ASHKELON, Israel — Palestinian militants launched a deadly land, air and sea attack inside Israel on Saturday, with fighters infiltrating the country’s south and firing a massive barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the unprecedented incursion by declaring, “We are in a war, not an operation, in a war,” in a video posted to social media. Ordering strikes on Gaza, he also called for an “extensive reserve mobilization.”
At least 22 people have been killed, the Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. It added that their teams had also treated “hundreds of further victims.”
Graphic but unverified video and photos shared on social media suggested that toll could rise sharply.
Six Palestinians were killed in shelling and gunfire in Gaza, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
