Israel imposes total siege on Gaza, death toll rises

Israel imposes siege on Gaza, cuts off water supply; Hamas: launches surprise assault, takes hostages; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to defeat Hamas with force; Gaza civilians: brace for possible ground attack. World condemns Hamas attack, fears wider escalation.

Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip on October 9 and cut off the water supply as it kept bombing targets in the crowded Palestinian enclave in response to the Hamas surprise assault it has likened to the 9/11 attacks.

Reeling from the Islamist group’s unprecedented ground, air and sea attacks, Israel has counted over 700 dead and launched a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza that have raised the death toll there to 560 people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened that “what Hamas will experience will be difficult and terrible ... We are going to change the Middle East.

Also read; Israel-Palestine conflict LIVE updates on October 9, 2023

“This is only the beginning,” he vowed. “We will defeat them with force, enormous force.”

The skies over Gaza were blackened by plumes of smoke from deafening explosions as Hamas kept launching rockets as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where missile defence systems fired and air raid sirens blared.

Hamas -- whose militants surged into Israeli towns on Saturday, spraying gunfire at civilians and dragging off about 100 hostages -- claimed on Monday that Israeli air strikes had killed four of the captives.