UNS/ AFP / Reuters: Israel on Monday ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of food and fuel into the enclave and cutting the electricity and water supply, as the death toll from the conflict rose to more than 1,300, including roughly 800 people killed in Israel and at least 560 in Gaza.
The Israeli military said it had called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists and was imposing a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, signs it could be planning a ground assault there to defeat Hamas.
Israeli troops backed by helicopters had killed armed infiltrators entering the country from Lebanon, raising fears war could spread to a second front two days after Hamas gunmen burst in from Gaza on a deadly rampage.
In a further sign of Israel’s rapid shift onto a war footing, a cabinet member from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party said it could set up a national unity government joined by opposition leaders within hours.
Hamas fighters were still holed up in several locations inside Israel two days after they killed hundreds of Israelis and seized dozens of hostages in a raid that shattered Israel’s reputation of invincibility.
Israel’s Kan TV said the death toll from the Hamas attack had climbed to 800.
Netanyahu told mayors of southern towns hit by the surprise assault that Israel’s response would “change the Middle East”.
In Hamas-controlled Gaza, Israel pressed on with its most intensive retaliatory strikes ever, which have killed more than 500 people since Saturday. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced Israel’s tightened blockade which would keep even food and fuel from reaching the strip, home to 2.3 million people.
The prospect that fighting could spread to other areas has alarmed the region. Israeli troops “killed a number of armed suspects that infiltrated into Israeli territory from Lebanese territory,” the military said, adding helicopters “are currently striking in the area”.
An official with Hezbollah denied that the group had mounted any operation into Israel. Hezbollah, a Shi’ite militant group powerful in southern Lebanon, is backed by Iran like Hamas.
Artillery shelling and gunfire were heard at Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, a correspondent for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said in a post on social media. Israel’s Army Radio gave the location as being near Adamit, across from the Lebanese border towns of Aalma El Chaeb and Zahajra.
In Israel’s south, scene of the deadly Hamas attack, Israel’s chief military spokesman said troops had re-established control of communities inside Israel that had been overrun, but that isolated clashes continued as some gunmen remained active.
“We are now carrying out searches in all of the communities and clearing the area,” chief military spokesperson Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari said. Earlier, another spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, acknowledged that it was “taking more time than we expected to get things back into a defensive, security posture”.
