The shock Hamas incursion into Israel was of a scale and sophistication that was previously considered unthinkable.

Hamas attackers came by land, sea and air, overwhelming Israeli defenses, and killing more than 900 people in the country, both troops and citizens.

The level of planning that would have been required for such an assault prompted questions about whether Hamas could have done it alone – and if it had help, whether that could have come from its longtime backer in the region, Iran.

Tehran, which has commended the operation, has denied involvement. Iran’s mission to the United Nations issued a statement calling the attack “fiercely autonomous and unwaveringly aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people.”

Deputy national security adviser Jon Finer reiterated Monday that the United States believes Iran is “broadly complicit” in Hamas attacks in Israel, but said the US does not have “direct information” linking these attacks to Iran at this time.

“What we can be quite clear about is that Iran is broadly complicit in these attacks for having supporting Hamas going back decades,” Finer said during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” pointing to weapons, training and other financial support.

He continued, “What we don’t have is direct information that shows Iranian involvement in ordering or planning of the attacks that took place over the last couple of days. It’s something that we’re going to keep looking at closely.”

Yet Iran’s evolving relationship with Hamas and its Palestinian militant partners, the Islamic Jihad, is well documented. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad – a Gaza-based militant group which is smaller than Hamas but a significant fighting force in the coastal enclave – has enjoyed a long and public alliance with Tehran.

Hamas, on the other hand, has had a more ambiguous relationship with Iran, turning against it for several years over its support for Syria’s dictator President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war. Ultimately it returned to Tehran’s orbit, and has been openly communicating with Iran and its paramilitary allies about its militant goals.

Israel says Iran supports Hamas to the tune of some $100 million dollars a year. The US State Department in 2021 said that the group receives funding, weapons, and training from Iran, as well as some funds that are raised in Gulf Arab countries.

Iran’s paramilitary allies in the region – namely Lebanon’s Shia armed group Hezbollah – have repeatedly boasted about an ironclad security coordination with Palestinian Islamist groups. (Much of the Western world and some Arab countries consider Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad to be terrorist groups.)

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), says he believes that Iran aims to create “a reality of war in order to exhaust Israeli society, in order to exhaust the Israel Defense Forces.”

“Here is the common denominator between the Iran strategy and the Hamas strategy. Therefore Iran is an asset for Hamas and Hamas is an asset for Iran,” Michael said.

Just over a month before the surprise attack, the deputy head of the Hamas politburo, Saleh Al-Arouri and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad chief Ziad al-Nakhalah were pictured in Beirut alongside Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.

In April, Hamas’ senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh visited the Lebanese capital for meetings with Nasrallah. How Haniyeh, who is based in the blockaded Gaza Strip, was able to travel to Lebanon is still unclear.

In his recent televised speeches, Nasrallah said that there was no daylight between his group’s strategic goals and those of his Palestinian militant partners. He has also repeatedly alluded to broadening the group’s rules of engagement with Israel to reflect the growing alliance.

Lebanon and Israel are technically in a state of war. Hezbollah has a stronghold in the south of the country which borders Israel. In 2006, an international war broke out between the two countries that led to over 1,100 dead in Lebanon and over 200 dead in Israel.

Since then, exchanges of fire between the warring parties have been extremely rare, with Hezbollah repeatedly threatening to strike Israel with its growing arsenal of missiles and rockets only if Israel were to strike Lebanese territory. Yet in recent months, Nasrallah has changed his tune, vowing to intervene on behalf of the Palestinians in case Israeli troops attacked “Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.”

Hezbollah is believed by the US and Israel to possess precision guided missiles. In recent years, Nasrallah has said that his militant group could call upon “100,000 reservists” in a potential war.

An evolving alliance

Hamas and Iran have not always seen eye to eye. The Syrian civil war pitted Assad and his allies, mostly members of the minority Alawite and Shia branch of Islam, against an opposition movement comprised mainly of Sunni Muslims – the dominant Muslim branch. Hamas is a Sunni organization, whereas Iran’s so-called resistance axis is largely Shia.

The rift persisted for several years but began to end as Syria started to normalize relations with powerful Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in recent years. With the drawdown of the nearly decade-long Shia-Sunni proxy wars that washed over Iraq, Yemen and Syria, Iran’s elite force, the Revolutionary Guards, has since then shifted its focus to Israel.

Tehran’s alliances with Palestinian Islamist actors appear to be a centerpiece of the Revolutionary Guards’ strategy, though the details remain murky.

“The question everyone’s asking is, what role did Iran play? We don’t know,” said Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the DC-based Middle East Institute where he directs the program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs. “Iran has clearly been a supporter of Hamas financially, materially and politically. But we don’t know the extent to which Iran was involved in the logistical operational part of this training, or what kind of logistical support (it offered the October 7 operation).”

“I don’t think anyone knows that. Every (country’s) intelligence was caught completely unaware of this, including and especially the Israelis,” Elgindy added.

Whether or not Iran was involved in the operation may have consequences for the future of the war that began on Saturday. If Iran and its Lebanese paramilitary partners helped concoct the plan, then that could portend an expanded involvement by Iran as the conflict carries on.

Yet it is clear that the Palestinian militant-Iranian axis has gone from strength to strength, and that could be enough to put the region on edge. As the war progresses in and around Gaza in the south, where more than 550 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s bombing campaign, Israel has also reinforced troops on its northern border where Iran’s most powerful partner, Hezbollah, could enter this war to dramatic effect.

Israel has declared war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas after it carried out an unprecedented attack by air, sea and land on Saturday.

The large-scale surprise assault has left at least 900 dead in Israel, prompting a lethal volley of retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that killed at least 687 people.

As they retreated into Gaza, the militants claimed to have taken at least 100 hostages with them and have threatened to kill them if airstrikes target Gaza without warning. Israel has pledged that Hamas will pay a heavy price and may now be preparing a ground incursion into Gaza.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened?

Militants from Gaza fired thousands of rockets towards Israeli towns on Saturday morning, before breaking through the heavily fortified border fence with Israel and sending militants deep into Israeli territory. There, Hamas gunmen killed hundreds of people, including civilians and soldiers, and took hostages, sometimes from their homes.

