How the Hamas attack on Israel unfolded
2K Video Views·Oct 9, 2023
A surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, which combined gunmen breaching security barriers with a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza, was launched at dawn on Saturday during the Jewish high holiday of Simchat Torah.
The attack came 50 years and a day after Egyptian and Syrian forces launched an assault during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in an effort to retrieve territory Israel had taken during a brief conflict in 1967.
This is how it took place.
Hamas launched a surprise assault on Israel on Saturday, its biggest in years.
Gunmen from the Palestinian Islamist movement crossed from Gaza into Israeli
towns in an unprecedented infiltration. Hamas also fired a heavy barrage of rockets into Israel.
We are at war, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
and the enemy will pay an unprecedented price.
Israel's military said its forces were operating inside Gaza, but gave no details.
Hamas military commander Mohamed Daif said the group had fired 5,000 rockets.
This is the day of the great revolution to end the last occupation on earth, he says.
This video, obtained by Reuters, shows Palestinians pulling what appears to be
the body of an Israeli soldier from a tank on the Gaza border, as Palestinians cheer.
Another, released by the Hamas armed wing,
is said to show fighters overrunning an Israeli military camp.
Warning sirens sounded across southern and central Israel.
This was the aftermath of the deadly attack in Rehovot.
Israeli media reported gun battles between bands of Palestinian fighters and security forces,
in one of the most serious escalations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years.
The Israeli military said it had launched airstrikes into Gaza,
where witnesses reported hearing heavy explosions.
A Palestinian bulldozer broke through the border fence,
and people streamed out of Gaza, to cries of, God is great.
In Gaza itself, people rushed to buy supplies in anticipation of days of conflict ahead.
Some evacuated their homes and headed for shelters.