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Israel fights to regain control of border area as it bombs Gaza Strip
2023-10-10 00:00:00.0     华盛顿邮报-世界     原网页

       

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       KFAR AZZA, Israel — Israel’s military unleashed airstrikes Tuesday and worked to regain control of its border with the Gaza Strip as fighting entered a fourth day after Hamas militants launched a wave of devastating attacks on communities in Israel.

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       The surprise attacks, during which Hamas gunmen hunted civilians in their homes and cars throughout the border areas, killed least 900 people and wounded 2,700 in Israel. The onslaught sparked a major retaliatory bombing campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 750 people, Palestinian authorities said.

       By inflicting on Israel the bloodiest day in its 75-year history, Hamas’s stunning attack has challenged ideas about Israel’s military superiority and raised the specter of renewed conflict along several regional fronts that have long been quiet. It also has raised the possibility of the first full-scale Israeli ground invasion of the densely populated Gaza Strip in almost a decade.

       Live Updates: Israel-Hamas war

       In a news conference Tuesday morning, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said that Israeli towns around the border area had been “secured” but that “there could still be people inside.” He referred to firefights between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters overnight in the towns of Sa’ad and Kissufim but said that “no one came in” from Gaza.

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       Outside Sderot, one of the largest towns near Gaza and the scene of some of the fiercest fighting, soldiers were still deploying to control areas considered under threat as rockets from Gaza arced overhead. Roads into the town were strewn with broken glass and abandoned vehicles.

       In Kfar Azza, a village to the west that was the scene of some of the earliest and heaviest fighting, bodies lay everywhere. The stench of death was heavy, and the corpses of Hamas infiltrators who had attacked the village were scattered every few hundred yards.

       The Israeli military said Tuesday that it had recovered bodies of 1,500 Hamas militants inside Israel so far.

       One of the paragliders that militants had used to cross the border lay abandoned near a house. The hazard lights on one of the group’s shattered pickup trucks was still blinking as the sounds of heavy machine gun fire and frequent explosions echoed nearby.

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       Israeli soldiers on the scene said they thought the area had been cleared of Hamas fighters but did not rule out the possibility of holdouts still hiding there. They also warned that booby traps and bodies still could be found in the damaged homes.

       Morgue technicians wore masks and hazmat suits as they loaded the dead into a van, while body bags with slain civilians waited to be sorted nearby.

       The scale and brutality of the Hamas attack early Saturday left Israel reeling. Funerals have been held across the country. The shocked and devastated families of more than 100 apparent hostages, whom Hamas militants claim to be holding in Gaza, have received no news of the fate of their loved ones.

       A spokesman for the military wing of Hamas told Al Jazeera on Monday that the group would publicly execute a civilian hostage each time Gazan homes were hit by Israeli airstrikes “without prior warning.” On his public Telegram channel, the official, whose nomme de guerre is Abu Obaida, said the group would not “exchange or negotiate” while hostilities continued.

       Israel announced Sunday that it was implementing a “full siege” of the densely populated Gaza Strip — “no electricity, no food, no fuel,” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — as part of a campaign that is aimed at destroying Hamas’s military capabilities but also is likely to cause enormous harm to Gaza’s civilian population.

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       Over 2 million people live in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians. Israel maintained a complete aerial and sea blockade of the area even before the latest crisis, allowing only a small flow of goods and people through land crossings, which have now been closed. A full-scale siege of any civilian population is prohibited under international law.

       At least 765 people have been killed in Gaza and 4,000 injured since the Israeli airstrikes began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The United Nations says that more than 187,000 people have been displaced, with the number expected to rise.

       The IDF said Tuesday morning that its fighter jets struck more than 250 targets in Gaza over the previous 24 hours, mostly in Rimal and Khan Younis. Videos published on the army’s Facebook page showed explosions leveling buildings and thick smoke billowing across neighborhoods as residents piled the wounded into ambulances.

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       The only way out of the densely populated enclave had been the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Leaving Gaza by that route entails a lengthy wait and high fees as civilians must obtain permits from Palestinian and Egyptian authorities alike.

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       But Tuesday, Israel said that the crossing was closed. The IDF said in a statement that it had struck in the area, “including an underground tunnel for smuggling weapons and equipment.” The Post could not verify that claim.

       Two strikes occurred in the Rafah border region Tuesday. The Gaza-based Interior Ministry said Egyptian authorities had asked the Palestinian side to evacuate the area Tuesday amid the threat of additional attacks by Israel.

       In a televised address Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel’s response to Hamas’s incursion was only just starting. “What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations,” he said.

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       Netanyahu returned to office late last year as part of a new governing coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history. His new term has been defined by domestic turmoil and an increasingly parlous situation for Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel, as coalition lawmakers champion plans to weaken the country’s Supreme Court and expand unlawful settlements in Palestinian areas.

       Since the new government took office in December, violence has surged in the West Bank, in particular, as Jewish settlers there have stepped up attacks against Palestinian residents and Israeli security forces have carried out increasingly deadly raids targeting a new generation of Palestinian militants.

       On Tuesday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged “all States with influence” to defuse the rapidly growing “powder keg.”

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       “We know how this plays out, time and time again — the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives and incalculable suffering inflicted on both communities,” said Türk.

       Russian President Vladimir Putin issued his first comments Tuesday on the violence and pointed the blame at Washington. “Many will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of U.S. policy,” he said, adding that the solution lies in establishing a Palestinian state. It was also announced that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas would be visiting Russia.

       The International Committee of the Red Cross issued its own urgent plea that the critical infrastructure on which civilians depended — including electricity and water system — be spared in the Israeli attacks.

       “Irrespective of any military siege, the authorities must ensure that civilians have access to basic necessities, including safe water, food and medical care,” said the organization’s president, Mirjana Spoljaric.

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       But there were few indications that the conflict’s trajectory was not one of escalation, as footage of the atrocities committed Saturday by Hamas militants continued to emerge, recovered by authorities from surveillance and dash-cam videos in areas where attacks occurred.

       New surveillance video obtained by The Washington Post shows two Hamas militants gaining access to Be’eri, a kibbutz in southern Israel where more than 100 bodies were later recovered, early Saturday by lying in wait and shooting at a car entering the small community in southern Israel.

       Surveillance video released by South First Responders shows the moment militants entered Be’eri early Oct. 7. (Video: South First Responders)

       The footage, recorded shortly after dawn, shows the camouflaged pair slowly approaching the closed gate from the northwest side.

       One fighter gets on his knees and peers underneath the gate before walking across the road, where he breaks the glass of a security kiosk and climbs inside. Less than a minute later, a sedan with at least two people in the front seats pulls up to the entrance. As the gate begins to open, both fighters open fire on the passengers. The car rolls forward through the entrance as the two fighters run into the kibbutz, one knocking a camera that has been filming the incident.

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       Additional surveillance footage taken minutes later shows two fighters, matching the appearance of the two at the gate, walking through a courtyard in the kibbutz. The footage was provided to The Post by the Telegram channel South First Responders, which has uploaded videos taken from southern Israel in recent days.

       Other footage analyzed by The Post shows what appears to be four civilians detained by militants. The same individuals, identified by their physical appearance and clothing, were seen in a later video sprawled on the ground, apparently killed.

       Loveluck reported from London and Parker from Cairo. Ellen Francis in London, Noga Tarnopolsky in Jerusalem, Amar Nadhir in Bucharest and Samuel Oakford and Meg Kelly in Washington contributed to this report.

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       Israel at war with Hamas

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