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.”

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.