Hamas launched operation Al-Aqsa flood against Israel from Gaza strip

Hamas attacked Israel by air, land and sea routes
198 Palestinians have been killed and 1600 wounded in Israeli air attacks
100 Israelis have been killed in Hamas offensive against Israel
Israeli Forces said its troops are fighting in at least a half-dozen locations

In Gaza, at least 198 Palestinians have been killed on Saturday, with 1,610 injured after Hamas militants fired almost five thousand rockets and sent dozens of fighters into Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented surprise early morning attack.

Hamas the Palestinian Resistance group governing the Gaza Strip made the most substantial offensive against Israel in years, as Hamas fighters infiltrated southern Israeli areas. The attack followed a barrage of thousands of rockets fired from within the besieged Gaza territory.

The attack involved the launching of thousands of rockets, with dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrating the heavily fortified Israeli border through air, land, and sea routes. The attack caught Israel off-guard on a major holiday.

The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari confirms that Hamas has taken Israelis hosatges in the operation.

“There are hostages and prisoners of war that Hamas took. There are also deaths among IDF soldiers. We don’t have an exact number yet – we are at war,” he said.

“We are at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address, declaring a mass army mobilization. “Not an ‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but at war.”

Israeli forces said that they were fighting Palestinians on the ground in several locations around the Gaza Strip on Saturday as part of their operation “Swords of Iron” after barrages of rockets were fired from the enclave into Israeli territory.

“It was a combined ground raid which happened through paragliders, through the sea and through the ground,” army spokesman Richard Hecht told reporters. “Right now we’re fighting. We’re fighting in certain locations around the Gaza Strip… our forces are now fighting on the ground.”

In a statement, Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military commander in Gaza said,We warned the enemy not to continue their aggression against the al-Aqsa mosque … The age of the enemy’s aggression without a response is over. I call on Palestinians everywhere in the West Bank and within the Green Line [Israeli territory] to launch an attack without restraint. Go to all the streets. I call on Muslims everywhere to launch an attack.

Hezbollah praises the massive Hamas operation against Israel, and says it is in direct contact with the Hamas leadership in Gaza and abroad, and calls on Arab and Muslim peoples around the world to declare their support to Hamas and the Palestinian people, adding that armed resistance is the only way to confront the Israeli aggression.

Hamas assault comes on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Gaza a 42-sq km impoverished enclave home to 2.3 million people, has been in serious Israeli blockade and restrictions since 2007. Gaza is sealed off from Israel by a militarised border barrier.