Palestinian Hamas carried out, at dawn on Saturday October 7, an act of war against Israel of unprecedented violence and on this first day of a new conflict, it triumphs. It fulfilled all its operational purposes within a few hours. He still has to endure the Israeli response, which promises to be massive. For the first time since 1948 and the birth of the State of Israel, Palestinian commandos – dozens of men according to the army, 200 to 300 according to a police officer – attacked towns and villages and a neighborhood military major general around the enclave, seized a police station. Fighting continued at 9 p.m. in 22 locations, as Hamas fighters barricaded themselves with hostages.
This assault was prepared for a long time, but the surprise was total: Hamas, taking a long-term approach, inflicted on Israeli intelligence its worst failure since the Yom Kippur War, fifty years ago almost to the day. He launched his men after dawn prayers, crossing the barrier which surrounds Gaza at several points, and spanning it using small motorized gliders. A commando reached the village of Nizim by sea.
“This is the most serious terrorist attack in Israeli history”, Judge Eyal Hulata, former national security adviser. Attack or military operation, Hamas does not differentiate between these modes of operation. His men sowed carnage without distinguishing between civilian and military targets: at least 150 Israelis were killed, nearly 900 injured. Throughout the day, videos broadcast almost live revealed the collapse of Israeli defenses.
A militiaman films himself on Facebook with the phone of an Israeli woman he is holding hostage at home, like his family. Another films armored vehicles, trophies seized from an Israeli military base which appears partly deserted. Cars return triumphantly one by one into Gaza, across the ” security fence “ high-tech in which Israel has invested billions of euros since the 1990s. The breakdown of this rampart resonates deeply among the Gazans, subject to an almost total blockade since 2007 by Israel, with the help of Egypt.
” Security fence “
In Gaza, militants pull a terrified young Israeli hostage from the trunk of an armored vehicle; others throw a young man who appears unconscious to the ground, and a crowd immediately attacks his body. Hamas claims to have captured soldiers and officers. There is still this elderly Israeli woman, driven into the enclave in the back of an electric cart, perhaps senile, clearly unaware of the danger, who smiles at the crowd cheering her capture.
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