Israel deployed soldiers to deal with a suspected infiltration from Lebanon on Monday morning, hours after announcing it had retaken control of all towns along the southern Gaza border.
Isolated fighting continued two days after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack which left hundreds of civilians dead and provoked a major military backlash against Gaza.
As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) finally wrested back control in the south, they said they were responding to a new threat in the north.
“A report was received regarding the infiltration of a number of suspects into Israeli territory from Lebanese territory. IDF soldiers are deployed in the area,” an IDF statement said.
The IDF has yet to provide further details about the suspected incursion, but a reporter with the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV station shared a video online purportedly capturing the sound of gunfire and explosions in the southern Lebanon town of Dhayra close to the Israeli border.
Israeli troops supported by helicopters killed at least two gunmen who crossed the border, the military said. A Hezbollah official said the group had not launched any attack in Isreal, according to Reuters.
On Monday, a National Security Council spokesperson confirmed that nine Americans were among those killed in the Hamas attacks. The spokesperson also said there are “U.S. citizens unaccounted for,” when asked about American hostages. “We are closely monitoring information about hostages taken by Hamas,” the official said, according to the New York Times.
An IDF spokesperson said in a televised briefing earlier Monday that the death toll from this weekend’s attacks in Israel had reached at least 700 people, while the Palestinian health ministry said 493 people had died and 2,751 had been wounded in retaliatory airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said in a Twitter video that the attack this weekend was “by far the worst day in Israeli history.” “If you are Americans and want to compare this to something in American history, then this could be a 9/11 and a Pearl Harbor wrapped into one,” he said. Deborah Lipstads, the U.S. special antisemitism envoy, separately described Saturday as “the most lethal assault against Jews since the Holocaust.” The Jewish Telegraphic Agency said the claim that this was the most deadly day of attacks on the Jewish community since the end of World War Two “appears to be accurate.” They reported that no other conflict in Israeli history had seen “this many civilians murdered in a single day.”
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he had ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” Israel controls the airspace over Gaza, its shoreline, and decides what goods can enter and exit the region at its border crossings.
The extreme measure came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “act immediately to destroy Hamas’ capabilities.” “We will cripple them mercilessly and avenge this black day they have brought upon Israel and its citizens,” he said on Saturday.
An IDF spokesman said the Israeli military is still focused on the “first stage” of protecting communities close to Gaza as well as securing areas in which Hamas fighters entered Israel. He said there are seven or eight places near the border “where we have still warriors fighting terrorists” as well as an active hostage situation in a southern kibbutz.
After formally declaring a state of war over the weekend, the Israeli government said over 100 people are also being held captive in Gaza, though information on their condition or precise whereabouts remains unclear.
The IDF also indicated that preparations for an Israeli invasion of Gaza could be underway, though no plans for such an operation have been formally confirmed. Hagari said 300,000 reservists had been drafted into the armed forces since the Hamas attack began on Saturday. “We have never drafted so many reservists on such a scale,” he said, adding: “We are going on the offensive.”
Precisely what action Jerusalem will take next is uncertain, but Israel has already launched a massive bombing campaign against Gaza. One Gaza resident told Al Jazeera that the bombardment was unrelenting overnight. “The night was unprecedented,” Refaat al-Areer said. “We barely slept. The situation was terrifying. I think this is just going to be the beginning because the bombs have not stopped for 10 hours, not even for a minute.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that U.S. military assets including an aircraft carrier, fighter jets, and ships would be moved close to Israel in the eastern Mediterranean. President Joe Biden has publicly expressed his support to Israel “in the face of an unprecedented and appalling assault by Hamas terrorists.” “The U.S. will continue to stand with the people of Israel,” he said Sunday.
