Six hours after the start of the attack by Palestinian militiamen against Israel from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the media to confirm the state of war.
“Citizens of Israel, we are at war. Not in an operation, it is not rounds of combat, it is a war,” Netanyahu said in a video posted on his social networks.
It was the first public intervention by the Israeli leader after the surprise attack suffered by his country this morning and which has already left several dozen dead and hundreds injured on both sides of the border with Gaza.
“The enemy will pay a price like it has never known before,” he added, hours after the attack by the Islamist movement Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
“I ordered, first of all, that the communities that terrorists had infiltrated be evacuated. This is currently being carried out. At the same time, I have ordered a wide mobilization of reserves and that we return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known. The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he added.
Israel bombed several Hamas facilities in the Gaza Strip from the air as the beginning of its operation “Iron Swords”, in response to the surprise attack that the Islamist group launched this morning towards Israeli territory under the name of operation “Al Aqsa Storm” , and which has included the launching of thousands of rockets and the incursion of armed militiamen by land, sea and air into Israeli territory.
At the moment, the fatalities are counted in the dozens and the injured in the hundreds on both sides of the border and the figures increase with the progress of the attacks, without it being possible to confirm their number, for the moment.
The Gaza militias are still firing rockets at this time and the air raid sirens have not stopped sounding all morning in the cities of southern and central Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, the streets are deserted by civilians, many of them sheltered in armored shelters, while numerous police troops patrol and thoroughly inspect the streets, parks and parking lots of shopping centers.
