Israel formally declared war on Hamas on Sunday, setting the stage for a major military operation in Gaza as fighting rages on Israeli soil. The declaration comes after Hamas, an Islamist militant group, launched a surprise assault this weekend that has so far killed over 600 Israelis.

Saturday was the deadliest day in decades for Israel and came after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis, with the long-running conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory. Questions remain over how the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.

Over 400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as Israel responds with airstrikes in the densely-inhabited enclave. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation, warning his country would take “mighty vengeance” and was readying for “a long and difficult war.”

He urged Palestinians living in Gaza to “leave now.”

  • @[email protected]
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    131 year ago

    Whose soil? The soil that was handed to the Zionists by the British? Or the soil that the Zionists violently forced people off of to form a country on stolen land?

    • @kbotc
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      151 year ago

      Ah yes, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria have no blame for this situation. It’s not like there was a major international body that attempted to create borders and one side agreed to and the other side attempted to exterminate the other in a belief they could win a war, then attempted again a few decades

      A party that should be holding the major bag is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Hamas is a major wing of their organization and yet, they keep the border closed. They could set up a major airport in Rafah and open trade routes into Gaza. Israel would have no say, but they don’t.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t hold power in Egypt, a military dictator does. Egypt cooperates with Israel on most security matters concerning Gaza, and events of the past few days have shown why. They don’t want extremists running around their country either.

    • @jcit878
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      -21 year ago

      whenever someone uses the term ‘zionist’, you already know they don’t have a clue what they are talking about

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        In this case it was used absolutely correctly in the first sentence, but retirement in the second. Zionists were the Jewish organization that strove towards a Jewish nation in the location of the biblical land of Zion.

        It’s used sometimes to refer to the Israeli people, as descendants of these people, but the term loses meaning when the nation of Israel was created.