Last Saturday Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement that has governed Gaza since being elected in 2006, carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel. It struck almost fifty years to the day after a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria against Israel, which has not experienced an assault on this scale within its borders since it was founded in 1948.
Precise details of the attack are still being reported, but the basic elements are worth reviewing. In a matter of hours, Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, carried out a multifaceted operation. It launched a barrage of 5,000 rockets into Israel, breaching part of Israel’s Iron Dome, among the world’s most advanced missile defense systems. It broke through the Gaza border fence after using drones to disable the electronic surveillance system, crossed into Israeli territory using motorbikes, trucks, dune buggies, and even paragliders, and overran three Israeli military bases, at Zikim, Re’im, and the Erez border crossing. It captured significant equipment, including armored vehicles, and transported at least some of it back to Gaza. It killed at least 169 soldiers, including 23 officers, and captured many others. And it seized numerous hostages (both civilian and military), killed hundreds of civilians, and wounded thousands. As of today, the official Israeli estimate is that 1,200 people, including children, had been killed and 3,418 injured. Another 150, civilians and soldiers, have been kidnapped. Hamas’s attack was widely condemned, including by the United States, which, like Israel and the United Kingdom, deems Hamas a terrorist organization.
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