As deadly fighting between Israel and Hamas intensifies, so too does a dire humanitarian crisis in the area.

Hundreds have been killed and thousands injured in Israel and Gaza after Hamas launched unprecedented attacks on Israel Saturday. Subsequent airstrikes have overwhelmed local hospitals and displaced more than 100,000 people in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

The intense fighting has also hampered humanitarian relief. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which suffered damage to one of its buildings in Gaza, is calling for the protection of humanitarian workers, civilians, and critical infrastructure. Calling the situation “horrific,” Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is urging restraint after medical facilities have been destroyed in the fighting.

Impact Your World has gathered a list of vetted organizations that are on the ground responding. You can support their work by clicking HERE or using the form below.

We will continue to update this campaign as more information becomes available.

In his more than three decades in politics, Benjamin Netanyahu has accrued almost as many nicknames as he has election wins.

There’s “The Magician” for his uncanny ability to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. “King Bibi” for staying atop Israeli politics longer than anyone else. And, universally, though not necessarily affectionately: plain old “Bibi”. But there is another one he revelled in, and which now appears in tatters: “Mr Security.” How did it all go so wrong?

It remains unclear as to how more than 1,000 Hamas militants managed to take Israel by such devastatingly deadly surprise, murdering – as President Isaac Herzog wrote – more Jews in one day than at any time since the Holocaust.

And for now, Netanyahu’s opponents are not calling for Netanyahu to step down. “I’m not dealing now with who is to blame or why we were surprised,” said former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, now leader of the opposition. “It’s not the time, it’s not the place.”

History certainly provides a useful comparison: the last time Israeli intelligence failed to anything like this degree – and with so many casualties – was almost 50 years ago to the day, when Egypt and Syria invaded Israel on Yom Kippur.

That, though, was a war “that followed some kind of logic of norms and rules”, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “We negotiated peace with [Egyptian] President Sadat a few years later, with majority support of the Knesset. We’re not going to negotiate any peace with Hamas. It’s a different ballgame altogether.”

Some kind of negotiation – probably through intermediaries, such as Egypt – is inevitable. Even as Israel pummels Gaza with airstrikes, imposes a “complete siege” on the enclave, and prepares for a possible ground invasion to decimate Hamas, Netanyahu also needs to find a way to free the 150 or so hostages being held by the militants inside Gaza.

This would have been a tall order in Netanyahu’s prime. But after 10 months of facing down protests against his controversial and divisive judicial overhaul, his corruption case – and a near-death experience – this is battered and beaten Bibi, not the vintage version.

It may come as scant consolation to him that Hamas has managed to reunite Israel. “The last thing Israelis care about right now is Netanyahu’s political career,” said Plesner, who also serves in the reserves of the Israeli special forces, where he is a major.

It’s also worth remembering that Bibi has been written off countless times before – only for him to return, Terminator-like, to trounce his opponents. This time, though, feels different. This time, he’s been forced into a war he didn’t choose when he may have been distracted by other things.

Focusing on the judicial overhaul “didn’t help”, said Channel 12’s Segal. But this invasion by Hamas, he said, would have been planned 12 to 18 months ago – when Netanyahu was in opposition. The miscalculation, he said, was that Hamas was after economic concessions, and a softening of Israel’s blockade on Gaza. “At the end of the day it’s a Nazi regime looking to destroy us all. And you can’t live with a monster in your backyard.”

Whether Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces are able to slay the monster may become clearer in the coming days and weeks. He might succeed in forming a national unity “emergency” government that would insulate him from any calls to step down. In the short term, this could marginalise what Lapid describes as the more “extreme” and “dysfunctional” elements of Netanyahu’s coalition. But even if they do move to the sidelines, their ideas may live on.

Such has been the shock and anger over Hamas’ spectacular assault that Israeli voters may ben open to more extreme ideas. “A certain portion of the population will expect a very, very harsh response,” said Plesner, “and it will be based on a zero-sum game: it’s either us or them.” And this time, “Mr Security” may fail to deliver.

Israel is hammering Gaza with airstrikes, hitting hundreds of targets and reducing neighborhoods to rubble, as new atrocities are uncovered in its territory after a devastating surprise attack by Hamas militants.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “more or less” secured the border with Gaza by Tuesday, after Hamas sent fighters pouring into Israeli territory on Saturday. At least 1,000 people were killed in Israel and thousands more injured in the militant group’s onslaught, according to the IDF.

During an inspection of the front line along Israel’s border with Gaza on Tuesday, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he has “released all restraints” for the IDF troops in their fight against Hamas.

