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There is extensive UK media coverage of the Hamas attacks. The Guardian, the BBC, the Independent, the Times, the Daily Mail, and Sky News all continue to run live news update feeds of events.
The Times’ lead editorial writes:
“The world must be clear: this is not a ‘liberation’ movement by Palestinians suffering from long occupation and squalid living conditions. It is a despicable terrorist act, a suicide mission that cannot succeed and whose only outcome will be greater suffering for Palestinians, an end for now to any attempts at a peace settlement or further reconciliation between Israel and its Arab neighbours. That, clearly, is the only aim of those dragging terrified hostages from their homes and randomly shooting Israeli civilians.
Hamas itself even filmed the atrocities and posted them around the world, not only making this latest episode of mass terrorism vividly real to faraway audiences, but apparently rejoicing in its own bloodthirsty audacity. No Palestinian or Arab government should applaud that. Far less is it a reason for those supporting the Palestinian cause to wave flags and rejoice. Those who came out yesterday on the streets in Britain, waving Palestinian flags and denouncing Israel, are not only useful idiots; they are deluded and malign. Their antics will neither help the Palestinian cause nor restrain Israel from retaliation.”
The Guardian features commentary and analysis from Yair Wallach, its Diplomatic Editor Patrick Wintour, and its own editorial. Wintour writes that “Iran’s goal is to denormalise the region, and make it near-impossible for Saudi Arabia to strike a deal. Israel, by contrast, wants to shrink the Palestinian conflict diplomatically so it gradually becomes an irrelevance, a historical curio such as the Yom Kippur war. The aid it drip-feeds to Gaza via Qatar is one leg of this strategy.” The editorial claims that “Hamas has not only destroyed the path towards the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. It has also demonstrated, at immense human cost, that deals with Gulf states which sideline Palestinians and their needs are not a solution, and that the status quo before Saturday was neither sustainable nor containable.”
The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman looks ahead to the national Israeli recriminations he sees as inevitably following in the months ahead. “Israeli unity will last a while,” he writes, “because this crisis is very far from over. The fate of the hostages inside Gaza, including children and old people, will continue to torment Israel. The government also faces the risk of new fronts opening in the occupied West Bank or on the border with Lebanon. But, fairly soon, Israel will be plunged into a divisive political argument about what went wrong. Two failures will have to be addressed. The first is an intelligence and security failure. The second is strategic.”
The Times’ Anshel Pfeffer considers the impact of the attacks on the future of Prime Minister Netanyahu. The paper also runs an explainer on Hamas and its connections with Iran and fellows Iranian proxy Hezbollah.
The Times also features the impact of the attacks felt in Britain, as “hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters marched through Manchester on Sunday saying they were ‘full of joy’ at the attacks on Israel, while British Jewish groups braced themselves for an increase in antisemitic hate crimes.”
The Financial Times also profiles Hamas leader Mohammed Deif:
“Even before this, Deif was like a sacred personality and very much respected both within Hamas and by the Palestinians,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of politics at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. His biggest operation against Israel will have now turned him into a figure ‘like a god to the young’, he added.”
The paper also considers the impact of events on the US-brokered normalisation process between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The Telegraph’s Nick Timothy writes on how the attacks have illustrated the necessity of a Jewish state, and its leader editorial criticises the BBC for its coverage of the attacks.
The Israeli media features horrifying personal accounts from both victims and family members of those killed or kidnapped. Walla News reports about an entire family—a father, mother, six-year-old twin daughters and a four-year-old son—who were murdered. “Tamar Kedem Siman Tov, her husband Yonatan, their six-year-old twin daughters Shahar and Arbel, and their four-year-old son Omer, were all slaughtered on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Tamar, the 35-year-old mother of the family, had recently been in the race for chairperson of the Eshkol Regional Council. Her friend, Tzofia Cohen, eulogised her on Facebook: ‘Tamar Kedem Siman Tov, may she rest in peace, a trailblazing activist, excelled at everything she touched.’”
Yediot Ahronot talks to Galit Dan, whose 13-year-old daughter and 80-year-old mother, along with her nephew and niece and their father have been taken hostage by Hamas. “Noya is my eldest. She’s only mine. I’m a single mother and she’s a very special girl,” said Dan. “In the morning my mother sent me a text that the terrorists had broken in, were tearing her house apart and were looting everything they could get their hands on. After a few minutes Noya left me a voice message. She said there was a mess and that she was scared. I haven’t heard anything from either of them since.” The paper also tells the story of Adi Kaploun, kidnapped along with her 4-year-old son and 6-month-old baby. “Adi was at home alone with her children since her husband, my son, went with his brother to a small party in Nirim,” said her father-in-law, the poet Yonadav Kaploun. My two sons were besieged after the party. One of them had his spouse murdered, and Adi was kidnapped by Hamas, along with my two grandchildren, from their home. At the border they separated the mother from her children and Adi was taken into the Gaza Strip, while they abandoned the children on the border in the dead of night for reasons that we don’t know.”
Yedioth Ahronot’s chief columnist, Nahum Barnea, reports from Kibbutz Beeri where he speaks with survivors: “Danny Fuchs told Barnea: ‘They went from house to house. They went into the bomb shelters and either kidnapped people or killed them. Sometimes they killed everyone. Sometimes they took the children and killed the parents, or the other way around. We realised that they were breaking into the bomb shelters. We have an attic in our home. We went into it and shut ourselves inside.’” Fuchs continued: “In the morning we peeked outside,” said Danny. “We saw that when the terrorists weren’t able to open a bomb shelter they would set the house on fire. The smoke went in. People opened the window and jumped out, sometimes from the second story. Kids too.” “The soldiers acted bravely,” said Fuchs. “They entered some of the houses under fire. There were soldiers there who deserve a medal.” Barnea also quotes the 70-year-old Fuchs, who first arrived at the Kibbutz as a teenager 50 years ago, as fearing that “There isn’t going to be a Kibbutz Beeri anymore.”
