Hamas

“I want you to know they’re just normal teenagers. They just love what normal teenagers love. They fight constantly between them. They can drive me mad. And I love them to bits. And I miss them. And I want them home. Where they should be. In their beds. This is where children should be. In their home. In their beds. Living their lives. And I’m asking every mother in the world to think of her children and help me make the effort to release those people and my children.”

These are the words of a mother whose two sons, ages 12 and 16, were taken from their home by Hamas terrorists and are now being held hostage in Gaza after Saturday’s attack on Israel.

It is just one heartbreaking story among thousands from the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

Israel has declared a “complete siege” on Gaza and launched hundreds of strikes on the Palestinian enclave as Hamas claimed Israeli bombings had killed Israeli hostages being held there.

Palestinian militants are believed to have abducted more than 100 people during a surprise multi-front attack in which they killed more than 700 – making Saturday the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

In response, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes from the air and sea, killing more than 500 Palestinians in Gaza, an area home to 2.3 million people with nowhere to flee.

Arutz Sheva – Live updates – Israel at war: At least 800 killed, Hamas claims over 100 in captivity

Partygoers at a rave in the desert near the border with Gaza have told how the first hint of the horror raging towards them in the early hours of Saturday was a barrage of rockets roaring through the morning sky, as it emerged more than 260 people had died in the attack.

It was 6am. Most of the attendees, including a British and a German citizen, had not been to bed and were dancing to trance music under multicoloured tents set up for the Nova festival.

The music stopped briefly and they dropped to the floor – a well-rehearsed drill for Israelis in the south of the country used to frequent cross-border exchange of fire with the Hamas militant group.

A group of party goers from the rave that was initially attacked by Hamas in Isreal found hiding and unharmed in a water drainage structure…

First good news I’ve heard out of this debacle..#WeWantAnswers #Israel #hamasattack #IsraelUnderAttack #IsraelPalestineWar #Palestine pic.twitter.com/hJKuHEMjs2

— Isaac’s Army (@ReturnOfKappy) October 8, 2023

In the last few hours the government authorities have begun contacting the families those whom have been abducted to Gaza.

According to the information provided by Kan News, the government is concerned that the number of hostages is above 130, the number provided yesterday by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Sasha Aryev, whose sister is missing, said that during the night, she received official notification that her sister has been kidnapped.

Iran’s regime may find that it only strengthens the coalition against them

Some Israelis are calling it their 9/11, but the images this weekend were more redolent of the 1968 Tet Offensive, when Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops took over towns and military bases across the South, including laying siege to the US Embassy in Saigon.

Of course, in that case it was aimed against foreign military forces propping up what was essentially a puppet dictatorship, whereas this time it featured external aggression aimed at killing and capturing as many civilians in as sensationalist a manner as possible.

It's worth noting that Hamas has significant support in many of Europe's larger cities.

Here is an example of a previous demonstration in London during Israeli-Gaza fighting.

The coming days could see some unrest in cities such as London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin & Stockholm pic.twitter.com/hcDmqKvlE9

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 7, 2023

Steve Markachenko, a 25-year-old from Carmel, in northern Israel, had been looking forward to attending the Nova music festival on a desert kibbutz this weekend. He and his girlfriend, Elisa Levin, 34, drove four hours south on Friday night for the event celebrating the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

But at 6.30am on Saturday, they were among thousands of young partygoers enjoying the sunrise but unaware that their lives were about to change for ever. At first, the air raid sirens seemed as if they were part of the trance music, survivors said. Then rocket vapour trails began appearing in the sky above: people began panicking about being caught in the open and rushed to their cars. And then the gunfire began.

This is Erez Calderon, a 12 year-old Israeli boy, kidnapped by Hamas and held hostage in Gaza.

They are terrorizing this child. Hamas are savages with no red lines.

Share this video❗️Show the world the evil of Hamas ‼️pic.twitter.com/NjS1EsnZIi

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) October 8, 2023

From the moment the first group of black-clad fighters crossed the border fence from Gaza into southern Israel, it was clear that this was an extraordinary moment of success, however bloody and fleeting, for Hamas.

It was also clear that they could not have done it alone.

How could this have happened? How could a terrorist group operating in a 140-square-mile patch of land, hemmed in by Israeli and Egyptian blockades and the Mediterranean, break through and launch a brazen and effective attack on one of the best-funded and most developed militaries in the Middle East?

Just a day after Iran-backed Hamas terrorists slaughtered and kidnapped Israeli civilians, leaving a trail of bodies across Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, Iranian Islamists in the United Kingdom are organizing an event, at a venue in London controlled by a British Hamas network, featuring pro-Hamas voices, including a prominent American Islamist leader.

On October 8, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is hosting a talk on “Justice, Peace and Reconciliation in Palestine.”

Counter-extremist analysts, such as noted counter-Islamist activist Habibi, have reported that speakers include Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid, a Malaysian cleric who has apparently praised “jihad” against the “Zionist regime to the last breath and blood.”