A CBS News article states that on a major Jewish holiday, the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas militant group launched an unprecedented, multi-front assault on Israel at dawn on Saturday. Thousands of rockets were fired as dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in multiple locations via air, land, and sea. Israel, in a state of astonishment, initiated airstrikes in Gaza, with its prime minister declaring that the nation is now at war with Hamas and promising to exact a “unprecedented price.”
According to Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency services agency, the incursion by the Hamas militant group in southern Israel has resulted in the deaths of at least 250 Israelis and the injuries of 1,500 others, constituting the deadliest attack in Israel in decades.
Before dawn on Sunday, militants launched additional rockets from Gaza, striking a hospital in Ashkelon, an Israeli coastal town. The hospital sustained damage, according to Tal Bergman, a senior hospital official. A large hole punched into a wall and debris fragments scattered on the ground of what appeared to be empty rooms and a hallway were captured on video by Barzilai Medical Center. No reports of casualties were received.
“We are at war,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a televised address on Saturday morning, announcing the mobilization of the country’s army reserves in large numbers. “Not a ‘operation,’ not a ’round,’ but at war.”