While preparing to head out to synagogue to join the dancing and celebration for the Simchat Torah festival, the rocket sirens started sounding. As we grabbed the kids and ran to our safe room (all new Israeli houses are built with one), I assumed there must have been some incident overnight, some Israeli escalation to trigger this rare but not unprecedented rocket fire on Jerusalem.
I was wrong. In a mass surprise attack, Hamas launched a huge barrage of rockets from Gaza at southern and central Israel. But this bombardment was only cover for the real attack: hundreds of armed Hamas terrorists, organised in military fashion, on technical vehicles, poured out of the Gaza strip and headed towards defenceless Israeli towns and villages nearby.
They came to kill and to kidnap, and they succeeded. Some 300 Israelis have reportedly been killed over the course of the day, and that number may rise further. Families were massacred in their homes, and terrorists seized control of several Israeli villages.
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