“They will regret this moment – Gaza will never return to what it was,” Gallant said

As Israeli troops regain ground, details are gradually emerging of the horror unleashed during the weekend attack. More than 100 bodies have been found in the Israeli kibbutz Be’eri, a farming community near Gaza, which was one of first places targeted by militants on Saturday. Bodies were also found at the nearby Kfar Aza kibbutz, according to an Israeli general.

Israel, which has formally declared war on Hamas, is now battering the densely-inhabited strip with air strikes that have killed at least 900 people, including hundreds of children, women, and entire families, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. It said thousands more had been injured.

Israeli officials have also pledged to cut off food, water and energy to the impoverished coastal enclave, which Hamas controls, in a “complete siege” ahead of an expected ground incursion. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to obliterate Hamas’ strongholds.

The strikes have already damaged Gaza’s medical infrastructure, say Palestinian officials, and have forced more than 187,500 Palestinians to flee their homes, the United Nations said.

The full scale of Israel’s response is still unclear, but complicating its retaliation operations are 150 army and civilian hostages – including American citizens according to US President Joe Biden – believed to have been taken to Gaza by militants.

Fears of a wider conflict

There are rising fears of Hezbollah entering the conflict, potentially opening a second front in the war. The IDF said Tuesday that it has added tens of thousands of additional troops to its northern border with Lebanon in anticipation of an attack by the Iran-backed group.

A US carrier strike group is headed to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which officials say is intended to deter Hezbollah in Lebanon and other militants groups.

Lebanese media outlet Al Manar reported Tuesday that rockets were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel. The IDF said that it responded with artillery fire after “launches” were “identified from Lebanese territory toward Israeli territory.”

Rockets were also launched from Syria into Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday, adding that they landed in open areas.

Meanwhile, attacks have continued by Hamas, whose fighters have sought to breach the border with Israel in order to launch suicide missions, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.

Israel accused of deliberately targeting civilians

Scenes of desperation have emerged from Gaza amid Israel’s bombing campaign as the Palestinian health ministry accuses Israeli forces of deliberately targeting “civilian neighborhoods, health facilities, and notably, medical and rescue crews, as well as ambulance vehicles.”

Asked whether Israeli forces were distinguishing between civilian, governmental and military targets, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the distinction was not so simple.

“In buildings where people are living there could be a weapons store… there could be a Hamas kingpin living there,” he said Tuesday.

Homes, schools, medical institutions, dozens of schools and government buildings were flattened in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Information said Tuesday, forcing displaced people to 70 shelters in the city amid continuing airstrikes.

A total of 168 buildings, including 1,009 residential units were completely destroyed, the statement said, adding that 12,630 units were partially destroyed.

Ten medical institutions, including seven hospitals, were bombed, while 12 ambulances have been directly targeted, it added.

Most of those arriving at hospitals in Gaza have sustained second- and third-degree burns and amputations, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qidra, told Palestinian news outlet Shihab Agency on Monday. Many have also sustained shrapnel injuries, al-Qidra said.

Those seeking hospital care are mainly women and children, al-Qidra said, adding that this is a “result of Israelis directly targeting residential houses and buildings.”

The UNRWA said its emergency shelters in Gaza are at 90% capacity with more than 137,000 people taking cover from Israeli strikes. It also said that one UN school housing displaced families was “directly hit,” without giving further details. It’s unknown how many people were in the shelter at the time of the strike.

The only border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been closed after an Israeli strike on Tuesday.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, where some 2 million people live in an area of 140 square miles.

It has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years, when Hamas seized control, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel also maintains an air and naval blockade on Gaza.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said late Monday it has been forced to close all 14 of its food distribution centers in Gaza and “as a result half a million people have stopped receiving vital food aid.”

More than half of its population lives in poverty and is food insecure, with nearly 80% of its population relying on humanitarian assistance.

“Get down!” the medic in the front seat hissed as our ambulance approached the Israeli checkpoint.

I could see through the front window tanks by the side of the road, nervous Israeli soldiers raising their guns as we approached.

This was what Israel had dubbed “Operation Cast Lead,” the first in a series of flare-ups of various durations between Israel and Gaza in 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2022. The ongoing operation in Gaza was preceded by another one this May.

After a brief exchange with the medics in the lead ambulance, the soldiers waved us through without inspecting the ambulances.

It was the deepest Israeli ground operation into Gaza since the withdrawal from the Strip in 2005. Then, Israeli troops largely avoided the most built up and crowded areas, particularly Gaza’s eight crammed refugee camps. They were well aware that entering into the narrow alleys of camps like al-Shati, one of the most crowded, would be risky. Their focus was on controlling the periphery of urban areas.

Israel’s tactics have always been to move fast, control as much territory as possible, but avoid street-to-street, house-to-house fighting where a weaker opponent can take full advantage of the terrain. Entering urban areas in Gaza, however, would bring in an entire new element to the fight.