It took Israeli troops more than two days to take back control as fighting raged in the streets. On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had retaken control of all Israeli communities in Gaza’s vicinity on its southern border after fighting with Hamas ended.

The attacks were unprecedented in tactic and scale as Israel has not faced its adversaries in street battles on its own territory since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It has also never faced a terror attack of this magnitude that has taken the lives of so many civilians. While Hamas has kidnapped Israelis before, it has never before taken dozens of hostages at once, including children and the elderly.

Hamas called the operation “Al-Aqsa Storm” and said that the assault was a response to what it described as Israeli attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.

How has Israel responded?

In response to the attack, Israel has declared war and launched “Operation Swords of Iron,” striking suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza.

Hundreds had been killed in Gaza as of Monday, including dozens of children, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

The IDF has urged civilians in Gaza to leave their residential areas immediately for their safety as Israeli military operations continue to target Hamas, and shut all crossings between Israel and Gaza, potentially setting the stage for a ground incursion into the enclave.

Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said on Monday that he had ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything closed,” he said, adding that no water will be delivered either.

How did the two sides get here?

Tensions between Israelis and the Palestinians have existed since before Israel’s founding in 1948. Thousands of people on both sides have been killed and many more injured over decades.

Violence has been particularly acute this year. The number of Palestinians – militants and civilians – killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces since the year began is the highest in nearly two decades. The same is true of Israelis and foreigners – most of them civilians – killed in Palestinian attacks.

Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in the 1967 war, then withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005. The territory, home to some 2 million Palestinians, fell under Hamas’ control in 2007 after a brief civil war with Fatah, a rival Palestinian faction that is the backbone of the Palestinian Authority.

After Hamas seized control, Israel and Egypt imposed a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel also maintains an air and naval blockade on Gaza. Human Rights Watch has called the territory an “open-air prison.” More than half of its population lives in poverty and is food insecure, and nearly 80% of its population relies on humanitarian assistance.

Hamas and Israel have fought several wars. Before Saturday’s operation, the last war between the two was in 2021, which lasted for 11 days and killed at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.

Saturday’s assault occurred 50 years almost to the day since the 1973 war, when Israel’s Arab neighbors launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, on October 6, 1973.

What is Hamas?

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

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 and has called for its downfall.

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 today led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas 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. Israel accuses its archenemy Iran of backing the group.

What happens next?

Israel is now on a war footing and has already started mobilizing troops for a potential ground operation in Gaza. It has said that it will exact a heavy price on Hamas for its attack and plans to retrieve Israeli hostages from the territory.

Israel has dealt with hostage situations before, but never at this scale. In the past, militants have mostly demanded the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails in exchange for captured Israelis. In 2011, Israel traded 1,027 Palestinians for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and in 2004, it released more than two dozen Lebanese and Arab prisoners – including two senior Hezbollah officials – for Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman and army reserve colonel, as well as the bodies of three IDF soldiers. In 2008, Israel released five Palestinian prisoners, five Lebanese prisoners and returned the bodies of nearly 200 Arab fighters in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.

Hamas says it has taken captive 100 or more hostages. Their presence in Gaza will undoubtedly complicate any Israeli military operation there.

The militant group’s armed wing said Monday it would begin killing civilian hostages and broadcasting the act if Israel targets people in Gaza without warning.

It comes after the IDF said it planned to take control of the Gaza Strip. Its spokesperson, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, said the aim is to “end the Gaza enclave” and “control the entire enclave.”

When asked whether it had stopped the “knock on the roof,” which is the Israeli military’s warning for civilians before it bombs a building. Hecht responded that Hamas did not “knock on the roof.”

“When they came in and threw grenades at our ambulances they did not knock on the roof. This is war. The scale is different,” Hecht said.

Senior Hamas member Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera Arabic on Saturday that Hamas is ready “for all options, including a war and an escalation on all levels.”

“We are ready for the worst-case scenario, including a ground invasion, which will be the best for us to decide the ending of this battle,” al-Arouri said.

Could this lead to a wider regional conflict?

Hamas’ operation was carried out in a sophisticated and coordinated manner and would have taken a significant amount of planning. Speculation has been rife that the group may have received assistance from abroad, which, if proven, could raise the specter of a wider regional war.

Israel says Iran supports Hamas to the tune of some $100 million dollars a year. The US State Department in 2021 said that the group receives funding, weapons, and training from Iran, as well as some funds that are raised in Gulf Arab countries.

A senior Biden administration official said on Saturday that it was too early to say whether Iran was directly involved in the attack, but that Washington will be tracking the matter “very closely.”

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by phone on Sunday and later congratulated the Palestinian people for their “victory” over Israel. On Monday, however, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said that the Islamic Republic was “not involved in Palestine’s response,” referring to the Hamas attack. “It is taken solely by Palestine itself,” it said.

Israel may also face the threat of new fronts opening in the war. Of its immediate neighbors, it is only at peace with Jordan and Egypt, and is officially in a state of war with Lebanon and Syria. Israel has said it is ready in case there are attacks from those two countries.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has praised Hamas’ attack and said it is in contact with Palestinian militant groups “at home and abroad,” its Al Manar channel said. On Sunday, the group claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in an area known as Shebaa Farms using missiles and artillery. The area is considered by Lebanon as Israeli-occupied. Israel responded by firing artillery.

On Monday, the IDF said it killed a “number of armed suspects” who infiltrated into Israel from Lebanon and that soldiers were searching the area. Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati said on Monday that his country doesn’t want to be drawn into the conflict.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the Israeli military would attack Hamas with a force “like never before,” as the militant group threatened to kill civilian hostages if airstrikes target Gaza without warning.

Following Hamas’ devastating surprise attack in Israeli territory over the weekend, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant on Monday also ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza, and said he would halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel to the Palestinian enclave.

“I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete siege,” the minister said. “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.” Israel has been pounding what it describes as “strategic” Hamas locations in Gaza with airstrikes since the Hamas attack.

