Quote from Alex bobby on October 10, 2023, 9:31 AM

More than 1,500 people have been killed since the Hamas militant group launched a surprise assault on Israel from Gaza early Saturday, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare "we are at war."

An Israeli embassy spokesperson said Monday the death toll has risen to at least 900 Israelis, most of them civilians. Another 2,500 were reported wounded, IDF international spokesperson Lt. Col. (Res.) Jonathan Conricus told CBS News on Monday. More than 250 of the dead were Israelis who came under attack at the supernova music festival near the border with Gaza when militants opened fire on the crowd.

Israeli officials also say Hamas fighters captured more than 100 hostages, including women, children and elderly people, who were apparently taken into Gaza as captives. At least 11 U.S. citizens are among the dead, the White House confirmed Monday, while an unknown number of Americans remain missing.

Meanwhile, at least 704 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israel's retaliatory airstrikes, including 140 children, and more than 3,720 others wounded, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

The coordinated, multi-front the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, came almost 50 years to the day since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and marked a dramatic escalation in the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli army says "approximately 1,500" dead Hamas fighters found in Israel

Around 1,500 bodies of Hamas militants have been found in Israel and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said Tuesday, as it pummelled the Palestinian enclave with airstrikes.

"Approximately 1,500 bodies of Hamas militants were found in Israel and around the Gaza Strip," military spokesman Richard Hecht told reporters, adding that 

security forces had "more or less restored control over the border" with Gaza. 

 Israel says 200 more targets hit by overnight airstrikes on Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said early Tuesday that it carried out dozens more airstrikes on overnight, with fighter jets hitting "200 targets" in the Gaza neighbourhoods of Rimal and Khan Yunis, which the military said were being "used as terror hubs for the Hamas terrorist organisation, and a large number of terror attacks against Israel are directed there.

The strikes also targeted the "Islamic Jihad terror infrastructure in Khan Yunis, a Hamas weapons storage site located inside a mosque, and operational terror infrastructure used by Hamas terror operatives. Israel said its forces had also re-established control over the border fence separating Gaza from Israel, and the IDF's Army Radio quoted a chief spokesperson as saying the gaps in the border created during Hamas' initial assault on Saturday were being mined to prevent any further incursions.

U.S., France, Germany, Italy and U.K. vow to support Israel

The leaders of the U.S., France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. vowed Monday to support Israel and condemned the attack by Hamas militants.

"We make clear that the terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned," President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a joint statement. "There is never any justification for terrorism. In recent days, the world has watched in horror as Hamas terrorists massacred families in their homes, slaughtered over 200 young people enjoying a music festival, and kidnapped elderly women, children, and entire families, who are now being held as hostages."

The leaders said they recognize the "legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, and support equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike."

"But make no mistake: Hamas does not represent those aspirations, and it offers nothing for the Palestinian people other than more terror and bloodshed," they added.

"Dozens" of Israelis being held captive, IDF says

Israeli officials have not given an official accounting of how many of the country's citizens have been taken captive by Hamas militants, but an IDF spokesperson told CBS News on Monday that it was in the "dozens."

"The list is comprised of Israeli nationals, women, children, men, elderly, disabled, toddlers and infants, as young as baby age and as old as 80, including Holocaust survivors," IDF international spokesperson Lt. Col. (Res.) Jonathan Conricus said on "Prime Time." "I don't have a final number that is cleared for publication yet, but we are talking about dozens of Israelis that are held captive in Gaza at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad."

Conricus said Hamas would "bear the consequences" of taking Israeli citizens into Gaza.

Earlier Monday, the IDF said it had "details of most of the kidnapped Israelis." As of around 1:30 pm ET the IDF said it had notified 30 families and would continue notifying more.