At the moment Israeli forces are engaged with Hamas. But Gaza is home to a myriad of armed Palestinian groups, including Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) to name just a few. They don’t have Hamas’ manpower or weaponry, but they’re numerous enough to put up serious resistance.

In March 2008, I went to Gaza to cover an Israeli incursion into the north, this time dubbed “Hot Winter,” yet another attempt to stop rocket fire from Gaza. At the time, Hamas was in full control of the Gaza Strip, having expelled the rival Fatah faction the previous year. But when I arrived in the area where Israeli forces were trying to advance, it wasn’t Hamas fighters but rather gunmen from the PFLP who were running street battles with Israeli troops. They ducked in and out of alleyways, sprinted across streets with rocket propelled grenade launchers and Kalashinkov assault rifles. The young men were almost giddy with excitement. They finally had a chance to fight Israeli troops on their own ground. Eventually, the Israelis pulled out. The rocket fire continued.

Going back to the summer of 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon in pursuit of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Israeli forces made it all the way to Beirut then stopped on the outskirts, establishing a siege much along the lines announced Monday by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. It was clear even back then that entering Beirut, particularly the Palestinian refugee camps, would be a deadly mission for all.

During the siege that followed, Israeli warplanes and artillery pummeled West Beirut, but ground troops stayed out of Beirut proper.

In the end, under American pressure, a deal was worked out whereby Palestinian fighters would evacuate Beirut and Lebanon to Yemen, Tunisia and elsewhere. It was only after they left that Israeli troops took control of the western part of the city. Soon afterwards in September 1982, with Israel in control of West Beirut, the Israeli military, under the leadership of then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, allowed their right-wing Christian Lebanese allies, the Kataib, to enter Sabra and Shatila refugee camp and slaughter over a thousand civilians who no longer were able to defend themselves because the men of fighting age and their weapons had left as part of the US-brokered deal with the PLO.

The Israeli military has now mobilized 300,000 reservists for what is now widely believed to be an unprecedented incursion into Gaza – and perhaps, some speculate, a re-occupation of the enclave – in the aftermath of Hamas’ surprise attack Saturday, which killed more than 1,000 people in Israel.

What awaits it is a Hamas that has shown, despite the cruelty vividly displayed in its Saturday attack, a level of military capability far beyond what was previously thought. It is probably well prepared for the next phase in this war.

Since the weekend, Israel has launched hundreds of punishing strikes on Gaza, turning some areas into wastelands of shattered concrete and twisted metal. In the process, hundreds of Palestinians, including many civilians have been killed. And this is just the initial phase of this war.

If it comes, the ground operation will be far bloodier and more destructive. Israeli forces will also have to be mindful that spread around Gaza are more than a hundred Israelis – soldiers and civilians, including women and children – held captive by Hamas. And although no one outside Hamas knows where they’re being held, it’s likely they’re in the most difficult areas for Israeli forces to access, possibly in crowded refugee camps.

As eager as Israel’s leaders may be to deal a fatal blow to Hamas, it will come at a very high price. To all.

The brazen attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel that began on Saturday will be seen as a turning point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with far-reaching repercussions, analysts say.

The multi-pronged attack saw as many as 1,000 assailants infiltrate Israeli territory, kill hundreds of soldiers and civilians, and take dozens of hostages back into Gaza. It was like nothing Israel had seen since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel pledged revenge, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing “mighty vengeance.” Hamas said it was prepared for all scenarios.

“Things will change forever,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. There is nothing in Israeli history that compares to this attack, he said.

Hamas said the attack was retribution for what it described as attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.

Here’s what we know about the group:

What is Hamas?

An Islamist organization with a military wing, Hamas first came into being in 1987. It was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group that was founded in the late 1920s in Egypt.

The word “Hamas” is itself an acronym for “Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiyya” – Arabic for Islamic Resistance Movement. The group, like most Palestinian factions and political parties, insists that Israel is an occupying power and that it is trying to liberate the Palestinian territories. It considers Israel an illegitimate state.

Unlike some other Palestinian factions, Hamas refuses to engage with Israel. In 1993, it opposed the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that saw the PLO give up armed resistance against Israel in return for promises of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The Accords also established the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas presents itself as an alternative to the PA, which has recognized Israel and has engaged in multiple failed peace initiatives with it. The PA, whose credibility among Palestinians has suffered over the years, is led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

The group has over the years claimed many attacks on Israel and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel.

The US State Department in 2021 said that Hamas receives funding, weapons, and training from Iran, as well as some funds that are raised in Gulf Arab countries. The group also receives donations from some Palestinians, other expatriates and its own charity organizations, it said.

In April, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant suggested that Iran provides Hamas with some $100 million annually.

What was Hamas’ strategy in carrying out the attacks?

