Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against Hamas after the militant group fired over 5,000 rockets at Israel on Saturday.
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Additional footage being released from Gaza of rockets launched towards Tel Aviv from Gaza this evening. pic.twitter.com/jhcmkj8nbv
— Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) October 7, 2023
Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, catching the country off-guard during a major Jewish holiday. The attack involved thousands of rockets and dozens of fighters infiltrating Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip.
Horrifying footage has emerged showing women being marched into vehicles, bloodied and bruised. Earlier reports showed Israeli civilians including children, being captured and taken into the Gaza Strip, Daily Mail reported.
The Hamas attack comes just weeks after Biden released $6 billion in funding to Iran.
The Biden administration issued a waiver for banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil funds without fear of U.S. sanctions — a key step in securing the release of five American citizens detained in Iran, people familiar with the matter said. As a part of the arrangement, the administration will release five Iranian citizens detained in the United States.
Several Americans were reportedly killed in the ambush terror attack and many have been taken hostage.
This was an unprecedented sea, land and air raid on Israel. Israel’s former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy, told CNN: “We had no warning of any kind, and it was a total surprise that the war broke out this morning.”
He continued, “This is beyond imagination from our point of view, and we didn’t know they had this quantity of missiles, and we certainly didn’t expect that they would be as effective as they were today. We didn’t have an inkling of what was going on.”
Kristen Welker asked Blinken if the ambush Hamas attack was because US and Israeli intel officials were caught off guard.
“Do you acknowledge that both Israeli intel officials and U.S. intel officials were caught off guard?” NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Blinken.
“This is an attack that I don’t think anyone saw coming,” Blinken said.
“So was it an intelligence failure?” Welker asked.
“We will have plenty of time to look into that,” Blinken said.
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Blinken says there will be plenty of time to know if there was an intelligence failure that allowed the deadliest attack inside Israel. WATCH pic.twitter.com/JmgvJj99vv
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) October 8, 2023