Hours later, a spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing said it would begin killing civilian hostages and broadcasting the act if Israel targets people in Gaza without warning. “We declare that we will respond to any targeting of our people who are safe in their homes without warning, with the execution of our civilian hostages, and we will broadcast it with audio and video,” Abu Obaida said in a statement on the Al-Qassam Brigades’ Telegram channel.

Hamas launched its unprecedented surprise assault early Saturday, firing thousands of rockets and sending armed fighters into Israel. The attack has killed at least 900 people in Israel and injured thousands, Israel’s Army Radio reported Monday.

In response, Israel on Sunday formally declared war on Hamas.

Israeli jets continued to bombard Gaza with deadly airstrikes Monday as the violence continued into a third day. The strikes have killed at least 687 people, including dozens of children and women, and left thousands injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Attacks on suspected Hamas strongholds in Gaza is “just the beginning,” Netanyahu warned during a televised speech on Monday. “I said that every place from which Hamas operates will turn into ruins. It is already happening today, it will happen even more in the future,” he said.

“We are fighting for our home and for our existence,” he also said.

Israel’s military has already retaken control of Israeli communities that were stormed by the militant group’s gunmen over the weekend, and there is no ongoing fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants inside Israel, it said.

At least 11 US citizens have been confirmed killed in Israel, US President Joe Biden said Monday.

It is also “likely” that Americans are among those being held hostage, Biden said, adding that his administration is working with Israeli officials on “every aspect of the hostage crisis.”

Pleas for hostages’ safe return

Hamas militants claimed late Sunday to be holding more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli army officers, according to Mousa Abu Marzouk, chief deputy of Hamas’ political bureau.

Videos on social media showed militants capturing multiple civilians, including children, as Israeli families across the nation made anxious pleas for the safe return of their loved ones.

In addition to Israeli captives, other nationalities are also believed to have been taken hostage, including American, Mexican, Brazilian and Thai nationals – further complicating Israel’s response to the Hamas attack. At least nine citizens from Peru, Paraguay, Brazil and Mexico are missing, according to their respective authorities.

Abu Obaida, the Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson, said Hamas will not negotiate on the issue of hostages while under Israeli fire.

“It has become clear that the enemy’s hostages are at risk to the same extent as our people in light of the aggression against the Gaza Strip,” Abu Obaida said in a statement. “We affirm that we will not deliberate or negotiate on the issue of hostages under fire, in light of aggression, or in light of battle.”

Earlier, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht was asked whether it had stopped warning civilians before it bombs a building, known as the “knock on the roof.”

Hecht responded that Hamas did not provide any warning.

“When they came in and threw grenades at our ambulances they did not knock on the roof. This is war. The scale is different,” Hecht said.

‘Massacre’ in Gaza

Airstrikes have been Israel’s primary retaliation measure within Gaza itself, with jets repeatedly pounding the heavily populated 140 square mile coastal strip, turning multiple buildings to rubble, displacing tens of thousands of people and sending waves of injured Palestinians to overwhelmed hospitals.

An IDF spokesman said it had been hitting Hamas, destroying around 800 targets and killing “hundreds” of fighters, wounding thousands and capturing scores of others.

Most of those arriving at hospitals in Gaza have sustained second- and third-degree burns and amputations, a spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza 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.”

Access to medical care has been complicated by Israel cutting power to the territory, threatening the “lives of hundreds” of those injured, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

The ministry said later that all services at the only functioning hospital in Gaza’s Beit Hanoun neighborhood were suspended due to continuous Israeli airstrikes, blocking medical teams’ ability to enter or exit the building. Nine ambulances have been targeted since Saturday, the ministry added.

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

The ministry said bodies were still being recovered after the strikes killed a “large number” of people. No death toll has been provided.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila urged the international community to stop “the aggression” against medical facilities and teams in Gaza.

At least 13 family members, including four toddlers, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday, according to journalist Hassan Eslayeh and a family relative.

Sounds of battle

While it remains unclear what the full scale of the Israeli response will be, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday predicted a “long and difficult war” and vowed “mighty vengeance” on Hamas.

Hecht said Sunday that the IDF’s priority for the coming hours and days was to “control the entire enclave and kill all the terrorists in our territory.”

Israel’s declaration of war set the stage for a major military operation in Gaza, and tanks and personnel carriers could be seen on the move near the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday.

Thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up and the IDF announced that several communities close to the Gaza security fence are being evacuated.

An Israeli military official and a United States defense official said Israel is requesting precision guided bombs and additional interceptors for its Iron Dome missile system from the US, including Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs – a kit that turns an unguided “dumb” bomb into a precision “smart” weapon.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US would provide security assistance to Israel imminently. The US said it was also sending a Navy carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including guided missile destroyers and guided missile cruisers.

Horror on the ground

Many Israelis have spent much of the past two days in bomb shelters and saferooms.

Throughout the bloody weekend, Hamas rockets made direct hits on multiple locations inside the country, including Tel Aviv, while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.

The assault has left Israel reeling and impacted families far beyond its borders. Twelve Thai citizens, 10 Nepalis, two Ukrainians, two French nationals and one British citizen are among those killed in Israel.

Photos released by the Israeli foreign ministry showed dozens of bodies in the aftermath of Hamas gunmen’s attack on a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, which emergency responders said left at least 260 dead.

“One couldn’t describe it with words. It’s impossible… It was a very difficult moment,” Yakov Argamani said, describing the moment he saw the video of his 25-year-old daughter Noa for the first time.

The IDF said early Monday that Be’eri was “very badly hit.”

Regional concerns of escalation

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.

Fighting between the two sides has surged in the past two years. The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.

UN peacekeepers urged restraint after the conflict flared out into the wider region on Monday, when the IDF said it killed armed individuals who “infiltrated” Israel from Lebanon after the Lebanese group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in Shebaa Farms, which Lebanon considers Israeli-occupied.

On Sunday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting but no action was taken afterward.

