Israeli military forces began evacuating residents to safety Saturday night from their homes in Jewish communities along the Gaza border in accordance with an official order from IDF Home Front Command in preparation for the offensive phase of Operation Iron Swords, Israel’s war on Hamas.
Early Saturday morning hundreds of Hamas terrorists flooded across the security fence and invaded nearly two dozen Jewish communities along the border.
The terrorists went from house to house, hunting down Jewish men, women and children wherever they could find them. Those they did not shoot, they slaughtered in the traditional jihadist manner, using knives to slash their throats and in some cases, beheaded them.
It took at least four hours for the Israel Defense Forces to arrive in some communities and engage the terrorists in hours-long battles, despite desperate pleas by residents on social media and news channels.
In some cases, terrorists remained in border communities into Sunday, forcing the IDF to search for them in every single home and building before engaging them in battle.
Residents were asked by the IDF to evacuate in order to allow the forces to search extensively in the communities and locate any terrorists who might still be in Israeli territory and able to carry out additional attacks.
“Our mission for the upcoming 24 hours is to evacuate all residents living around Gaza,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters Saturday night.
“There are tens of thousands of combat soldiers in the area. We’ll reach each and every community till we kill every terrorist in Israel.”
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant likewise instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to begin preparations for evacuating the north as well, as the IDF began preparations to engage, if necessary, forces from Lebanon’s Iranian proxy Hezbollah in a possible multifront war.
In June 2006, Hamas terrorists abducted and murdered three young yeshiva students in Gush Etzion, igniting a conflict with the terrorist organization’s forces in Gaza. Less than a month later, Hezbollah forces kidnapped and murdered two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack while creating a diversion with rocket fire aimed at Israeli towns on the northern border – thus igniting the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
In anticipation of a possible repetition of those events, Israeli forces began preparations to evacuate residents of communities along Israel’s northern border, and massive forces began to gather in the Galilee on Sunday afternoon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged in an address to the nation Saturday night to destroy Hamas and “forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens.”
The prime minister vowed to turn “all of the places in which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating, that wicked city,” into “rubble.” He warned Gaza’s civilian residents to “leave now, because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”
