OCCUPIED AL-QUDS/GAZA (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel battered Gaza on Sunday after suffering its worst defeat in decades, when Hamas fighters entered occupied towns killing 600 and capturing dozens more, as the spiraling clashes threatened a major new Middle East war.
Israeli airstrikes hit housing blocks, tunnels, a mosque and homes of Hamas officials in Gaza, martyring more than 370 people, including 21 children.
In a sign the conflict could spread beyond blockaded Gaza, Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement exchanged artillery and rocket fire, while in Alexandria, two Zionists were shot dead along with their Egyptian guide.
In southern Occupied Palestine, Hamas combatants were still fighting Zionist forces 24 hours after a surprise, multi-pronged operation of rocket barrages and bands of fighters who overran army bases and swept towns.
The Zionist military said it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around Gaza, a narrow strip that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and was starting to evacuate all Israelis living around the frontier of the territory.
The attack by Hamas launched at dawn on Saturday represented the biggest and deadliest incursion into Occupied Palestine since Egypt and Syria launched a sudden assault in an effort to reclaim lost territory in the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago.
At least 600 Zionists were killed, according to reports by Israeli TV stations. The occupying regime has not released an official toll.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah which fought a war with Israel in 2006 and said its “guns and rockets” stand with Hamas.
The debris from Saturday’s operation still lay around southern Israeli towns and border communities on Sunday morning and Israelis were reeling from the sight of bloodied bodies lying on suburban streets, in cars and in their homes.
Palestinian fighters withdrew back into Gaza with dozens of Zionists. Hamas said it would issue a statement later on Sunday saying how many captives it had seized.
The capture of so many Zionists, some filmed being pulled through security checkpoints or driven, bleeding, into Gaza, adds another layer of complication for hardline prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hamas fired more rocket salvoes into occupied territories on Sunday, with air raid sirens sounding across the south.
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza began soon after the Hamas operation and continued overnight and into Sunday, destroying houses and other buildings.
Gaza’s health ministry said 370 people had been martyred and 2,200 wounded in the strikes.
More than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have sought refuge in schools run by the United Nations, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency said.
In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, people searched through the remains of a mosque early on Sunday. “We ended the night prayers and suddenly the mosque was bombed. They terrorized the children, the elderly and women,” said resident Ramez Hneideq.
The escalation comes against a backdrop of surging Israeli violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian authority exercises limited self-rule, opposed by Hamas that wants the Zionist entity destroyed.
Conditions in the West Bank have worsened under Netanyahu’s extremist regime with more Israeli raids and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages, and the Palestinian Authority called for an emergency Arab League meeting.
Peacemaking has been stalled for years and Israeli politics have been convulsed this year by internal wrangles over Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the operation that began in Gaza would spread to the West Bank and Al-Quds. Gazans have lived under an Israeli-led blockade for 16 years, since Hamas won elections in 2007.
Western countries, led by the United States, supported the occupying regime of Israel.
Across the Middle East, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas, while Iran and Hezbollah praised the attack.
That Israel was caught completely off guard was lamented as one of the worst intelligence failures in its history, a shock to an entity that boasts of its intensive infiltration and monitoring of militants.
The main Tel Aviv Stock Exchange indexes fell 6% on Sunday and investors expected the violence to prompt a move into gold and other safe-haven assets.