European Union foreign ministers are expected to meet Tuesday to address the situation in Israel.

As thousands of rockets have rained down on Israel, the country has been relying once again on the Iron Dome system to protect its citizens.

The missile defense system is one of the most important tools in Israel’s arsenal and has saved countless civilian lives over various conflicts in the last decade, analysts say. It is highly effective. The Israel Defense Forces said the system boasted a 95.6% success rate during a rocket salvo fired by Islamic Jihad in May.

Development on the Iron Dome first began in 2007. After tests in 2008 and 2009, the first Iron Dome batteries were deployed in 2011. The system has been upgraded several times since.

The Iron Dome is designed to shoot down incoming projectiles. It is equipped with a radar that detects rockets and then uses a command-and-control system that quickly calculates whether an incoming projectile poses a threat or is likely to hit an unpopulated area. If the rocket does pose a threat, the Irone Domes fires missiles from the ground to destroy in the air.

To those on the ground, a direct interception sounds like a loud bang and can sometimes be felt from the ground.

There are 10 Iron Dome batteries across Israel, each of which includes three to four launchers, according to Raytheon and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The system is highly transportable and requires just a few hours to set up, and the missile interceptors themselves are highly maneuverable. They are 3 meters (almost 10 feet), long; have a diameter of about 6 inches (15 cm); and weigh 90 kilograms (198 pounds) at launch, the security analysis group IHS Jane’s said in 2012.

The warhead is believed to carry 11 kilograms of high explosives, IHS Jane’s said. Its range is from 4 km to 70 km (2.5 miles to 43 miles).

It is important to note that unlike the air defense systems designed to stop ballistic missiles, the Iron Dome targets unguided rockets that remain at low altitudes – the type often fired by militant groups in Gaza.

During times of war, the cost to operate Iron Dome can rise quickly. Each missile costs around $40,000, so intercepting thousands of incoming rockets adds up.

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, is searching for answers after one of its modules on the International Space Station sprang a coolant leak, adding to the list of mechanical issues the space agency has grappled with in low-Earth orbit over the past year.

Roscosmos said Monday in a notice posted to the messaging site Telegram that the coolant leak affected a radiator circuit on the Nauka module, which is located on the Russian-controlled segment of the ISS.

The Nauka module was added to the space station in July 2021, but the leak occurred on an external, backup radiator circuit that was launched to the ISS in 2012, according to the Telegram post.

“The main thermal control circuit of the module operates normally and provides comfortable conditions in the living area of ​​the module,” according to a translated version of the message. “The crew and the station are not in danger.”

In an update Monday afternoon, NASA said space agency officials in Houston “observed flakes emanating from one of two radiators” on the Nauka module at 1 p.m. ET.

“The flight control team informed the crew aboard the space station of the potential leak, and NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli confirmed the presence of the flakes from the cupola windows, after which the crew was asked to close the shutters on U.S. segment windows as a precaution against contamination,” according to the NASA update.

NASA reiterated that the primary radiator is functioning normally, the ISS crew is not in danger, and ground teams will continue to assess the issue.

It was not immediately clear what caused the leak.

‘External influences’ and space trouble

The Russian space agency has already spent nearly a year working to get its crew transportation missions back on track after one of its Soyuz spacecraft experienced a noteworthy coolant leak in late 2022 while it was attached to the space station. That vehicle had transported NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts — Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin — to the ISS in September 2022.

An investigation by Russian officials that was reviewed by NASA later determined that a small object likely struck the spacecraft, causing the leak.

“A NASA team has also looked at it independent of the Russian team and we also cannot find anything — based on the information we’ve been given by our Russian colleagues — of anything other than some type of external force or debris or something else like that,” said Joel Montalbano, NASA’s International Space Station program manager, during a news conference in July.

Debris in orbit is a growing issue. The number of pieces of uncontrolled garbage in Earth’s orbit has grown exponentially in recent years, due in part to previous collisions between objects in orbit and anti-satellite weapons tests.

Roscosmos determined that the coolant leak on the Soyuz spacecraft had rendered the vehicle unsafe and decided to launch a replacement capsule to bring the crew home.

The launch of that replacement spacecraft was then delayed by yet another coolant leak reported by Roscosmos on February 11 — this one on a Russian Progress vehicle used to ferry supplies to the ISS.

Roscosmos said at the time that the Russian Progress leak was likely also caused by “external influences.”

A replacement Soyuz finally launched to the ISS in late February. That vehicle safely returned Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin to Earth on September 27.

The video began circulating on social media on Sunday and – alongside footage of harrowing kidnappings from the same event – has been scrutinized by horrified families desperate for news of loved ones missing since a series of coordinated attacks triggered Israel’s declaration of war on Sunday.

Israeli officials counted at least 260 bodies near the site of the Nova festival, outside Re’im, where earlier footage showed carefree partygoers from Israel and overseas dancing in the desert soon after sunrise on Saturday.

Some survivors are among more than 100 hostages that the militant group Hamas claims to be holding in Gaza, according to friends and family members who have seen them in videos shared on social platforms.

The first clip, begins at 9:23 a.m. according to its timecode, just under three hours after the first explosions were reported at the Nova festival.

The video has no audio, but a militant is seen yelling, then pointing his machine gun at a man taking cover next to the car. It’s unclear if the gunman is firing a warning shot, or if he’s just shot and injured the civilian, who is then seen being led away. His fate is unknown.

A second individual is seen in the video lying on the ground at the back of another car. The person begins to move and suddenly another militant appears on screen, aims at the person, fires and walks away. The person on the ground stops moving.

Another video from the dashcam, timestamped at 12:09 p.m., shows two militants approach the body of the second individual. They rifle through the person’s pockets, and one picks something off the body and puts it into his own back pocket.

Less than three minutes later, militants grab a woman out of the back of the car. She is led away, and the militants begin to open another car’s trunk and empty a suitcase on the ground to be pilfered.

The video picks up at 12:14 p.m., with the captured woman running back into view. Her hands in the air, she appears to be waving toward the festival grounds.

