Day: October 8, 2023

Press Trust of India (PTI) correspondent Harinder Mishra is in Jerusalem where he spoke to VOA Afghan Service journalist Nazrana Ghaffar Yousafzai about the reaction among Israelis to the attacks and mass kidnapping of soldiers and civilians by Hamas. 

This transcript has been condensed for clarity and brevity. 

VOA: Please update us on how the situation in Israel is right now?

PTI correspondent Harinder Mishra: Right now, I’m in Jerusalem, and here the streets look completely deserted. I went shopping and, you know, even the supermarkets were completely empty. There were hardly any people there. So as far as Jerusalem is concerned yesterday, people rushed to the shelter houses and everybody was instructed to stay indoors and close to the shelter houses, which most of the people did, but let’s say that since yesterday afternoon it has been calm here in Jerusalem. 

But it’s, again, a disturbing comfort. People look quite worried. There are hardly any people on the streets but everybody you speak to over the phone sounds quite worried. Most of the action today is in the south of Israel. 

VOA: Were the Israeli people ready for such a situation, to move to shelters?

Mishra: As far as such situations are concerned, they try to be always ready and prepared for such bad eventualities. And during the last 10 days, there were frequent checks by the municipal authorities, and they were coming and looking at the shelter houses across the country. But that could also be a routine exercise which happens every now and then. And it could also be because Israeli security has been kind of focusing completely on the Iranian nuclear program, and Iran is what was talked about all the time, and the whole focus was there. So, this has come as a great surprise. It is quite unexpected, and nobody thought about Hamas launching such a major offensive from the Gaza Strip.

VOA: How do the Israelis see the intelligence failure? Has it shaken Israelis’ trust in their intelligence agencies? 

Mishra: I look at [it] as definitely a lot of people are questioning Israel takes a lot of pride in its intelligence apparatus, and for Hamas to launch an offensive of this scale was unheard of, [not] thought of, nobody could really imagine anything like this happening. And the truth is that I get a sense that even Hamas didn’t really realize that they would have ever achieved this kind of a success in the attack that they have carried out. Probably, they were looking at abducting a few soldiers and then carrying out negotiations on releasing prisoners. And those are the kinds of things that were generally being talked about, and those were the things that generally they were looking at, that would be generally the aim. But to achieve this kind of  — they see it as a success — and definitely an Israeli failure. It was unthinkable. 

Israelis have been quite divided internally. There have been protests going on against the government for almost 40 weeks. But in this kind of a situation suddenly there’s a talk of formation of an emergency national unity government. There is a show of unity — people, nobody is blaming anybody, but then analysts here, political analysts are asking this question quite a lot. It’s very, you know, can be heard loud and clear in the media as to… is [it] possible that Iran, Iran was such a focus everybody was looking at Iran in such a way that they forgot to look at their own backyard here — that the Hamas militants could carry out such an attack.

Secondly, people are also saying that what are the… what are the preparations affected by what is going on internally within the Israeli society because if you look at it, a lot of reservists and a lot of Israeli soldiers had announced that they would be boycotting and not coming for a reserve duty and they had stopped going for reserve duty and their surveillance apparatus was said to have also been affected. This is something that was there, open, in the open. It was there in the media. It was something that was already known.

VOA: There is a strong reaction from the political leadership to it. What does it mean for Gaza and the Palestinian people?

Mishra: Look, what has happened will definitely lead to massive retaliation. It is already happening there. I have spoken to people in the Gaza Strip. There are also some Indians living in Gaza and there is no internet connectivity at the moment, [the] electricity supply has also been stopped. And if you look at it, almost 70% of Gaza’s electricity supply comes from Israel. So, Israel is determined to black out completely Gaza, they can very easily do that. And the energy minister has clearly made his intent clear. Now with the security cabinet, taking a decision and declaring war against Hamas. It gives them the authority to go to any extent in order to defeat Hamas. 

