Vowing “mighty revenge,” Israel pounds Gaza with fierce air strikes

SRN NEWS

Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the fiercest air strikes in the 75-year history of its conflict with the Palestinians, razing whole districts to dust despite a Hamas threat to execute a captive for each home hit.

Israel has vowed “mighty revenge” since Islamist gunmen rampaged through its towns, leaving streets strewn with bodies in by far the deadliest attack in its history.

It has called up hundreds of thousands of reservists and placed Gaza, crowded home to 2.3 million people, under total siege.

Israeli media said deaths from Saturday’s Hamas attacks had reached 900, mostly civilians gunned down in homes, on streets or at a desert dance party, dwarfing past modern attacks by Islamists except 9/11.

Scores of Israelis and some foreigners were taken to Gaza as hostages. Some were paraded through the streets.

Gaza’s health ministry said Israel’s retaliatory strikes had killed at least 770 people and wounded more than 4,000. The air strikes, already the heaviest ever, intensified on Tuesday night, shaking the ground and pouring columns of smoke and flames into the morning sky.