Dirt and dust are seen flying as bullets hit the ground around her. Next to the emptied suitcase and open trunk, she takes cover again. Her fate is unknown.

Families search for missing children

Ricarda Louk last saw her daughter Shani lying face down in the back of a pickup truck heading to the Gaza Strip, an isolated coastal enclave of almost 2 million people crammed into 140 square miles.

She last spoke to her after hearing rockets and alarms sounding in southern Israel, and phoned her daughter to see if she’d made it to a secure location. Shani told her mother she was at the festival, held in an open field with few places to hide.

Aerial footage posted on social media showed dozens of cars along the side of the road near the entrance to the festival grounds, some burned, others with windows missing and doors hanging open.

Shani was trying to reach one of those vehicles, her mother said.

The disturbing video of her daughter in the back of the pickup truck and attempts by someone to use Shani’s credit card twice in Gaza after the attack are the only hints she has of her daughter’s whereabouts.

In the video, she is seen motionless. One gunman, carrying a rocket propelled grenade launcher, has his leg draped over her waist and the other holds a clump of her dreadlocks. “Allahu Akbar,” they cheer – meaning “God is great” in Arabic.

Ricarda hopes she will see her daughter again, but the situation is bleak.

“It looks very bad, but I still have hope. I hope that they don’t take bodies for negotiations. I hope that she’s still alive somewhere. We don’t have anything else to hope for, so I try to believe,” she said.

Hiding for hours, then …

Like Ricarda Louk, Yakov Argamani last saw his daughter on one of the cellphone videos that have emerged in the aftermath of Saturday’s raid.

Noa Argamani, 25, is seen pleading for help from the back of a motorcycle driven by Hamas militants at the festival site.

Noa was attending the festival with her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, who is also seen being led away by militants.

Or texted Noa’s father around 10 a.m. to say the couple were safe, almost four hours after the first reports of an attack. Other friends also texted, begging for help, Marciano said.

“Since that, no contact. We suppose they were abducted at 12. They probably were hiding for three, four hours begging for help. They started hiding after hearing the massacres and the shooting. And then (the militants) found them,” Marciano said.

Now Yakov is relying on his faith, Marciano said.

“He believes in God. He’s praying that she’s okay. And she will come back to him, to the family and to us safely. She’s their only child.”

Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza on Monday, as the military said it had retaken control of Israeli communities near the coastal enclave that were stormed by Hamas gunmen in an unprecedented attack over the weekend.

Yoav Gallant said Israel would halt he supply of electricity, food, water and fuel to Gaza. “I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete siege,” Gallant said. “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.”

Israel has retaken control of all communities around Gaza and there is no ongoing fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants inside Israel, the Israeli military said on Monday, following continued assaults by both sides.

The announcement by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari came more than 48 hours after Hamas launched a surprise assault with thousands of rockets and sent armed fighters into Israel.

Israel on Sunday formally declared war on the Islamist militant group Hamas after its fighters launched an unprecedented attack that has so far killed more than 700 people in Israel. Israeli jets continued to bombard the Palestinian enclave of Gaza on Monday as the war entered its third day.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least 493, including dozens of children, and left 2,651 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

An incursion by Gaza militants of this scale has not been seen in Israel since the nation’s founding in 1948.

Earlier Monday, as Israeli forces battled to expel the last assailants, Hamas launched a fresh barrage of rocket attacks. Sirens warning of incoming rockets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv sounded at noon local time (5 a.m. ET).

Hamas militants claimed late Sunday to be holding more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli army officers, according to Mousa Abu Marzouk, chief deputy of Hamas’ political bureau.

Videos on social media showed militants capturing multiple civilians, including children, as Israeli families across the nation made anxious pleas for the safe return of their loved ones.

In addition to Israeli captives, there are also other nationalities believed to have been taken hostage, including American, Mexican, Brazilian and Thai nationals – further complicating Israel’s response to the Hamas attack.

For now, airstrikes have been the primary retaliation measure within Gaza itself, with Israeli jets repeatedly pounding the heavily populated 140 square mile coastal strip, turning multiple buildings to rubble.

The IDF says it has been hitting Hamas, destroying around 800 targets and killing “hundreds” of fighters, wounding thousands and capturing scores of others, spokesperson Hagari said Sunday.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in Gaza, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said, and access to medical care has been complicated by Israel cutting power to the territory, threatening the “lives of hundreds” of those injured, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

While it remains unclear what the full scale of the Israeli response will be, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday predicted a “long and difficult war” and vowed “mighty vengeance” on Hamas.

Sounds of battle

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said on Sunday that the priority for the coming hours and days was to “control the entire enclave and kill all the terrorists in our territory.” Israeli fighters continued to clash with Hamas militants on Israeli soil earlier Monday morning in up to eight locations.

Israel’s declaration of war set the stage for a major military operation in Gaza and tanks and personnel carriers could be seen on the move near the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday.

Thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up and the IDF announced that several communities close to the Gaza security fence are being evacuated.

An Israeli military official and a United States defense official said Israel is requesting precision guided bombs and additional Iron Dome interceptors from the US, including Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs – a kit that turns an unguided “dumb” bomb into a precision “smart” weapon.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US will provide security assistance to Israel imminently. The US said it was also sending a Navy carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including guided missile destroyers and guided missile cruisers.

Horror on the ground

Many Israelis have spent much of the past two days in bomb shelters and saferooms.

Throughout the bloody weekend, Hamas rockets made direct hits on multiple locations inside the country including Tel Aviv, while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.

Among those killed in Israel are 12 Thai citizens, 10 Nepalis, four US nationals, two Ukrainians, one French and one British citizen.

Images and videos show the horror unfolding on the ground.

Photos released by the Israeli foreign ministry showed dozens of bodies in the aftermath of a Hamas attack on a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, which emergency responders said left at least 260 dead.

“One couldn’t describe it with words. It’s impossible… It was a very difficult moment,” Yakov Argamani said, describing the moment he saw the video of his 25-year-old daughter Noa for the first time.

