The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
78°F
Current Conditions
Clear sky
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

Israel retakes towns from Hamas fighters and moves to control border

Palestinian residents survey the damage to a destroyed building following Israeli airstrikes overnight in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Oct. 9. (Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg)
Palestinian residents survey the damage to a destroyed building following Israeli airstrikes overnight in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Oct. 9. (Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg)
By Patrick Kingsley and Isabel Kershner New York Times

Israel said Tuesday that its military had regained control over towns near the Gaza Strip, four days after Palestinian gunmen launched a devastating cross-border assault, as the country girded for the next phase of what Israeli officials have warned will be a crushing campaign against Hamas militants.

As night fell in Israel, rocket-warning sirens blared in the town of Ashkelon, a coastal city located just north of the Gaza border. Earlier, rockets fired from Gaza targeted Tel Aviv and nearby Ben-Gurion International Airport “in response to the targeting of civilians” by Israel, Hamas said on the Telegram social media platform. There were no immediate reports of damage.

Israel’s government approved the call-up of an additional 60,000 reservists, raising the total number mobilized over the last three days to 360,000, the most in such a short period since the country’s founding. The call-ups have touched nearly every corner of the country of 10 million, already awash in grief and anger over the deaths of more than 900 people in the attacks that began Saturday.

With the border nearly secured, the scale of the horror unleashed on towns and villages near Gaza was slowly coming into grim focus: In one kibbutz a mile and a half from Gaza, New York Times journalists saw Israeli soldiers carrying slain residents on stretchers, and more than a dozen bloated bodies lying on the ground.

It is not yet clear if or when Israel will order a ground invasion of Gaza, an impoverished coastal enclave ruled by Hamas.

But the Israeli military said Tuesday that its airstrikes against the coastal strip would be “bigger than before and more severe” because of the scale of the Palestinian incursion.

The Israeli military said it had recovered the bodies of around 1,500 Palestinian assailants since Saturday morning, offering one of the first clear indications of the size of the assault.

Hamas confirmed that two of its senior officials have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. The strikes continued a day after the militant group, which is believed to have taken around 150 Israeli hostages since Saturday, threatened to kill a captive each time Israel strikes Gaza without warning.

Health officials in Gaza said Tuesday that 830 Palestinians have been killed and 4,250 others have been wounded in the last four days, though it was unclear how many were civilians.

Here’s what else to know:President Joe Biden delivered remarks on the attacks in Israel on Tuesday. at 1 p.m. Eastern time, according to White House officials. The White House released a joint statement Monday from Biden and other world leaders expressing “steadfast and united support” for Israel and the “unequivocal condemnation” of Hamas.

At least 11 U.S. citizens have been killed in the fighting, Biden said, and more are still unaccounted for.