By undertaking such a devastating strike, the group’s primary goal would have been to dramatically shake up the status quo, experts say: Israel maintains a tight siege on Gaza and continues to occupy the West Bank, and the goal of an independent Palestinian state is nowhere in sight.

One objective would be to put the Palestinian issue back on the regional and international agenda, said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of its Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month publicly acknowledged for the first time that negotiations were underway with Washington to possibly establish ties with Israel, saying normalization is getting “closer” every day. Saudi-Israel normalization could be a landmark moment for Israel’s regional legitimacy as it might prompt other Muslim countries to follow suit. Saudi Arabia had previously pledged not to recognize Israel until it grants independence to the Palestinians.

Elgindy said that, to some extent, Hamas has succeeded in its aim of bringing attention back to the Palestinian cause.

The group may also be trying to shatter any conceptions about its military capabilities, analysts say.

Hamas had delivered “a blow to Israel beyond what it is used to,” and was also putting its capabilities on display, said Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs who focuses on Palestinian affairs. Its shock tactics are a declaration that it “must be taken more seriously,” Rahman said.

The Israeli military said Monday that Hamas had taken “dozens” of hostages and Hamas has said it has abducted more than 100 people. The number of hostages taken, and the fact that many are civilians, shows that Hamas is looking for much more than a prisoner swap, the experts said. In a previous kidnapping situation, Israel traded more than 1,000 prisoners for one Israeli hostage.

The large number of hostages ensures that “this is not a short-lived military tit-for-tat that will die down and be forgotten,” Rahman said, “but that it has longer-term political implications.”

As part of its campaign against Israel, Hamas produced slick propaganda videos documenting its assault on Israel step-by-step. In some videos, its fighters wore bodycams to film the operations as they broke through Israeli fortifications and were seen dressed in commando-style uniforms.

That’s key to the group’s propaganda war, analysts say, which serves a number of objectives.

On the one hand, it is to “instill fear” among the Israeli public and imply that their leaders can’t keep them safe, Elgindy said. “That is going to come as a shock because Israelis take enormous pride in their military and their intelligence capabilities.”

On the other hand, it is also for domestic Palestinian consumption. Hamas has been long caught in a political war with the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank and engages in security coordination with Israel.

Can Hamas survive Israel’s response?

Hamas’ large-scale offensive shows that the group knows that the coming war may be an existential one, experts say.

Michael, of the INSS, speculates that Hamas may have been trying to provoke an all-out war with Israel, and may have been promised regional backing by its allies should it take place.

A senior Hamas official, Saleh al-Arouri, over the weekend said the militant group was ready for the “worst-case scenario, including a ground invasion.”

He said that the ground invasion would be “the best for us to decide the ending of this battle.”

Liberians are voting Tuesday in high-stakes presidential and parliamentary elections – the first since the 2018 exit of a UN mission that kept the peace for more than a decade in a country scarred by two devastating civil wars.

As well as the 14-year civil war that had claimed 250,000 lives by the time it ended in 2003, Liberia has grappled with epidemics, including the Covid pandemic and a deadly Ebola outbreak that killed more than 4,000 people in 2014.

Incumbent President George Weah, a decorated former football star, is seeking reelection for a second six-year term after a tumultuous first tenure tainted by corruption scandals and allegations of mismanagement.

Poverty is rife in Liberia, the World Bank says, further estimating that half of the country’s population survives on less than $2 a day.

More than 60% of Liberia’s 5.4 million people are below the age of 25, but unemployment is widespread among the country’s youth, some of whom were former child soldiers in the civil war.

Nineteen candidates are seeking to unseat Weah, who belongs to the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) party, but he faces a contentious rematch with former Vice President Joseph Boakai of the main opposition Unity Party (UP).

Tensions flared between supporters of the two parties ahead of the polls, Liberia’s police said on Facebook. This led to a “loss of lives and the destruction of properties,” the country’s electoral commission stated.

A spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office in Liberia, Seif Magango, said at least two people died and 20 others were injured in the clashes.

Weah, the only African to have won football’s most prestigious Ballon d’Or award, clinched more than 60% of the ballots to beat Boakai in a runoff election the last time the two met at the polls in 2017.

Neither Weah, 57, nor Boakai, who turns 79 next month managed to achieve 50% of the votes in the first round of voting.

Boakai conceded defeat after an unsuccessful legal challenge.

‘Correcting a mistake’

“Liberians want a change. The youths on the street are telling me they made a mistake (voting Weah in 2017) and want to correct the mistake … They are saying everywhere I go, ‘forgive us, we made a mistake,’” he said.

“This time around, Weah is quite aware that his popularity has dwindled and that he has no chance in this election,” Boakai added.

Around 2.4 million Liberians, mostly young people are registered to vote in the election, which analysts say is a two-horse race between Weah and Boakai.

