dpa
Tel Aviv/Gaza
Fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters continued in the border area with Gaza on Monday, with Israel threatening a “complete siege” of the coastal strip after acknowledging more Palestinian attackers have crossed the frontier.
Israeli attack helicopters also struck targets in Lebanon, as the military said soldiers shot several armed suspects who had entered Israel from across the border with the northern neighbour.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Israel’s massive retaliation for the deadly attacks by Hamas on Saturday “will change the Middle East.” “What Hamas will face will be harsh and terrible,” Netanyahu said on Monday during a meeting with officials from towns in southern Israel, according to a statement. “We are only at the beginning.”
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, said Israel will impose a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip.
Israeli airstrikes have pounded targets in the Gaza in response to attacks launched by Hamas on Saturday that left more than 800 Israelis dead, the worst civilian bloodbath in the country’s history.
Gallant said there will be “no electricity, no food, no fuel.” Energy Minister Israel Katz ordered water supplies to Gaza to also be cut. Groundwater in Gaza is severely salinated.
More than 2 million people live in poor conditions in Gaza, which stretches for about 40km along the Mediterranean Sea.
Humanitarian aid supplies are being prepared from Egypt, with hospitals and ambulances on standby, said a Palestinian spokesman at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and southern Gaza.
Security sources told DPA that no Palestinian wounded had arrived in Egypt so far due to “difficulties in the face of Israeli shelling.” The Hamas attack on Saturday coincided with the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah (Joy of the Torah). Hamas reportedly invaded Israeli towns near the border, going house to house and shooting or kidnapping residents.
At a music festival in the Negev Desert, 260 mostly young attendees alone were killed by the attackers, according to rescue workers.
About 2,600 other Israelis were injured, and Hamas took about 150 captive Israelis back to Gaza, including women, children and the elderly.
A Hamas spokesman said on Monday that the group is demanding the release of 36 imprisoned Palestinian women in Israel in exchange for a number of elderly kidnapped Israeli women. Israeli special forces were engaged in firefights in Israel on Monday, military spokesman Richard Hecht said, acknowledging that militants were still entering Israel from the Gaza Strip.
A later update said Israeli forces have regained control over villages near the Gaza Strip but there were still clashes with Hamas in rural areas.
The Israeli military accused Hamas of using civilians as “human shields.” Hamas retorted that four Israeli hostages had died in the Israeli airstrikes.
Clashes along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, meanwhile, heightened concerns about a widening of the conflict.
