Death toll mounts to over 1000 ; "....situation had been simmering for months" ::: US and French nationals among dead

 Relatives of Israeli people in dozens killed or kidnapped to Gaza from rave: ‘Nobody is helping us’...  

The US, France, and Nepal have also confirmed the death of their citizens.

The clashes between the Israeli military and the terrorist group Hamas spread arms across multiple areas across the country on the second day of the war. At least 700 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed and more than 1,900 injured in Israel after one of the deadliest attack on the country. In the Gaza Strip, there were more than 413 deaths and about 2,300 wounded after Israel’s counterattack, bringing the total number of deaths to over 1,000.

Reports from Israeli media said the number of Israelis killed had reached 600; total death toll could be easily over 900. 

Distraught family members say they’ve been abandoned by the government as they search for the mostly young people still missing after Hamas terrorists attacked. 

The situation had been simmering for months, and Saturday’s events were the reaction to a sustained cycle of violence and humiliation. 

second snap: Palestinians inspect a mosque destroyed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in Gaza. (Reuters/India Today) 

Detailed analysis of Hamas’s thinking in launching this attack is likely to be a drawn out process, not least because Israel, understandably the country with the closest insight, was blindsided about those deliberations.

The reality is that while Hamas has dressed up the attack as a response to Israeli incursions around the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, it chose to trigger this conflict – at this time and in the way it did – as a way to impose itself in that wider diplomacy.

One of the oldest saws of Middle East reporting and analysis is the perceived gulf between elite attitudes in governance circles in Arab states and the views of the wider population in the countries in the region.

Northern Israel saw mortar shelling from Lebanon, as Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah targeted Israeli posts on Sunday. Israeli military said that they have responded with artillery strikes into Lebanon and a drone attack on a Hezbollah post near the border.  The Israel Defense Forces said it had established a situation room to focus on putting together accurate information regarding the Israeli hostages.  Tel Aviv has already said Israel is “at war”.

 According to Hamas, ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ was started in response to “atrocities in Gaza, against Palestinian people [and] our holy sites”. 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, has said his people have the right to defend themselves against the “terror of settlers and occupation troops”.

Many Western states have issued typically sanctimonious statements criticising Hamas, and reiterating Israel’s right to defend itself. Yet they choose to ignore what has led to the current conflagration: the far-right government that runs Israel has unleashed a reign of terror upon the Palestinians.

According to the UN, over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers (before yesterday’s declaration of war) — the highest number in 18 years. At the time of writing, another 200 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed in a single day’s bombardment, a blood-soaked tally that is bound to rise.

Moreover, rabid extremists have been staging increasingly provocative marches in the occupied city of Jerusalem, taunting Palestinians on grounds of Al Aqsa. They have also been involved in desecrating churches in the holy city, and attacks on Christian pilgrims and residents, emboldened by a racist government that seeks to ethnically cleanse Palestine of all non-Jews. 

The German government said on Sunday it was reviewing its hundreds of millions of euros of aid for Palestinians after the militant group Hamas attacked Israel.

“All of Europe, all 27 states, must now say: we need a new start and we will no longer finance terrorists,” said Armin Laschet, the conservatives’ candidate for chancellor at the last federal election, calling for an end to EU cooperation with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank.

Peter Beaumont writes in London's 'The Guardian'; - the Hamas assault is designed to give militant group control over the Palestinian narrative as regional relationships change. 

There are two key questions in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s surprise assault on Israel: what was the attack designed to achieve, and why now?

Even as the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel was at war with Hamas and the other Gaza factions, it is important to understand what Hamas’s military aims did not include. Hamas fights its periodic conflicts for political reasons, to shore up support in Gaza and elsewhere and to ensure its continuing relevance.

Hamas’s military leadership is aware of its own capabilities. Taking and holding ground in Israel is far beyond its reach. As the kidnapping and killing of Israeli civilians makes clear, this is an operation that was designed both to terrorise and to have as wide an international audience as possible. -- The Guardian article