“Many view Boakai as the next president of the country, who will rescue Liberians from the hands of President Weah, who they claim has failed during his six-year rule,” said Joel Cholo Brooks, the publisher of Global News Network Liberia.

“But for supporters of Weah, (they believe) he should be reelected to complete his many uncompleted projects.”

Ahead of the polls, Weah defended his administration’s performance, telling supporters at a rally “that his development record in the first six years of his presidency is unmatched to his predecessors,” according to a presidential statement.

He touted achievements in infrastructure and noted his government’s introduction of tuition-free education at Liberia’s public universities.

“I am the best among them,” Weah said of his opponents at another gathering last month. “I am a developer, and this is why I am developing the country,” he added as he appealed for votes.

Weah came under criticism last year after spending nearly two months overseas, during which he traveled to Qatar to watch his son, an American national, play for the United States in the FIFA World Cup.

Liberia’s finance minister, Samuel Tweah, said at the time that the president was entitled to a daily allowance of $2,000 during his trip but did not disclose the total cost of Weah’s 48-day tour – described by local media as the longest embarked upon by a Liberian leader in recent years.

“The president has constituted the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission and given it autonomous power to prosecute those who will be found culpable of corruption,” Nagbe added.

Corruption allegations

Analysts are not convinced Weah has done enough to dispel corruption hanging over his government.

“The president has failed to fight corruption,” said Brooks, who added that “many of his officials who were accused of corruption are yet to be prosecuted.”

Last year, three close allies of Weah, including his chief of staff, Nathaniel McGill, were sanctioned by the US over what Washington said was “their involvement in ongoing public corruption in Liberia.”

McGill, Sayma Syrenius Cephus, Liberia’s chief prosecutor at the time, and Bill Twehway, who headed the country’s National Port Authority, were accused by the US Treasury Department of bribery, diversion of state funds, and manipulation of government contracts for personal gain.

The trio resigned their positions but no charges were brought against them, despite calls for their prosecution.

“Two of those who were sanctioned by the US government for massive corruption have been welcomed by the president by allowing them to contest for the Liberian parliament,” said Brooks.

McGill and Twehway are on the ballot for the country’s senate after being nominated by Weah’s CDC party.

Liberia’s Corruption Perception Index score has plummeted since Weah took office in 2018, dropping 22 points in five years to sit at 142. The index, put together by Transparency International, ranks 180 nations by “the perceived level of public sector corruption.”

“The perception is high … I’m not disputing the fact that we have gone down the table on the TI index … but the reality is that the president has been doing so much to fight corruption,” Nagbe said.

A unique election

“This election is very critical compared to previous elections. This is the first time we have transitioned from the use of manual to a biometric voter registration system,” he said.

“This is also the first time that elections will be conducted without external security being provided by the UN mission that was present in Liberia. So security will be on the shoulders of Liberia’s security agencies,” he added.

A UN peacekeeping force, known as UNMIL, exited Liberia in 2018 after completing its mission of “helping to bring peace and stability” to the troubled country.

Bloh also expressed worry that the training of poll officials only began days before the elections.

“Supreme Court says pasting (of the voter roll) should be at least two days to polling day,” Flomo added, but did not explain the reasons for the late training of election officials.

Polls will open at 8:00 a.m. local time Tuesday and close at 6:00 p.m. The election body is required by law to declare a winner no later than two weeks after voting ends.

To be elected, a presidential candidate must win more than 50% of the total votes. If no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round of voting, a runoff election will be held two weeks later.

Bloh says a runoff is likely this time around.

More than 100 bodies have been found in the Israeli kibbutz Be’eri, as details gradually emerge of the horror that unfolded as Palestinian Hamas militants launched their deadly surprise attack.

Be’eri, a self-sustaining farming community of 1,000 residents near Gaza, was one of first places targeted by militants who breached the border early Saturday morning, and among the hardest hit.

Heavily armed militants arrived in Be’eri on motorbikes around 7 a.m., just half an hour after they breached the typically high-tech, tightly guarded border wall between Gaza and Israel, videos show.

Terrified residents told Israel’s Channel 12 television station that assailants went door to door, trying to break into their homes.

Traditionally agrarian, the kibbutzim (plural for kibbutz) were popular in the country’s early years, founded on ideals of communal living and agriculture. About 125,000 people live on them today, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel, and there are approximately 250 kibbutzim across Israel.

The IDF acknowledged on Monday that Be’eri was “very badly hit.”

“We thought we would need more rooms (to house the evacuees). We didn’t need all the rooms,” said IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht.

The attack on Be’eri came around the same time as Hamas militants descended upon a music festival, known as Nova, just three miles south, shooting revelers at point-blank range and looting their belongings.

