{"id":8118,"date":"2023-10-10T05:16:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T16:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=8118"},"modified":"2023-10-10T05:16:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T16:16:30","slug":"how-hamas-staged-israel-lightning-assault-no-one-thought-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=8118","title":{"rendered":"How Hamas staged Israel lightning assault no-one thought possible"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Many Israelis would have been asleep when it began.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath and also a holy festival day, meaning families were planning to spend time at home together or in synagogue, and friends were meeting up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But out of the dawn sky, a hail of rockets signalled the start of an attack that was unprecedented in its scale and co-ordination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For years, Israel has fortified the barrier between itself and the small Palestinian enclave of Gaza. Within hours, its impenetrability was exposed as flawed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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BBC News has been analysing footage taken by militants and civilians on the ground to piece together how Hamas co-ordinated their most sophisticated attack ever from Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Rockets signal start of attack<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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At around 06:30 local time, the rockets began to fly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Islamist militant organisation – which controls Gaza and is designated as a terrorist group in the UK and elsewhere around the world – uses this tactic frequently.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The rudimentary rockets often struggle to evade Israel’s advanced Iron Dome missile defence system – but thousands were fired in a short space of time to overwhelm it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The scale suggests months of planning and stockpiling. Hamas says it fired 5,000 in the first round (Israel says it was half that number).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/span>IMAGE SOURCE,<\/span>EPA \/ BBC NEWS<\/span><\/div>
Image caption,<\/span><\/p>\n
A rocket is fired from Gaza in the early hours of Saturday morning<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Air raid sirens began to sound as far afield as Tel Aviv – 60km (38 miles) from Gaza\u00a0–\u00a0<\/b>and western Jerusalem and smoke was seen rising above towns where there had been direct hits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As the rockets continued to launch, fighters were gathering where they planned to penetrate the heavily fortified Gaza barrier.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Although Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005, it still controls its airspace, shared border and shoreline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As well as regular military patrols around the perimeter – which is a concrete wall in some places and a fence in others – there is also a network of cameras and sensors to prevent incursions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But within hours, the barrier had been breached again and again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Map<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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How did Hamas get through?<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Some Hamas fighters tried to bypass the barrier completely, including by flying over it on paragliders (unverified footage showed at least seven drifting above Israel) and by boat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Israel Defense Forces said they had repelled two Hamas attempts to cross into Israel by landing vessels on the beach.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But what sets this attack apart is the several co-ordinated, direct assaults on barrier crossing points.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At 05:50 local time, a Telegram account associated with Hamas’s armed wing posted the first images from the ground, taken at Kerem Shalom – the most southern of Gaza’s crossings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They showed militants overrunning a checkpoint and the bloodied bodies of two Israeli soldiers on the ground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Another image showed at least five motorbikes, each carrying two militants armed with rifles, passing through a hole which had been cut in the wire fence section of the barrier.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/span>IMAGE SOURCE,<\/span>SOCIAL MEDIA<\/span><\/div>
Image caption,<\/span><\/p>\n
Militants broke through the barrier at Kerem Shalom by overunning guards and cutting through the fence<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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At a less guarded section, a bulldozer was seen demolishing a stretch of barbed wire-topped fencing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dozens of seemingly unarmed people were gathered there, and some began to run through the gap.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Bulldozer<\/span>IMAGE SOURCE,<\/span>SOCIAL MEDIA<\/span><\/div>
Image caption,<\/span><\/p>\n
BBC News has verified footage of a bulldozer destroying a section of the barrier<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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At Erez – the furthest north of the Gaza crossings, around 43.4km (27 miles) from Kerem Shalom – Hamas was swarming another crossing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Footage was posted on one of the group’s propaganda channels. It shows an explosion at the concrete barrier, which served as a signal to start the assault, and a militant can then be seen waving a group of fighters towards the blast site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Eight men in bulletproof vests and carrying rifles run towards the heavily fortified checkpoint and fire at Israeli troops.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
Media caption,<\/span><\/p>\n
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Militants attack Israel\/Gaza border crossing point in propaganda footage<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Later in the video, the bodies of Israeli soldiers are seen lying on the floor as the militants go from room to room sweeping the compound, clearly organised and trained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gaza has seven official crossings – six are controlled by Israel, one into Egypt is controlled by Cairo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But within the space of a few hours, Hamas had found ways to enter Israeli territory along the length of the barrier.<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many Israelis would have been asleep when it began. Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath and also a holy festival day, meaning families were planning to spend time at home together or in synagogue, and friends were meeting up. But out of the dawn sky, a hail of rockets signalled the start of an attack that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8120,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118\/revisions\/8120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}