Israel launched its counteroffensive against Hamas terrorists, in Operation Swords of Iron, after the Islamic group killed more than 200 Israeli residents and kidnapped many into the Gaza Strip, with Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing "we will take mighty vengeance for this dark day."
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He added, "Hamas launched a cruel and wicked war. We will win this war but the price is too heavy to bear...Hamas wants to murder us all. This is an enemy that murders mothers and children in their homes, in their beds. An enemy that abducts elderly, children, teenage girls."
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault that had begun in Gaza would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem.
"This was the morning of defeat and humiliation upon our enemy, its soldiers and its settlers," he said in a speech. "What happened reveals the greatness of our preparation. What happened today reveals the weakness of the enemy."
Video: PM says Israel is at war / Credit:Twitter/@Israelipm
Bodies of Israeli civilians were strewn across the streets of Sderot in southern Israel, near Gaza, surrounded by broken glass. The bodies of a woman and a man were sprawled across the front seats of a car.
"I went out, I saw loads of bodies of terrorists, civilians, cars shot up. A sea of bodies, inside Sderot along the road, other places, loads of bodies," said Shlomi from Sderot.
Terrified Israelis, barricaded into safe rooms, recounted their plight by phone on live TV.
"They just came in again, please send help," a woman identified as Dorin told Israel's N12 News from Nir Oz, a kibbutz near Gaza. "My husband is holding the door closed ... They are firing rounds of bullets."
Esther Borochov, who fled a dance rave party attacked by the gunmen, told Reuters she survived by playing dead in a car after the driver trying to help her escape was shot point blank.
"I couldn't move my legs," she told Reuters at the hospital. "Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes."
In Gaza, black smoke and orange flames billowed into the evening sky from a high rise tower hit by an Israeli retaliatory strike. Crowds of mourners carried the bodies of freshly killed terrorist through the streets, wrapped in green Hamas flags.
Gaza's dead and wounded were carried into crumbling and overcrowded hospitals with severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment. The health ministry said 232 people had been killed and at least 1,700 wounded.
Streets were deserted apart from ambulances racing to the scenes of air strikes. Israel cut the power, plunging the city into darkness.
Western countries, led by the United States, denounced the Palestinian attack and pledged support for Israel.
At the White House, President Joe Biden said Israel had the right to defend itself "full stop".
"We will never not have her back."
Across the Middle East, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas, with Israeli and US flags set on fire and marchers waving Palestinian flags in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
The Hamas attack was openly praised by Iran and by Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese allies.
By nightfall on Saturday in southern Israel, residents had yet to be given the all-clear to leave the shelters where they had hidden from the gunmen since the early hours.
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