More than 260 bodies were later found at the festival site, with many attendees believed to have been captured and brought to Gaza, sparking a desperate search by family members and foreign governments.

A number of other towns and settlements close to the Gaza border were also targeted in the first wave of Hamas’ assault, including Ofakim, Sderot, Yad Mordechai, Kfar Aza, Yated and Kissufim.

Israeli authorities estimate as many as 1,000 Hamas militants breached the border from Gaza, with the death toll rising over the weekend as Israel went on the offensive and bombarded the densely populated territory with airstrikes.

So far, at least 900 people have died in Israel and thousands are wounded, officials say. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that its death toll has reached 687 people, including 140 children – a number expected to rise as Israel cuts off supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel to the Palestinian enclave.

Hamas’ unprecedented attack has also raised questions about the apparent failure of the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus – which the IDF has so far continued to dodge, claiming Israel is focusing first on the fight. “We’ll talk about what happened intelligence-wise after,” Hecht said on Saturday.

Israel continued to pound Gaza with deadly airstrikes Tuesday, displacing more than 100,000 people and sending waves of injured Palestinians to overwhelmed hospitals, after Hamas threatened to kill civilian hostages and broadcast the executions if airstrikes target Gaza without warning.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “more or less” secured the border with Gaza, breached on Saturday when Hamas sent fighters pouring into Israeli territory to launch its devastating attack. The IDF said it had recovered the bodies of about 1,500 Hamas fighters inside Israel since Saturday.

Up to 150 hostages are being held in Gaza, complicating the picture as Israel considers how to respond. A huge buildup of tanks was apparent close to the border with Gaza, while Israel continued its barrage of airstrikes. Israel has pledged to cut off all supplies to the impoverished enclave in a “complete siege” ahead of an expected ground incursion.

Erdan said the number of people believed to have been taken hostage in Gaza is estimated to be between 100 and 150. On Sunday, Hamas claimed to be holding more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli army officers.

“Of course, we want to see all of our boys, girls, grandmothers, everyone who was abducted we want to see them back home, but right now, our focus is looking at our national strategy is to obliterate Hamas terrorist capabilities,” Erdan said, as violence continued into a fourth day Tuesday.

At least 900 people were killed and thousands injured in Israel after Hamas’ surprise assault.

Israel formally declared war on Hamas on Sunday and has since been battering the strip with air strikes that have killed at least 765 people, including dozens of children and women, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. It said thousands more had been injured.

Erdan added that the presence of hostages in Gaza is “not going to stop us, prevent us from doing what we need to do in order to secure the future of Israel.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israeli forces would attack Hamas with a force “like never before” and that the destruction of the group’s strongholds in Gaza would be “just the beginning.”

“This enemy wanted war, and this is what they will get,” Netanyahu said Monday, adding “difficult days are still ahead of us.”

It is anticipated that Israel will launch a major offensive into Gaza, although the full scale of the Israeli response remains unclear.

“What happens on the way and how we implement that task will be seen. But at this stage, we continue to strike from the air. And there are plans to, of course, expand that,” IDF spokesperson Lt Col. Jonathan Conricus said. “The troops, the reserves, and the regular units that are amassing along the southern border are readying for their tasks.”

Attempts have continued by Hamas to breach the border in order to launch suicide missions to kill civilians and soldiers, Conricus added.

The IDF has also amplified its presence along its northern border with Lebanon, adding tens of thousands of additional troops “in anticipation of a Hezbollah attack,” Conricus said.

The IDF had earlier said it killed armed individuals who “infiltrated” Israel from Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in Shebaa Farms, which Lebanon considers Israeli-occupied.

On Tuesday, the IDF reported a suspected aerial infiltration in the northern areas of the Golan Heights and Upper Galilee, near Syria and Lebanon. “IDF soldiers are directing IDF aircraft and conducting searches in the area,” read a post on the IDF Telegram channel.

Israel accused of deliberately targeting civilians

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said late Monday it has been forced to close all 14 of its food distribution centers in Gaza and “as a result half a million people have stopped receiving vital food aid.”

More than half of its population lives in poverty and is food insecure, with nearly 80% of its population relying on humanitarian assistance.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, where some 2 million people live in an area of 140 square miles.

It has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years, when Hamas seized control, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel also maintains an air and naval blockade on Gaza.

Israeli strikes on Monday targeted the Shati and Jabalia refugee camps in Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, describing the assault as a “massacre against the entire neighborhood.”

Further airstrikes on a residential building killed two local journalists and injured another in the western part of the Gaza Strip, according to a statement by the Hamas-controlled Government Media Office.

Saed Al-Taweel and Mohammed Sabah were covering the evacuation of a threatened building when the Israeli strike hit, said a statement from Salama Marouf, the head of the media office. They were clearly identifiable as press members and were wearing safety gear and distinctive journalist markings, Marouf said.