The IDF said early Monday that Be’eri was “very badly hit,” and although most Hamas militants in the kibbutz had been killed, Israeli troops were still fighting there.

Israeli warplanes continued striking Gaza overnight Sunday into Monday and “severely degraded the capabilities” of Hamas, the IDF said. Among the targets was a structure that housed Hamas operatives and several Hamas command centers, including one belonging to a senior operative of the Hamas naval forces.

The barrage of Israeli strikes in Gaza has also inflicted casualties on civilians in what is one of the world’s most densely populated places.

At least 13 family members, including four toddlers, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza Sunday, according to journalist Hassan Eslayeh and a family relative.

Regional concerns of escalation

The attacks come 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.

Hamas’ highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Fighting between the two sides has surged in the past two years. The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.

Concerns the conflict could spill out into the region were raised Sunday when Lebanese group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in an area known as Shebaa Farms, using missiles and artillery. The area is considered by Lebanon as Israeli-occupied.

The IDF said its artillery struck the area in Lebanon where the firing originated and said it “will continue to operate in all regions and at any time necessary to ensure the safety of the Israeli civilians.”

On Sunday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting but no action was taken afterward. The Deputy US Ambassador to the UN said “not all” the member nations had condemned Hamas’ attacks, but did not specify which. All 15 members need to vote unanimously for the UNSC to release a statement.

The large-scale surprise attack by Gaza militants on Israel on Saturday has left hundreds of Israelis dead, prompting a lethal volley of retaliatory Israeli airstrikes and a formal declaration of war on Sunday.

“Citizens of Israel, we are at war – not in an operation, not in rounds – at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message shortly after the militant group Hamas, which controls the coastal enclave of Gaza, fired a barrage of rockets and sent gunmen into Israel in a multi-pronged and unprecedented attack in the long-running conflict.

Over a thousand people have died so far, with more than 700 Israelis killed under the Hamas assault and more than 400 Palestinians dead as Israel pounds Gaza with airstrikes.

Still unknown are the fates of at least 100 hostages, including Israeli soldiers, that Hamas says it captured.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened?

Around 6:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, when many Israelis were likely to have been asleep, sirens were heard as far as the Tel Aviv area as rockets flew over Israel.

Militants from Gaza then entered Israel by land, sea and air, with some using paragliders, the IDF said.

The IDF said around 2,200 rockets were fired at Israel. Hamas put the figure at 5,000. To put that in context, some 4,000 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel during the 50-day war between the two sides in 2014.

Hamas military commander Muhammad Al-Deif called the operation “Al-Aqsa Storm” and said that the assault on Israel was a response to attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.

Hamas said in a statement the same day that its fighters were still present in southern Israeli cities, and that the group was supporting them with rocket fire in the cities of Ofakim, Sderot, Yad Mordechai, Kfar Aza, Be’eri, Yated, and Kissufim.

How has Israel responded?

In response to the attack, Israel launched “Operation Swords of Iron,” striking a number of targets in the Gaza strip. Netanyahu said Israel’s response to the Hamas incursion will “exact a huge price” from the group.

The IDF urged civilians in Gaza to leave their residential areas immediately for their safety as Israeli military operations continued to target Hamas.

Inside Gaza, the roar of Israeli warplanes could be heard followed by loud explosions and rising plumes of black smoke.

At least 313 people were killed over 24 hours, including at least 20 children, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said Sunday. Another 1,990 were injured, it added.

On Sunday, the IDF said it struck 426 targets in Gaza, including 10 towers it said were used by Hamas.

In the north, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in an area known as Shebaa Farms using missiles and artillery. The area is considered by Lebanon as Israeli-occupied. Israel responded by firing artillery.

And in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, seven Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers on Saturday when clashes broke out after the Israeli army blocked West Bank cities, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

How did the two sides get here?

Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have existed since before the nation’s founding in 1948. Thousands of people on both sides have been killed and many more injured in the long-simmering conflict between the two sides over decades.

Violence has been particularly heightened this year. The number of Palestinians – militants and civilians – killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces is at its highest in nearly two decades. The same is true of Israelis and foreigners – most of them civilians – killed in Palestinian attacks.

Israel and Hamas have been involved in armed conflict dating back as early as the 1987 First Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in a 1967 war, then withdrew in 2005. The territory, home to some 2 million Palestinians, fell under Hamas’ control in 2007 after a brief civil war with Fatah, a rival Palestinian faction that is the backbone of the Palestinian Authority.

After Hamas seized control of Gaza, Israel and Egypt imposed a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel also maintains an air and naval blockade on Gaza.

Before Saturday’s operation, the last war between Hamas and Israel was in 2021, which lasted for 11 days and killed at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.

Saturday’s assault occurred on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, when Israel’s Arab neighbors launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, on October 6, 1973.

What is Hamas?

Hamas is an Islamist organization with a military wing that came into being in 1987, emerging out 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-Islamia” – 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.

Its refusal to recognize Israel is one reason why it has rejected peace talks in the past. In 1993, it opposed the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The group presents itself as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has recognized Israel and has engaged in multiple failed peace initiatives with it. The PA is today led by Mahmoud Abbas and is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas 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. Israel accuses its archenemy Iran of backing Hamas.

What is al-Aqsa?

The al-Aqsa compound is one of the most revered places in Islam and Judaism. The sacred grounds, known to Muslims as Al Haram Al Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews as Temple Mount have been a flashpoint of tensions between Israel and the Palestinians for decades.

Hamas says it launched Saturday’s “Al-Aqsa Storm” attack in part to defend the holy site.

Only Muslims are allowed to pray in the compound under a status quo arrangement originally reached more than a century ago. Non-Muslim visitors are allowed visits at certain times and only to certain areas of the complex.

But many in the Muslims world fear that the right to be the sole worshipers there has been eroded and that the sites themselves are being threatened by a growing far-right Jewish movement and Israel’s far-right government.

Clashes have frequently broken out at the site between Palestinian worshipers and Israeli forces. Police raided the compound several times over the last year.

