaking has been stalled for years, with Israeli politics distracted in 2023 by internal wrangling over Mr Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem.

“How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognise the rights of our people?” he said.

The US led Western denunciations of Hamas’ attacks, with President Biden issuing a blunt warning to Iran and others: “This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks.”

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi telephoned the Hamas chief to congratulate him for the “victory”.

For a nation with a vaunted secret service that boasts of infiltration and monitoring of militants, the attacks appeared to be a shocking intelligence failure for Israel.

The main Tel Aviv Stock Exchange indexes fell 6 per cent on Sunday and investors expected the violence to prompt a move into gold and other safe-haven assets. AFP, REUTERS