Kan Radio reports on the anguish of families seeking information on their missing loved ones. Merav Leshem Gonen, the families’ representative and the mother of missing Romi, said: “We need answers. Not a single [government] representative has talked to us. There is nobody we can talk to. There are so many lists, so many places, and none of them are helpful. Every time we consult these lists, and discover that our children aren’t on them.” Channel 13 features other relatives of the missing: “Uri, whose two daughters are missing and may have been kidnapped to Gaza, said, ‘I’m at wit’s end. Are they raping them in Gaza? Are they lying in a ditch?’ Merav, whose daughter is missing and may have been kidnapped to Gaza, said, ‘She spoke with me on the phone and said to me, ‘Ima, they’re shooting at us.’”
Haaretz’s Amir Tibon, a resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, writes of his own family’s ordeal: “our worst nightmare playing out. Armed Hamas militants had infiltrated our kibbutz and were literally on our doorstep, while we were locked inside with our two little girls.” Tibon also tells of his own father, General (Ret) Noam Tibon’s extraordinary heroism in helping save his family and many others. “My dad joined a group that were going door to door and ended up killing six terrorists and freeing dozens of kibbutzniks who had been locked up in their safe rooms for 10 hours. Some of our neighbours were shocked to see ‘Amir’s dad’ among the soldiers who had come to rescue them.”
Tibon’s Haaretz colleague Amos Harel shares the story of Yuval Bazak, a brigadier general in the reserves, who “was called up on Saturday afternoon to the Galilee Division, where he serves as the head of staff. As the hours ticked by, his concern for his son’s fate in Gaza grew. A few months ago, Bazak senior had met with the soldiers of the company. ‘You will still have to fight,’ he told them. He just didn’t imagine that this would happen under such conditions. Late Sunday evening, the commander of the Galilee Division got the call from Brig. Gen. Shai Klapper, his former commander. There was another lieutenant colonel in the room, an old comrade in arms from Golani. Bazak went to his eldest daughter, who had been called up as a reservist for the Hermon Brigade. He informed her of her brother’s death and from there he took her the long way home to inform his wife and younger daughter. It was already close to 1 in the morning when he arrived and woke the family up from their sleep.” Harel continues: “we have been friends for more than 30 years, since he was a company commander with the legendary Maj. Gen. Erez Gerstein in the second intifada. [My] meeting with Bazak, in the yard of his house, was heartbreaking. The same drama has repeated itself, each with its own special features, in hundreds of homes across Israel over the last two days.”
Prominent Israeli media commentators analyse the events and their significance and context. Yediot Ahronot’s Nadav Eyal notes that “more than 700 Israelis were murdered in the incomprehensible events in the Gaza periphery communities. That is more than all the losses in the First Lebanon War, Operation Peace of Galilee, over the course of seven months. It is many more than the number of IDF soldiers who were killed in the Second Lebanon War… Israel’s 700 dead are comparable to 25,000 Americans, adjusting for size of the population.” Eyal also alleges the “IDF and GSS’s intelligence failure. The failed execution by the IDF and the entire defence establishment. The only question that Israelis are asking, or at least asking me, is how this could have happened. And since it did happen, since all the warning signs failed and all the preparations collapsed in the face of Hamas’s operation—why is the recovery process taking so long and dragging on and on. How is it conceivable that in the State of Israel, after six hours, then 12 hours, 24 hours, 30 hours, families were still begging for help while terrorists were setting their home on fire? How is it conceivable that huge numbers of troops were not sent to put a rapid end to the unending acts of slaughter in Kibbutz Beeri, Kibbutz Nahal Oz and many other places? The beautiful heroic stories about civilians who showed up, who fought and who rescued—major generals in reserves Yisrael Ziv, Noam Tibon, Yair Golan—raise very chilling questions. If we listen to the stories, if we really listen, we learn the degree to which our [the state’s] response was failed and slow.”
Israel Hayom’s Meir Ben Shabbat recommends a departure from traditional tactics in responding to Hamas. “The current circumstances,” he writes, “not only justify but necessitate a departure from the policy of surgical strikes. While they provide precision and show Israel’s special capabilities, they require long protracted, and complex preparations and in any event cannot constitute a sufficient price tag for the severe attack carried out by Hamas. In place of this policy, Israel should warn the civilian population in the Gaza Strip that Israel’s intentions are to launch a massive assault following the expiry of the ultimatum. Israel should destroy everything connected to Hamas: the homes of Hamas operatives, government offices, and offices belonging to the organisation, institutions, banks, vehicles, generators, boats, warehouses, and workshops.”
Recommended Reading
It’s time to put ego aside and prevail, Nir Cohen, Ynet
“Israel should not fear Hamas, but it must respect it. Statements of intent like “wiping off Gaza” or “sending Lebanon back to the Middle Ages” can be dispensed with. The IDF has an ethical, qualitative, technological and professional advantage, and despite the blow we’ve absorbed, we have demonstrated remarkable recovery capabilities in the past.” Read more
The Times view on the terrorist attack launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip: Unending War, Editorial, The Times
“The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel is the most bloody, horrific and shocking challenge to the Jewish state for half a century, coming almost exactly 50 years since the surprise joint assault by Egypt and Syria on Israeli forces in Sinai and the Golan Heights that started the 1973 Yom Kippur war.” Read more
Iran Helped Plot Attack on Israel Over Several Weeks, Summer Said, Benoit Faucon, and Stephen Kalin, The Wall Street Journal
“Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.” Read more