The complex lies in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state and which most of the international community considers to be occupied territory. Israel captured it from Jordan in its six-day war in 1967 and considers both East and West Jerusalem as its united, “eternal capital.”

What are key regional players saying?

Western states condemned the Hamas attack and pledged support for Israel while Arab states, including those that have recognized Israel, called for calm.

United States President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday and said that Washington “unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza.”

“I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the government and people of Israel,” he said.

Saudi Arabia, which is holding talks with the US to potentially normalize relations with Israel, said it is following closely the “unprecedented” situation and called on “both sides to immediately stop the escalation,” according to a statement by the Saudi foreign ministry on X.

Israel’s adversaries welcomed the attack. Major General Rahim Safavi, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: “We congratulate the Palestinian fighters and will stand by their side until the liberation of Palestine and holy Jerusalem,” state-run ISNA said.

Hezbollah praised the assaults and said it is in contact with Palestinian militant groups “at home and abroad,” its Al Manar channel said.

What happens next?

The IDF is now focusing on taking control of the Gaza Strip.

“The significant thing that preoccupies us right now is the stabilization of control in the Gaza Strip,” Hecht told a briefing Sunday.

“We have targets for the next 12 hours: to end the Gaza enclave. To control the entire enclave and kill all the terrorists in our territory,” he said, adding that the IDF will try to evict certain communities in areas of Gaza.

Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant has expanded the country’s “special security situation” to the entirety of Israel’s territory.

This enables the IDF to provide security instructions to civilians and to close public sites as needed for security, the minister’s office said. A “special security situation” area, within an 80-kilometer (48-mile) radius of the Gaza Strip, had been established earlier on Saturday.

Hecht said the IDF plans to put several potential next steps before the Israeli cabinet, which is meeting Sunday. The government is likely to take a decision on Sunday or Monday, he said.

Senior Hamas member Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera Arabic Saturday that Hamas is ready “for all options, including a war and an escalation on all levels.”

“We are ready for the worst-case scenario, including a ground invasion, which will be the best for us to decide the ending of this battle,” al-Arouri said.

Israel has formally declared war on Hamas, setting the stage for a major military operation in Gaza as fighting continues to rage on Israeli soil.

Tanks and personnel carriers could be seen on the move near the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday, after Hamas – an Islamist militant group – launched an unprecedented and highly coordinated surprise assault this weekend that has so far killed over 700 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.

Hamas claims to be holding “over 100” Israeli hostages, including high-ranking officers, and continued to fire rockets into Israel throughout Sunday. Another Palestinian armed group, called Islamic Jihad, said on Sunday it is holding at least 30 hostages in Gaza.

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.”

Over 400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as Israel responds with airstrikes in the densely-inhabited enclave.

Throughout the bloody weekend, Hamas launched thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel – making direct hits on multiple locations inside the country including Tel Aviv – while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.

Photos released by the Israeli foreign ministry showed dozens of bodies in the aftermath of a Hamas attack on a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, which emergency responders said left at least 260 dead.

As Israeli forces clashed on the ground with Hamas fighters, Israeli airstrikes blasted what it said were Hamas-associated locations.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had struck over 400 targets in the small enclave, including 10 towers that it said were used by Hamas and “a number of terrorist squads in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip.”

Palestinian authorities say 78 children are among the dead, and 2,300 others wounded.

According to Netanyahu, Israel’s “first phase” of retaliation has ended with the “destruction of the majority of the enemy forces that penetrated our territory.” It will be followed by an “offensive formation,” he said.

His government has decided to stop the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.

Hamas has warned against measures in Gaza, alluding to hostages held in the area.

In a recorded audio message Saturday, Abu Obaida spokesman for the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said: “What happens to the people of the Gaza Strip will happen to them and beware of miscalculation.”

Civilians taken hostage include “not only soldiers but civilians, children, grandmothers,” Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told a briefing on Sunday. “We have lost soldiers, we have lost commanders, we have lost a lot of civilians.”

It has been more than 17 years since an Israeli soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in an assault on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, towns and kibbutzim since town-by-town fighting in the 1948 war of independence.

On Sunday, Hecht, the IDF spokesman, said Israeli forces had neutralized most of the significant battles that took place in the settlement of Otef, but there are still ongoing operations in numerous other parts of the country.

The IDF’s goal for the next 12 hours is to “end the Gaza enclave … and kill all the terrorists in our territory,” he said.

The IDF is evacuating more than 20 communities adjacent to the Gaza security fence, and searching the area for any Hamas militants left. It is also seeking to control breaches in the fence.

Asked by a journalist about the intelligence failure that had allowed such a large scale attack to occur, Hecht said: “This is not a question for now … I am sure that will be a big discussion down the road.”

‘No warning of any kind’

The highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

The number of rockets fired by Palestinian militants was at a scale “never seen before,” Halevy said, and this was “the first time” that Gaza has been able to “penetrate deep into Israel and to take control of villages.”

It is rare for Palestinian militants to be able to make it into Israel from Gaza which is sealed off and heavily watched by Israel’s military. Gaza is one of the most densely packed places in the world, an isolated coastal enclave of almost 2 million people crammed into 140 square miles.

Governed by Hamas, the territory is largely cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border crossing, Rafah. Israel has placed heavy restrictions on the freedom of civilian movement and controls the importation of basic goods into the narrow coastal strip.

Fighting between the two sides has surged in the last two years. The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.

They also come at a moment of deep division in Israel, months after the country’s right-wing government pushed through a contentious plan to reduce the power of the country’s courts, sparking a social, political and military crisis.

Western states condemned the Hamas attack on Saturday and pledged support for Israel while Arab states, including those that have recognized Israel, called for calm.

United States President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday and said that Washington “unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza.”

Saudi Arabia, which is holding talks with the US to potentially normalize relations with Israel, said it is following closely the “unprecedented” situation and called on “both sides to immediately stop the escalation,” according to a statement by the Saudi foreign ministry on X.

Pleas for release of hostages

Israelis are sharing photos of friends and family who they say have been kidnapped by Hamas militants, many of them women and children.

Then, over the phone, she heard the door break down.

