A careful campaign of deception ensured Israel was caught off guard as the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched a devastating attack at dawn on Saturday during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
The assault – the worst breach in Israel’s defences since Arab armies waged war in 1973 – saw Hamas gunmen kill hundreds of Israelis after breaching security barriers under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza.
Here is how the attack and Israel’s response unfolded:
At about 6:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), Hamas fired a huge barrage of rockets across southern Israel, with sirens heard as far away as Tel Aviv.
The militant group said it had fired 3,000 rockets in a first barrage. Israel’s military said 2,500 rockets were fired.
Smoke billowed over residential Israeli areas and people sheltered behind buildings as sirens sounded overhead. At least one woman was reported killed by the rockets, which reached cities as far as Jerusalem.
Map showing Israel and Gaza. Concentric red lines show approximate missile ranges from Gaza – Mortar (10 km), Qassam-4 (16 km), Grad (20 km), Grad (advanced) (45 km) and Fajar-5 (75 km), which covers Tel Aviv. Hamas also owns another rocket R160 with a much further range of approximately 150 km. Red dots on the map show locations with reported rocket attacks – Ashkelon, Jerusalem, Rehovot, and Sderot.
The barrage served as cover for an unprecedented, multi-pronged infiltration of fighters, with the Israeli military saying at 7:40 a.m. (0540 GMT) that Palestinian gunmen had crossed into Israel.
Israeli TV channels said on Monday that the death toll from the Hamas attack had climbed to 900.
Hamas deployed a force of about 1,000 fighters, organising them into specialised units, a source close to the group told Reuters.
Most fighters crossed through breaches in land security barriers separating Gaza and Israel. But at least one was filmed crossing on a powered parachute while a motorboat was filmed heading to Zikim, an Israeli coastal town and military base.
Maps showing how Hamas entered Israel by sea, by air and through multiple points along the Gaza border. Hamas fighters attacked several Israeli locations near the Gaza border, including the Nova Festival.
Video issued by Hamas showed fighters breaching the security fences, with the dim light and low sun suggesting it was at around the time of the rocket barrage.
People carrying firearms running and shooting, as seen from the point of view of a gunman.
Hundreds of Hamas fighters were killed inside Israel and dozens more captured.
The Israeli air force said it had targeted thousands of locations in Gaza since the invasion, including three rocket launchers directed at Israel, a mosque in Shejaiya where militants were operating and 21 high-rise buildings that served militant activity. Israeli air strikes also hit housing blocks, tunnels and homes of Hamas officials in Gaza, killing more than 400 people, including 20 children.
“The price the Gaza Strip will pay will be a very heavy one that will change reality for generations,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in the town of Ofakim, which suffered casualties and had hostages taken.
Two maps showing Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip border evacuated by defence forces, and Israeli air strikes in and around Gaza.
Aerial video showing mid and high-rise buildings. One of the buildings collapses, which is followed by an explosion and thick smoke rising from the site.
By Monday afternoon, Hamas said more than 500 people had been killed, 2,700 wounded and 80,000 displaced in Gaza by the hundreds of strikes from Israeli warplanes, drones, helicopters and artillery cannon. Gaza has no protected shelters designated for times of war.
Beyond blockaded Gaza, Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia exchanged artillery and rocket fire, while in Egypt, two Israeli tourists were shot dead along with a guide.
Appeals for restraint came from around the world, though Western nations largely stood by Israel while Iran, Hezbollah and protesters in various Middle Eastern nations lauded Hamas.