Meanwhile, the ministry accused Israeli forces of “persistent and deliberate targeting of civilian neighborhoods, health facilities, and notably, medical and rescue crews, as well as ambulance vehicles.”

The ministry said five medical staff had been killed in targeted attacks inside Gaza.

Asked whether Israeli forces were distinguishing between civilian, governmental and military targets, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the distinction was not so simple.

“In buildings where people are living there could be a weapons store… there could be a Hamas kingpin living there,” he said Tuesday.

Access to medical care has been complicated by Israel cutting power to the territory, and the ministry said that all services at the only functioning hospital in Gaza’s Beit Hanoun neighborhood were suspended due to continuous Israeli airstrikes. Nine ambulances have been targeted since Saturday, the ministry added.

Most of those arriving at hospitals in Gaza have sustained second- and third-degree burns and amputations, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Health Ministry told Palestinian news outlet Shihab Agency on Monday. Many have also sustained shrapnel injuries, Ashraf al-Qidra said.

Those seeking hospital care are mainly women and children, al-Qidra said, adding that this is a “result of Israelis directly targeting residential houses and buildings.”

The UNRWA said its emergency shelters in Gaza are at 90% capacity with more than 137,000 people taking cover from Israeli strikes. It also said that one UN school housing displaced families was “directly hit,” without giving further details. It’s unknown how many people were in the shelter at the time of the strike.

The late singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett has an unsuspecting figure to add to his legacy — a newly discovered species of sea snail found in the Florida Reef.

Named Cayo margarita as a nod to Buffett’s song “Margaritaville,” the bright yellow specimen is a worm snail, a type of mollusk that sticks to hard surfaces within the coral reef and forms a tubular shell around itself, according to a study published Monday in the journal PeerJ. (Buffett died September 1 at age 76.)

Biologist Rüdiger Bieler, the report’s lead author, first saw the snail while scuba diving and noted its citrusy color, which reminded him of the popular cocktail.

“In some ways, our team was no stranger to the regional signature drink. And of course, Jimmy Buffett’s music,” Bieler said, calling himself “a bit of a Parrothead,” as fans of the singer are known. “So when we came up with a species name, we really wanted to allude to the color of the drink and the fact that it lives in the Florida Keys.”

Bieler, who is curator of invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, said the discovery of Cayo margarita has contributed to a better understanding of the biodiversity within coral reefs.

“This is a rather charismatic little snail that can show us how little we know about the biological diversity around us,” Bieler said. “You have a lot of tourists snorkeling, diving in that area, and still there are undescribed and understudied organisms right under our noses.”

He said he also hoped the newfound species would help to illuminate threatened coral reefs, particularly the Florida Reef, the only living coral barrier reef in North America.

This snail isn’t slow. It’s motionless

Bieler has been researching invertebrates in the Atlantic Ocean for four decades, but he said this snail most likely slipped under the radar due to its diminutive size. In contrast to other species of worm snails, which Bieler compared to the size of human fingers, this genus is rather small, with the opening of its shell only the size of a pencil eraser.

What’s more, the worm snail is free-roaming as a juvenile, most likely for a few hours, Bieler said, but then attaches itself to a piece of coral and stays put for the rest of its life. To capture its food — plankton and waste matter — Cayo margarita creates a spiderlike web of mucus as a trap, according to the study.

The little snail’s bright color caught researchers’ attention. Given its vulnerability as a sessile, or immobile, creature, the researchers were surprised to see its luminosity, which Bieler described as “an advertisement to their presence.” Not only that, but this species of mollusk does not form a trapdoor-like shell as other worm snails do, leaving its head exposed to the wide ocean.

“There’s so much biodiversity — so many fish and crabs and so many other organisms — pretty much everybody is out to eat you,” Bieler said.

But after close study of the snail, researchers found that any fish that had tried to taste the mollusk would quickly swim away. Bieler suspects the snail’s bright yellow (or key lime) hue is a defense mechanism to ward off predators and warn them of mucus that contains distasteful metabolites.

“Admittedly, snails are usually fairly slow, but there’s this big biological difference between being slow and not moving at all,” Bieler said. “Evolutionarily speaking, they had to invent new ways of feeding, new ways of protecting themselves, new ways of reproducing.”

More snail discoveries

In total, the study describes four snails placed in a new genus the scientists named Cayo, the Spanish word for a small island or key. The sea snails are a part of the same family of an invasive species discovered in 2017 in the Florida Keys that is scientifically named Thylacodes vandyensis. The Cayo snails, however, are currently believed to be local and not invasive, Bieler said.

The threatened state of coral reefs affects much of ocean life, but the Cayo snails are not too picky about where they live, Bieler said, basically needing only a hard surface to stick to and access to plankton.