And in view of that, it is almost certain that people in Gaza are going to suffer a lot. Yesterday there were scenes of people hurriedly trying to buy and stockpile food stuff and all the emergency stuff at home so that they wouldn’t run out of stock. So, such preparations were underway could be seen yesterday, people could have — good people — had already said even though you know, a lot of Hamas activists would be seen on the streets rejoicing with what had happened, but the common people were shaken up. So, the common people on both sides look quite shaken up actually. 

Even here, nobody had imagined that 600 people could be killed in such a, such an attack, which was so certain and swift. Even you know during the Second Lebanon War in 2006 the casualties were almost one fourth of what has happened in a few hours yesterday.

Israel battered Gaza on Sunday after suffering its bloodiest attack in decades, when Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns killing 600 and abducting dozens more, as the spiralling violence threatened a major new Middle East war.

Israeli air strikes hit housing blocks, tunnels, a mosque and homes of Hamas officials in Gaza, killing more than 370 people, including 20 children, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance for this black day”.

In a sign the conflict could spread beyond blockaded Gaza, Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia exchanged artillery and rocket fire, while in Alexandria, two Israeli tourists were shot dead along with their Egyptian guide.

In southern Israel, Hamas gunmen were still fighting Israeli security forces 24 hours after a surprise, multi-pronged assault of rocket barrages and bands of gunmen who overran army bases and invaded border towns.

“My two little girls, they’re only babies. They’re not even five years old and three years old,” said Yoni Asher who had seen video of gunmen seizing his wife and two small daughters after she took them to visit her mother, he said.

Israel’s military, which faces questions over its failure to prevent the attack, said it had regained control of most infiltration points along security barriers, killed hundreds of attackers and taken dozens more prisoner.

“We’re going to be attacking Hamas severely and this is going to be a long, long haul,” an Israeli military spokesperson told a briefing with reporters.

The military said it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around Gaza, a narrow strip that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and was starting to evacuate all Israelis living around the frontier of the territory.

“This is my fifth war. The war should stop. I don’t want to keep feeling this,” said Qassab al-Attar, a Palestinian wheelchair user in Gaza whose brothers carried him to shelter when Israeli forces shelled their house.

The attack by Hamas launched at dawn on Saturday represented the biggest and deadliest incursion into Israel since Egypt and Syria launched a sudden assault in an effort to reclaim lost territory in the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago.

At least 600 people were killed, according to reports by Israeli TV stations. Israel has not released an official toll.

The conflict could undermine U.S.-backed moves towards normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia – a security realignment that could threaten Palestinian hopes of self determination and hem in Hamas’ main backer, Iran.

Tehran’s other main regional ally, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fought a war with Israel in 2006 and said its “guns and rockets” stand with Hamas. “We recommend Hezbollah not to come into this and I don’t think they will,” Israel’s army spokesperson said.

The debris from Saturday’s attack still lay around southern Israeli towns and border communities on Sunday morning and Israelis were reeling from the sight of bloodied bodies lying on suburban streets, in cars and in their homes.

Palestinian fighters escaped back into Gaza with dozens of hostages, including both soldiers and civilians. Hamas said it would issue a statement later on Sunday saying how many captives it had seized.

About 30 missing Israelis attending a dance party that was targeted during Saturday’s attack emerged from hiding on Sunday, Israeli media reported.

The capture of so many Israelis, some filmed being pulled through security checkpoints or driven, bleeding, into Gaza, adds another layer of complication for Netanyahu after previous episodes when hostages were exchanged for many Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas fired more rocket salvoes into Israel on Sunday, with air raid sirens sounding across the south, and the Israeli military said it would combine an evacuation of border areas with a search for more gunmen.

Israeli air strikes on Gaza began soon after the Hamas attack and continued overnight and into Sunday, destroying the group’s offices and training camps, but also houses and other buildings.

Gaza’s health ministry said 370 people had been killed and 2,200 wounded in the retaliatory strikes.

More than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have sought refuge in schools run by the United Nations, the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency said.