“I heard terrorists speaking in Arabic to my teenagers. And the youngest saying to them ‘I’m too young to go,’” the mother said. “And the phone went off, the line went off. That was the last time I heard from them.”

Several people were taken hostage during an attack by Hamas militants on an Israeli music festival near the Israel-Gaza border. One video on social media showed an Israeli woman being kidnapped, hoisted onto the back of a motorcycle and driven away as her boyfriend was apprehended. Another clip pictured a German-Israeli woman who was taken from the festival being paraded around Gaza, unconscious and motionless.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct a reference to the Israeli political-security cabinet’s aim to degrade the capabilities of Hamas and other organizations in Gaza.

Fighting between Hamas and Israel raged into a third day Monday with militants launching a fresh barrage of rocket attacks and Israeli forces still battling to expel Hamas gunmen from its soil as jets continued to bombard the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

Israel on Sunday formally declared war on the Islamist militant group Hamas after its fighters launched an unprecedented surprise assault this weekend into Israeli territory that has so far killed over 700 people in Israel, escalating a long-running conflict and leaving a nation reeling in anguish.

Hamas militants claimed late Sunday to be holding more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli army officers, according to Mousa Abu Marzouk, chief deputy of Hamas’s Political Bureau.

Videos on social media showed militants capturing multiple civilians, including children, as Israeli families across the nation made anxious pleas for the safe return of their loved ones.

In addition to Israeli captives, there are also other nationalities believed to have been taken hostage, including American, Mexican, Brazilian and Thai nationals – further complicating Israel’s response to the Hamas attack.

And the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed early Monday local time that Israel is not in full control of its territory along the border with Gaza.

“Our troops are going door to door and house to house, looking for, and in many cases, engaging with last terrorists inside Israel.”

For now airstrikes have been the primary retaliation measure within Gaza itself with Israeli jets repeatedly pounding the heavily populated 140 square mile coastal strip, turning multiple buildings to rubble.

More than 430 Palestinians, including dozens of children, have been killed and nearly 2,300 wounded, according to authorities in Gaza.

The IDF says it has been hitting Hamas, destroying around 800 targets and killing “hundreds” of fighters, wounding thousands and capturing scores of others, spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Sunday.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in Gaza, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said, and access to medical care has been complicated by Israel cutting power to the territory, threatening “lives of hundreds” of those injured, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

While the full scale of what the Israeli response will be remains unclear, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday predicted a “long and difficult war” and vowed “mighty vengeance” on Hamas.

Sounds of battle

The IDF said the priority for the coming hours and days was to “control the entire enclave and kill all the terrorists in our territory,” Hecht said.

Israeli fighters continued to clash with Hamas militants on Israeli soil early Monday morning in up to eight locations. Hecht said it was possible that more Hamas gunmen were still crossing into Israel from Gaza, and that areas Israel is targeting with airstrikes are points where militants were gathering to cross the border.

Israel’s declaration of war set the stage for a major military operation in Gaza and tanks and personnel carriers could be seen on the move near the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday.

Thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up and the IDF announced that several communities close to the Gaza security fence are being evacuated.

An Israeli military official and a United States defense official said Israel is requesting precision guided bombs and additional Iron Dome interceptors from the US, including Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs – a kit that turns an unguided “dumb” bomb into a precision “smart” weapon.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US will provide security assistance to Israel imminently. The US said it was also sending a Navy carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including guided missile destroyers and guided missile cruisers.

Horror on the ground

Many Israelis have spent much of the past two days in bomb shelters and saferooms.

Throughout the bloody weekend, Hamas rockets made direct hits on multiple locations inside the country including Tel Aviv, while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.

Among those killed in Israel are 12 Thai citizens, 10 Nepalis, four US nationals, two Ukrainians, one French and one British citizen.

Images and videos show the horror unfolding on the ground.

Photos released by the Israeli foreign ministry showed dozens of bodies in the aftermath of a Hamas attack on a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, which emergency responders said left at least 260 dead.

“One couldn’t describe it with words. It’s impossible…It was a very difficult moment,” Yakov Argamani said, describing the moment he saw the video of his 25-year-old daughter Noa for the first time.

The IDF said Monday that Be’eri was “very badly hit,” and although most Hamas militants in the kibbutz have been killed, Israeli troops were still fighting there.

Attacks into southern Israel

Hamas claimed attacks in several parts of southern Israel on Sunday, including in Mavki’im, just north of Gaza, where it said its forces were still present and conducting operations.

Hamas militants also claimed to have launched “a major missile attack with 100 rockets” on the southern coastal city of Ashkelon, close to the Gaza border. Israeli police said a rocket attack made a “direct hit” on an apartment building there.

And in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Hamas said it fired dozens of rockets in retaliation to the targeting of “homes” in Gaza by Israeli forces.

Israeli warplanes continued striking Gaza overnight Sunday into Monday and “severely degraded the capabilities” of Hamas, the IDF said. Among the targets was a structure that housed Hamas operatives and several Hamas command centers, including one belonging to a senior operative of the Hamas naval forces.

The barrage of Israeli strikes in Gaza have also inflicted casualties on civilians in what is one of the world’s most densely populated places.

At least 13 family members, including four toddlers, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza Sunday, according to journalist Hassan Eslayeh and a family relative.

Regional concerns of escalation

The attacks come 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.

Hamas’ highly coordinated assault, which began Saturday morning, was unprecedented in its scale and scope and came on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Fighting between the two sides has surged in the past two years. The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.

Concerns the conflict could spill out into the region were raised Sunday when Lebanese group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in an area known as Shebaa Farms, using missiles and artillery. The area is considered by Lebanon as Israeli-occupied.

The IDF said its artillery struck the area in Lebanon where the firing originated and said it “will continue to operate in all regions and at any time necessary to ensure the safety of the Israeli civilians.”

On Sunday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting but no action was taken afterward. The Deputy US Ambassador to the UN said “not all” the member nations had condemned Hamas’ attacks, but did not specify which. All 15 members need to vote unanimously for the UNSC to release a statement.