Israel said it had largely secured the Gaza border and was evacuating nearby towns where the bodies of 1,500 Hamas militants had been recovered by Tuesday after days of gruelling battles outside the Palestinian enclave.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israel’s military campaign following Saturday’s surprise onslaught was only the start of a sustained war to destroy Hamas and “change the Middle East”.

Fears of a regional conflagration have surged amid expectations of a looming Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, the crowded enclave from where Hamas launched its land, air and sea attack on the Jewish Sabbath.

The death toll in Israel has surged above 900 from the worst attack in the country’s 75-year history, while Gaza officials have reported 687 people killed so far.

Hamas gunmen massacred more than 100 people in the kibbutz of Beeri alone, said Moti Bukjin, a volunteer with the charity Zaka that recovers bodies in accordance with Jewish law.

    • beaubbe
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      362 years ago

      Pretty sure everyone killed by IDF will be counted as Hamas militant as usual, even the kid with a slingshot or the pregnant women running away in fear.

    • @fluxion@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      It sounds like this was from retaking border towns outside Gaza. It’s going to get a whole lot harder to pick out the actual militants when Israeli ground forces start moving into Gaza. Those apartment block airstrikes are a pretty bad sign of what’s to come.

  • @flossdaily@lemmy.world
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    -72 years ago

    The international community has made no serious effort to stop Palestinian terrorism. The Palestinians themselves certainly haven’t. And for a looong time now, Israel has been extremely restrained under a a never ending shower of terrorist rocket attacks at their citizens.