“What they need is essentially a little free piece of real estate, which is hard to come by in the coral reef, and where they are often going are dead spots on coral heads,” Bieler said. “We’re seeing that these worm snails are making good use of this newly freed up real estate because the coral reefs are so stressed.”

The brazen attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel that began on Saturday will be seen as a turning point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with far-reaching repercussions, analysts say.

The multi-pronged attack saw as many as 1,000 assailants infiltrate Israeli territory, kill hundreds of soldiers and civilians, and take dozens of hostages back into Gaza. It was like nothing Israel had seen since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel pledged revenge, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing “mighty vengeance.” Hamas said it was prepared for all scenarios.

“Things will change forever,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. There is nothing in Israeli history that compares to this attack, he said.

Hamas said the attack was retribution for what it described as attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.

Here’s what we know about the group:

What is Hamas?

An Islamist organization with a military wing, Hamas first came into being in 1987. It was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group that was founded in the late 1920s in Egypt.

The word “Hamas” is itself an acronym for “Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiyya” – Arabic for Islamic Resistance Movement. The group, like most Palestinian factions and political parties, insists that Israel is an occupying power and that it is trying to liberate the Palestinian territories. It considers Israel an illegitimate state.

Unlike some other Palestinian factions, Hamas refuses to engage with Israel. In 1993, it opposed the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that saw the PLO give up armed resistance against Israel in return for promises of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The Accords also established the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas presents itself as an alternative to the PA, which has recognized Israel and has engaged in multiple failed peace initiatives with it. The PA, whose credibility among Palestinians has suffered over the years, is led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

The group has over the years claimed many attacks on Israel and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel.

The US State Department in 2021 said that Hamas receives funding, weapons, and training from Iran, as well as some funds that are raised in Gulf Arab countries. The group also receives donations from some Palestinians, other expatriates and its own charity organizations, it said.

In April, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant suggested that Iran provides Hamas with some $100 million annually.

What was Hamas’ strategy in carrying out the attacks?

By undertaking such a devastating strike, the group’s primary goal would have been to dramatically shake up the status quo, experts say: Israel maintains a tight siege on Gaza and continues to occupy the West Bank, and the goal of an independent Palestinian state is nowhere in sight.

One objective would be to put the Palestinian issue back on the regional and international agenda, said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of its Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month publicly acknowledged for the first time that negotiations were underway with Washington to possibly establish ties with Israel, saying normalization is getting “closer” every day. Saudi-Israel normalization could be a landmark moment for Israel’s regional legitimacy as it might prompt other Muslim countries to follow suit. Saudi Arabia had previously pledged not to recognize Israel until it grants independence to the Palestinians.

Elgindy said that, to some extent, Hamas has succeeded in its aim of bringing attention back to the Palestinian cause.

The group may also be trying to shatter any conceptions about its military capabilities, analysts say.

Hamas had delivered “a blow to Israel beyond what it is used to,” and was also putting its capabilities on display, said Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs who focuses on Palestinian affairs. Its shock tactics are a declaration that it “must be taken more seriously,” Rahman said.

The Israeli military said Monday that Hamas had taken “dozens” of hostages and Hamas has said it has abducted more than 100 people. The number of hostages taken, and the fact that many are civilians, shows that Hamas is looking for much more than a prisoner swap, the experts said. In a previous kidnapping situation, Israel traded more than 1,000 prisoners for one Israeli hostage.

The large number of hostages ensures that “this is not a short-lived military tit-for-tat that will die down and be forgotten,” Rahman said, “but that it has longer-term political implications.”

As part of its campaign against Israel, Hamas produced slick propaganda videos documenting its assault on Israel step-by-step. In some videos, its fighters wore bodycams to film the operations as they broke through Israeli fortifications and were seen dressed in commando-style uniforms.

That’s key to the group’s propaganda war, analysts say, which serves a number of objectives.

On the one hand, it is to “instill fear” among the Israeli public and imply that their leaders can’t keep them safe, Elgindy said. “That is going to come as a shock because Israelis take enormous pride in their military and their intelligence capabilities.”

On the other hand, it is also for domestic Palestinian consumption. Hamas has been long caught in a political war with the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank and engages in security coordination with Israel.

Can Hamas survive Israel’s response?

Hamas’ large-scale offensive shows that the group knows that the coming war may be an existential one, experts say.

Michael, of the INSS, speculates that Hamas may have been trying to provoke an all-out war with Israel, and may have been promised regional backing by its allies should it take place.

A senior Hamas official, Saleh al-Arouri, over the weekend said the militant group was ready for the “worst-case scenario, including a ground invasion.”

He said that the ground invasion would be “the best for us to decide the ending of this battle.”