World (LNW): In a significant escalation of violence in Israel, assailants associated with the Palestinian organisation Hamas launched an aggressive attack across various Israeli towns last Saturday (07).
This has tragically resulted in the death of around 250 Israelis. The attackers also took multiple hostages, marking this event as the gravest violent incident in Israel since the Yom Kippur war approximately 50 years ago.
Israel responded with a series of strikes that unfortunately resulted in over 230 casualties in Gaza, marking one of the region’s most intense days of conflict, which extended late into the evening.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly condemned the act, pledging, “We will respond decisively to this egregious act of violence.”
He went on to describe Hamas’s actions as the commencement of a dire conflict and recognised its profound impact, adding, “Hamas is intent on our destruction. They heartlessly target families within their homes, even going as far as targeting children. They also kidnap the elderly, children, and teenage girls.”
Meanwhile, Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, announced that the attacks, which began in the densely populated Gaza region with 2.3 million Palestinian residents, would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Gazans have been living under an Israeli blockade for the past 16 years, which further complicates the situation.
Following this unforeseen large-scale assault by Hamas on Israel, several leading airlines, including American Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa, Emirates, Ryanair, and Aegean Airlines, cancelled numerous flights to Tel Aviv, as observed on the arrivals board at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
Nevertheless, commercial flights to Eilat, Israel’s secondary international airport and a renowned tourist spot by the Red Sea, were not halted by airport authorities.
