An Israeli airstrike flattened a high-rise building in central Gaza City. The 14-storey Palestine Tower is home to dozens of families but it also held offices connected to the Hamas, Associated Press reported. Israel gave inhabitants a 10-minute warning before it destroyed the building.
Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas, promised a harsh response, saying, “Tel Aviv must stand on one foot and wait for our earth-shattering response.”
This came after Hamas fired thousands of rockets and sent dozens of fighters into Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented surprise attack. Israel said it is now at war with Hamas and launched airstrikes in Gaza, vowing to inflict an “unprecedented price”.
“We are at war,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address, declaring a mass army mobilization. “Not an operation,’ not a round,’ but at war. The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he added, promising that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”
Israel’s national rescue service said at least 100 people were killed and many wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Israel in years. Some Israeli soldiers and civilians were also seized and taken into Gaza, it was reported.
At least 198 people in the Gaza Strip have been killed in Israel’s retaliation and at least 1,610 wounded, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said.
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