Israel-Hamas war: Gaza faces total blockade as over 1,600 people killed

ISRAEL/HAMAS WAR – The death toll has surpassed 1600 as fierce battles intensified between Hamas gunmen and Israeli troops in Gaza on Tuesday, reports News18 channel.

It is reported that after Hamas fighters fired more than 5,000 rockets toward Israel killing thousands and wounding many others, Jerusalem had declared a complete seizure of Gaza, imposing a complete blockade on the strip.

The four-day-old war has already claimed 1,600 lives, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades and neighbourhoods in Gaza were reduced to rubble.

Hamas has also escalated the conflict, pledging to kill captured Israelis if strikes targeted civilians without warning.

Israel said that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza were holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians snatched from inside Israel after the attack caught its vaunted military and intelligence apparatus completely off guard.

Meanwhile, Qassam Brigades of Hamas have threatened to execute one Israeli captive for every further unannounced Israeli attack on civilians in Gaza.

The surprise attack on Saturday caught Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence services completely off guard, as hundreds of Hamas gunmen poured through holes blown in the border fence.

Israeli warplanes pounded downtown Gaza City, home to Hamas’ centers of government, with relentless bombardments into early Tuesday, after Israel’s prime minister vowed retaliation against the Islamic militant group that would “reverberate for generations.”

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