What you need to know about Hamas air, land and sea attack on Israel

Without warning on Saturday, Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers attacked Israel by air, land and sea . Millions of Israelis in the country’s south awoke to the searing sound of incoming rockets and the inevitable thud of impact. Air raid sirens wailed as far north as Tel Aviv. Israel’s anti-rocket interceptors thundered in Jerusalem.

In an unprecedented escalation, armed Hamas fighters blew up parts of Israel’s highly fortified separation fence and strode into Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier, terrorizing residents and trading fire with Israeli soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies were scrambling to respond to the rapidly changing events. As the day wore on, the casualties quickly mounted.

Rescue Service Zaka, an Israeli group, said at least 200 people died in southern Israel and an additional 1,100 people were wounded.

At least 198 people in the Gaza Strip were killed and at least 1,610 wounded amid Israel’s retaliation.

Here are some key takeaways from the multi-pronged attack that has suddenly plunged Israel into war.

Israel caught by surprise

The shock that Israelis felt on Saturday morning — on Simchat Torah, one of the most joyous days of the Jewish calendar — recalled the surprise of the the 1973 Mideast war . Practically 50 years earlier to the day, a full-scale Egyptian-Syrian attack on a Jewish holiday quickly turned into a disaster for an unprepared Israeli military.

Then, as now, Israelis had assumed that their intelligence services would be able to alert the army to any major attack or invasion well in advance. That colossal failure still haunts the legacy of then-Prime Minister Golda Meir and helped bring down the lengthy rule of the once-dominant Labor Party.

Rockets are launched by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, in Gaza, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The militant Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land, and sea and catching the country off-guard on a major holiday. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Now, the question of how the militants were able to stage such a huge and coordinated attack — which has already killed more Israelis than any single assault since the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago — without triggering Israeli intelligence concerns has already presented a major challenge to Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government.

The government’s supporters had expected Netanyahu and hard-line ministers with a history of anti-Arab rhetoric like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to take a particularly belligerent stance against the Palestinians and respond more forcefully to threats from militants in Gaza.

As political analysts lambast Netanyahu over the failure, and the casualty count climbs, Netanyahu risks losing control of both his government and the country.

Paragliders aid unprecedented infiltration

Hamas claimed its fighters took several Israelis captive in the enclave, releasing gruesome videos of militants dragging bloodied soldiers across the ground and standing over dead bodies, some of them stripped to their underwear. It said senior Israeli military officers were among the captives.

The videos could not immediately be verified but matched geographic features of the area. Fears that Israelis had been kidnapped evoked the 2006 capture of soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas-linked militants seized in a cross-border raid. Hamas held Shalit for five years until he was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In a dramatic escalation unseen in decades, Hamas also sent paragliders flying into Israel, the Israeli military said. The brazen attack recalled a famous assault in the late 1980s when Palestinian militants crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel on hang-gliders and killed six Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli army belatedly confirmed that soldiers and civilians were taken hostage in Gaza, but refused to provide further details.

Dangerous gamble by Hamas

Hamas officials cited long-simmering sources of tension between Israel and the Palestinians, including the dispute around the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is is sacred to both Muslims and Jews and remains at the emotional heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.

In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.

Hamas statements have also cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands that the Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir’s efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

More recently, tensions have escalated with violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza frontier. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis that has sharpened public criticism of its rule.

Some political analysts have linked Hamas’ attack to current U.S.-brokered talks on normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So far, reports of possible concessions to Palestinians in the negotiations have involved Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, not Gaza.

“We have always said that normalization will not achieve security, stability, or calm,” Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told the AP.

The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.

The protest movement, which accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab, has bitterly divided Israeli society and unleashed turmoil within the Israeli military. Hundreds of reservists have threatened to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest at the judicial overhaul.

Reservists are the backbone of the country’s army, and protests within the army ranks have raised concerns about the military’s cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu on Saturday called up “an extensive mobilization of reserve forces.”

Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and exchanged fire numerous times since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky.

Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues of the conflict are rarely addressed and set the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.

With its increased leverage in this round, Hamas is likely to push harder for concessions on key issues, such as easing the blockade and winning the release of prisoners held by Israel.

周六，加沙地带的哈马斯武装统治者在毫无预警的情况下，从空中、陆地和海上对以色列发动了袭击。以色列南部数百万民众在火箭弹呼啸而至的刺耳声中惊醒，随后听到火箭弹撞击地面的沉闷声响。远至特拉维夫的北部地区也响起了空袭警报。耶路撒冷上空，以色列的反火箭弹拦截器发出隆隆的轰鸣声。

局势空前升级，哈马斯武装分子炸毁了以色列戒备森严的隔离墙部分路段，并闯入加沙边境的以色列社区，恐吓居民，并与以色列士兵交火。

以色列总理内塔尼亚胡及其极右翼盟友正忙于应对瞬息万变的局势。随着时间的推移，伤亡人数迅速攀升。

以色列救援组织 Zaka 表示，以色列南部至少有 200 人死亡，另有 1100 人受伤。

在以色列的报复行动中，加沙地带至少有 198 人丧生，至少 1610 人受伤。

以下是这场突然将以色列拖入战争的多方位攻击的一些关键要点。

以色列措手不及

以色列人在周六早晨——犹太历中最喜庆的日子之一，住棚节（Simchat Torah）——所感受到的震惊，让人回想起1973年中东战争的惨状。几乎就在50年前的同一天，埃及和叙利亚在犹太节日期间发动的大规模袭击，迅速演变成一场毫无防备的以色列军队的灾难。

