In less than 48 hours of an unprecedented attack, the loss of life is already colossal. The conflict between Israel and Hamas has left nearly <>,<> people dead in total, according to new official tolls released Sunday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of a "long" war.
More than 600 people have been killed in Israel, according to data on the Facebook account of the Government Press Office (GPO), and of the 2,000 wounded in the country, 200 are "in critical condition," a GPO official said.
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In the Gaza Strip, which has been under Hamas control since 2007, 370 Palestinians have been killed, local authorities said, and nearly 2,000 wounded.
The Israeli army has deployed tens of thousands of troops to regain full control of the southern desert areas near the Gaza Strip, with the aim of rescuing any remaining Israeli hostages and evacuating all residents of the area by Monday morning in order to comb the area. Hamas has taken "more than 100 prisoners," the GPO said Sunday.
Israel's response
Seeking to regain control after a surprise offensive launched at dawn on Saturday in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish holiday, Israeli forces continued to hunt down Hamas elements infiltrated into southern Israel on Sunday and continued airstrikes against targets in Gaza, where more buildings were destroyed.
"We will (...) kill every terrorist in Israel," army spokesman Gen. Daniel Hagari said. Israeli forces said they had taken over the police station in Sderot, after "neutralizing 10 terrorists who were there." "The first phase is nearing completion (...) by eliminating the vast majority of enemy forces that have infiltrated our territory," Netanyahu said, warning that "the war will be long and difficult."
A 37-year-old Israeli woman said she was horrified to see several of her family members abducted in videos from Gaza, including her cousin and her children, aged nine months and three years. Under the cover of a barrage of rockets fired at Israel, Hamas fighters, aboard vehicles, boats and even motorized paragliders, played through the imposing fence around Gaza on Saturday, attacking military positions and civilians in the street.
Many soldiers captured
A former Israeli soldier said the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which remains a national trauma in Israel, was "little" compared to Saturday's Hamas raid, adding that it was a "very serious failure."
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Israel was further attacked on its northern border with Lebanon. Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and Iran, fired shells at a disputed area on the border, prompting an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah target in southern Lebanon. But the front remained calm afterwards. In Egypt, two Israeli tourists were killed by a policeman who shot at them in Alexandria, according to a media report.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed group, claimed to have captured "many soldiers." "What happened is unprecedented in Israel," Netanyahu acknowledged. In the face of the Israeli counter-offensive, "we fear the destruction and the end of civil society in the Gaza Strip... We are entering a phase of destruction," said Chadi al-Assi, a 29-year-old Gaza resident.