Israel hit Gaza with the deadliest airstrikes in its 75-year conflict with the Palestinians, razing entire neighbourhoods to dust despite threats from Hamas militants that a prisoner would be shot for every house hit, reports RTE.
On the other side of the wall surrounding the Strip, Israeli soldiers were collecting the last of the dead, four days after Hamas gunmen swept through the towns in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
The Israeli embassy in Washington said the death toll from the weekend Hamas attack exceeded 1,000, dwarfing all modern Islamist attacks except 9/11.
Israel has vowed to exact “mighty revenge” by calling in hundreds of thousands of reserves and placing Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, under a total siege.
The victims were mostly civilians, shot in their homes, on the streets or at dance parties.
Dozens of Israelis and several foreigners were captured and taken hostage in Gaza, some paraded through the streets.
“There are moments in this life, and I mean this literally, when the pure unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend,” Mr Biden told reporters at the White House, reports RTE.
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 850 people were killed and more than 4,250 wounded in Israeli retaliatory strikes.
The air strikes, already the heaviest in history, intensified that evening, shaking the ground and sending columns of smoke and flame into the morning sky.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the outbreak of violence showed the failure of US policy in the Middle East.
“I think that many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East,” Mr Putin told visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, reports RTE.
Yesterday’s deadly clashes along Israel’s northern border raised fears of a second war front in which Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, Iran’s other main ally, would be drawn into the fight. He declared that he was not behind any attack on Israel.
Elsewhere, Tánaiste and Foreign Secretary Michael Martin said Ireland would make its view “very clear” at today’s meeting that EU humanitarian aid should reach Palestine.
Mr Martin said: “The move by Israel to engage with Hamas and to deal with Hamas, that obviously will have consequences on the humanitarian side, and our contribution later will be very clear that humanitarian aid from the European Union has to continue to reach Palestinians in the area if education, in the area of health, and in the area of food provision,” reports RTE.
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