当时，正如现在一样，以色列人一直认为他们的情报机构能够提前预警任何重大袭击或入侵。这一巨大的失误至今仍是时任总理戈尔达·梅厄的政治遗产中挥之不去的阴影，并最终导致了曾经占据主导地位的工党长期执政的垮台。

2023年10月7日星期六，巴勒斯坦武装分子从加沙地带向以色列发射火箭弹。当天黎明时分，加沙地带的哈马斯武装分子对以色列发动了前所未有的多线进攻，数十名哈马斯武装分子通过空中、陆地和海上渠道渗透到多个戒备森严的边境地区，并向以色列发射了数千枚火箭弹，令以色列在重要节日期间措手不及。（美联社照片/哈特姆·穆萨）

现在的问题是，武装分子是如何在不引起以色列情报部门担忧的情​​况下，发动如此大规模且协调一致的袭击的——这次袭击造成的以色列人死亡人数已经超过了二十年前第二次巴勒斯坦起义以来的任何一次袭击——这已经对内塔尼亚胡的极端民族主义政府构成了重大挑战。

政府的支持者们原本期望内塔尼亚胡和像国家安全部长伊塔马尔·本-格维尔这样有反阿拉伯言论历史的强硬派部长们，会对巴勒斯坦人采取特别好战的立场，并对加沙武装分子的威胁做出更有力的回应。

随着政治分析人士猛烈抨击内塔尼亚胡的失败，伤亡人数不断攀升，内塔尼亚胡面临着失去政府和国家控制权的风险。

滑翔伞助力前所未有的渗透

哈马斯声称其武装人员在加沙地带俘虏了数名以色列人，并公布了令人毛骨悚然的视频，视频中武装分子拖拽着浑身是血的士兵，站在尸体旁，其中一些尸体甚至只剩下内衣。哈马斯还表示，以色列高级军官也在俘虏之列。

这些视频的真实性尚无法立即核实，但与该地区的地理特征相符。人们担心以色列人遭到绑架，这让人想起2006年以色列士兵吉拉德·沙利特被俘的事件。当时，与哈马斯有关联的武装分子在一次跨境袭击中抓获了沙利特。哈马斯将沙利特关押了五年，直到他被以色列释放，换取了1000多名被以色列关押的巴勒斯坦囚犯。

以色列军方称，哈马斯向以色列境内派出滑翔伞，这是数十年来前所未有的局势升级。这次胆大妄为的袭击让人想起上世纪80年代末的一次著名袭击：当时巴勒斯坦武装分子乘坐滑翔伞从黎巴嫩越境进入以色列北部，造成六名以色列士兵死亡。

以色列军方随后证实，加沙地带有士兵和平民被劫为人质，但拒绝提供更多细节。

哈马斯的危险赌博

哈马斯官员指出，以色列和巴勒斯坦之间长期存在的紧张局势根源在于围绕敏感的阿克萨清真寺建筑群的争端。阿克萨清真寺对穆斯林和犹太人而言都是圣地，至今仍是巴以冲突的情感核心。此前，围绕这片被犹太人称为圣殿山的土地的主权声索曾多次引发暴力冲突，包括2021年以色列和哈马斯之间长达11天的血腥战争。

近年来，以国家安全部长本-格维尔为代表的以色列宗教民族主义者增加了前往该建筑群的次数。上周，在犹太教住棚节期间，数百名极端正统派犹太教徒和以色列活动人士参观了该建筑群，此举引发哈马斯的谴责，并被指责犹太人违反现状协议在那里祈祷。

哈马斯的声明还提到了犹太人在巴勒斯坦人声称将建立未来国家的土地上扩张定居点，以及本·格维尔努力加强对以色列监狱中巴勒斯坦囚犯的限制。

最近，加沙边境爆发了巴勒斯坦暴力抗议活动，紧张局势进一步升级。在与卡塔尔、埃及和联合国的谈判中，哈马斯一直敦促以色列做出让步，以期放松对加沙长达17年的封锁，并遏制日益恶化的金融危机。这场危机加剧了公众对其统治的批评。

一些政治分析人士将哈马斯的袭击与目前由美国斡旋的以色列和沙特阿拉伯关系正常化谈判联系起来。迄今为止，有关谈判中可能向巴勒斯坦人做出让步的报道都涉及被占领的约旦河西岸地区的巴勒斯坦人，而非加沙地带。

“我们一直都说，关系正常化并不能带来安全、稳定或平静，”哈马斯高级官员巴塞姆·纳伊姆告诉美联社。

暴力事件的爆发正值以色列面临困境之际，该国正因内塔尼亚胡提议削弱最高法院而面临历史上规模最大的抗议活动，而内塔尼亚胡本人也正因腐败罪接受审判。

这场抗议运动指责内塔尼亚胡企图攫取权力，已导致以色列社会严重分裂，并在以色列军方内部引发动荡。数百名预备役军人威胁称，他们将停止自愿服役，以抗议司法改革。

预备役人员是国家军队的骨干力量，军队内部的抗议活动引发了人们对军队凝聚力、作战准备和威慑力的担忧，因为军队正面临着多线作战的威胁。内塔尼亚胡周六宣布“大规模动员预备役部队”。

自2007年哈马斯从效忠巴勒斯坦权力机构的部队手中夺取加沙控制权以来，以色列和哈马斯已经爆发了四次战争，并多次交火。停火协议在过去的冲突中停止了大规模战斗，但事实证明这些协议总是很脆弱。

过去的每一项协议都带来了一段平静期，但冲突更深层次、更根本的问题却很少得到解决，这为下一轮空袭和火箭弹袭击埋下了伏笔。

凭借本轮谈判中日益增强的影响力，哈马斯可能会更加努力地争取在关键问题上做出让步，例如放松封锁和争取释放被以色列关押的囚犯。