Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "change the Middle East" in Israel's war with Palestinian militant group Hamas, as the army pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes.
"What Hamas will experience will be difficult and terrible … we are going to change the Middle East," Mr Netanyahu told officials visiting Jerusalem from the country's south, where Hamas militants carried out a surprise attack on Saturday morning.
"We have only started striking Hamas," he said in a separate televised address.
"What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations."
Hamas militants stormed towns and communities in southern Israel at dawn on Saturday under the cover of a barrage of rocket fire, in the deadliest attack on the country in decades.
Israel has retaliated by carrying out intensifying air strikes on the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamist group, and sealing it off from food, fuel, and other supplies.
"Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime," Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has fired a salvo of rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling on Lebanon, marking a significant expansion of the conflict.
Israeli TV channels said the death toll from the Hamas attack had climbed to 900, with at least 2,600 injured.
The dead included citizens of Italy, Thailand, Ukraine and the United States, where President Joe Biden announced on Monday that at least 11 Americans had been killed.
Hamas and other militants in Gaza say they are holding more than 130 soldiers and civilians snatched from inside Israel.
Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 687 Palestinians had been killed and 3,726 wounded in Israeli air strikes on the blockaded enclave since Saturday.
Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida said the group had been acting in accordance with Islam by keeping safe Israeli captives taken during the attack.
But in return for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning, it will begin executing an Israeli civilian captive and broadcast it, he said in a video speech aired on the group's TV channel.
The spokesman said the group would not negotiate over Israeli captives "under fire" and that Israel should be ready to "pay the price" in return for the captives' freedom.
Echoing Hamas, the Islamic Jihad armed wing, which said it was holding more than 30 Israeli captives, asked Israel to refrain from hitting civilians if they cared about the fate of Israelis in its custody.
In the war's third day, Israel was still finding bodies from Hamas's stunning attack into southern Israeli towns. Rescue workers found 100 bodies in the tiny farming community of Beeri — around 10 per cent of its population — after a long hostage stand-off with gunmen.
Israel's chief military spokesman said troops had re-established control of communities inside Israel that had been overrun, but isolated clashes continued as some gunmen remained active.
The country's military said it had called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists and was imposing a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, signs it could be planning a ground assault there to defeat Hamas after it launched its attack.
"We have never drafted so many reservists on such a scale," chief military spokesperson Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
"We are going on the offensive."
In a further signal of Israel's rapid shift to a war footing, a cabinet member from Mr Netanyahu's Likud Party said it could set up a national unity government joined by opposition leaders within hours.
Fighting continues after weekend 'massacre'
The attackers on Saturday gunned down scores of young Israelis at an outdoor desert dance party, where a reported 260 were killed.
A day later, dozens of survivors were still emerging from hiding. The site was littered with wrecked and abandoned cars.
"It was just a massacre, a total massacre," said Arik Nani, who had been celebrating his 26th birthday and escaped by hiding for hours in a field.
Attacks by both sides laid ruin to more homes on Monday local time and added to the ranks of families in mourning.
In Israel's southern coastal city of Ashkelon, a man holding a crutch with one hand and an older boy with the other joined evacuees being shepherded from a street after a rocket blew out the front of a house. The blast shattered windows and set cars on fire.
In the early evening, the sound of explosions echoed over Jerusalem when a volley of rockets fired from Gaza hit two neighbourhoods — a sign of Hamas's reach. Israeli media said seven were wounded.
In Gaza, Palestinians passed the bodies of the dead through dense crowds of men in the rubble in the Jebaliya refugee camp.
The territory's health ministry said the Israeli strike killed dozens and wounded more.
Israeli warplanes carried out an intense bombardment of Rimal, a residential and commercial district of central Gaza City, after issuing warnings for residents to evacuate.
Amid continuous explosions, the building housing the headquarters of the Palestinian Telecommunications Company was destroyed.
In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, an Israeli air strike early Monday killed 19 people, including women and children, said Talat Barhoum, a doctor at the local Al-Najjar Hospital.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said about 137,000 people were taking shelter with UNRWA, the UN agency that provides essential services to Palestinians.
Division over attacks and response
Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, says its attack was justified by the plight of Gaza under a 16-year-old blockade and the deadliest Israeli crackdown for years in the occupied West Bank.
Mainstream Palestinian groups who deplored the Hamas attacks said the violence was nonetheless predictable, with a peace process frozen for nearly a decade and far-right Israeli leaders talking of annexing Palestinian land once and for all.
Israel and Western countries said nothing justified the intentional mass killing of civilians.
Events and demonstrations in support of either Israel or the Palestinian people have been held all over the world.
Several hundred people joined a pro-Palestinian rally at the Sydney Opera House while the building was lit in the colours of the Israeli flag on Monday night.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has "unequivocally condemned" the attacks.
The leaders of the US, Germany, Britain, France and Italy have issued a joint statement, also condemning the attacks.
They said Israel could be sure of their steadfast and united support.
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the kingdom would continue to stand by the Palestinians, and spare no effort to restore calm and stability to the Palestinian Territories, the official news agency WAFA reported.
Washington — which provides Israel with $US3.8 billion ($5.91 billion) in military assistance each year — said it was sending in fresh supplies of air defences, munitions and other security assistance to Israel, a senior US defence official said.
On Sunday, the US dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel.
Story by ABC Wires
Original story here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-10/netanyahu-promises-massive-force-against-hamas-and-gaza/102954562
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