SDEROT - Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a large-scale surprise attack against Israel Saturday, firing thousands of rockets from Gaza and sending ground units to kill or abduct people as Israel retaliated with air strikes.
Hamas fighters -- travelling in vehicles, boats and even using motorised paragliders -- breached blockaded Gaza's security barrier and attacked nearby Israeli towns and military posts, sparking gun battles as panicked residents hid out in bunkers."Send help, please!" one Israeli woman sheltering with her two-year-old child pleaded as militants outside opened fire at her house and tried to break into their safe room, Israeli media reported.
The escalation follows months of rising bloodshed between Israeli forces and Palestinians, mostly in the occupied West Bank, and tensions around Gaza's border and at contested holy sites in Jerusalem. Air raid sirens wailed across southern and central Israel, as well as in Jerusalem, where AFP journalists heard multiple rockets being intercepted by Israeli air defence systems.
Hecht said Hamas had conducted a combined raid using "paragliders, through the sea and on the ground", but would not be drawn on reports that Israelis had been captured.'DANGEROUS PRECIPICE' At Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital an AFP journalist saw eight bodies in the morgue, while another reporter witnessed the funeral of a ninth person killed in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
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