In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, people searched through the remains of a mosque early on Sunday. “We ended the night prayers and suddenly the mosque was bombed. They terrorised the children, the elderly and women,” said resident Ramez Hneideq.

The escalation comes against a backdrop of surging violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian authority exercises limited self-rule, opposed by Hamas that wants Israel destroyed.

Conditions in the West Bank have worsened under Netanyahu’s hard-right government with more Israeli raids and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages, and the Palestinian Authority called for an emergency Arab League meeting.

Peacemaking has been stalled for years and Israeli politics have been convulsed this year by internal wrangles over Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault that began in Gaza would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Gazans have lived under an Israeli-led blockade for 16 years, since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.

“How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognise the rights of our people?”

Western countries, led by the United States, denounced the attack. President Joe Biden issued a blunt warning to Iran and other countries: “This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks.

Across the Middle East, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas, while Iran and Hezbollah praised the attack.

That Israel was caught completely off guard was lamented as one of the worst intelligence failures in its history, a shock to a nation that boasts of its intensive infiltration and monitoring of militants.

The main Tel Aviv Stock Exchange indexes fell 6% on Sunday (.TA35), (.TA125) and investors expected the violence to prompt a move into gold and other safe-haven assets.

Related Galleries:

---

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, CNN reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier said Washington would announce new assistance for Israel on Sunday after Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns, with the country suffering its bloodiest day in decades on Saturday.

Israel battered Palestinians with air strikes in Gaza on Sunday. Hundreds have been reportedly killed on both sides.

American mountaineer Anna Gutu and a Nepalese guide Mingmar Sherpa were confirmed dead Sunday after avalanches struck the slopes of a Tibetan mountain, while two others remained missing, according to Chinese media reports.

The avalanches struck Tibet’s Mount Shishapangma Saturday afternoon at 7,600 (about 25,000 ft) and 8,000 meters (about 26,000 ft) in altitude, according to state-owned Xinhua News Agency.

Two others, American climber Gina Marie Rzucidlo and a Nepalese mountain guide Tenjen Sherpa went missing, the news agency said. Sherpa was one half of a duo who shattered the record for the fastest climb of the 14 mountains more than 8,000 meters (about 26,000 feet) high in July this year. He wanted to become the youngest climber to scale all 14 peaks twice.

The avalanches also seriously injured Nepalese mountain guide Karma Geljen Sherpa, who was escorted down the mountain by rescuers and is currently in stable condition.

A total of 52 climbers from various countries including the U.S., Britain, Japan, and Italy were attempting to summit the mountain when the avalanches hit, Xinhua said.

Climbing activities on Shishapangma have since been suspended due to snow conditions.

Shishapangma is the 14th-highest mountain in the world, at over 8,027 meters (26,335 ft) above sea level.

October is a popular time to trek the Himalayas as it’s after the rainy monsoon season, but experts have cautioned that climate change has increased the risk of avalanches in the region.

At least 120 people in the Indian Himalayas were killed by avalanches over the past two years. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that U.S. officials have received reports that several Americans have been killed in Israel as a result of Hamas’s attacks on the country. 

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Blinken said the U.S. is working to verify those reports. 

“Yes, we have reports that several Americans were killed,” Blinken told CNN’s Dana Bash when asked whether Americans were killed or kidnapped in Israel.

“We’re working overtime to verify that. At the same time, there are reports of missing Americans, and there again, we’re working to verify those reports,” Blinken said. 

Blinken’s comments come after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched the biggest attack on Israel in decades Saturday, killing an estimated 500 Israelis, according to reports. 

Blinken reiterated American support for Israel and described the war as “a massive terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilians.”

President Biden has projected a similar sentiment, saying the United States stands with Israel and supports Israel’s right to defend itself.

“The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel,” Biden said in a statement Saturday.

The Republican Party in the US is no longer recognizable. Once a home for Reaganites who saw America as the leader of the free world, it is now a gang of frightened sycophants beholden to Trump.