THIS IS WAR!

Bombs, bodies, hostages, carnage - Israel and Gaza are now battlegrounds following the recent shock attacks by Hamas

- NICOLA WHITFIELD

THE violence began as it often does in this conflict-ravaged region: with rockets being launched shortly before dawn – but this time, rockets were just the start of it.

Israeli towns, farmland and stretches of desert on the border with Gaza were being invaded by hundreds of Palestinian militants coming by air, sea and land to launch one of the most complex attacks in the area in half a century.

The violence started on a Saturday morning and by the end of the weekend more than 1000 people would be dead, thousands more injured and over 150 Israelis taken hostage.

Images and reports of the violence were horrifying: bombs exploding, buildings collapsing, bloodied bodies lying in the streets. An all-night rave in the desert to celebrate the end of the high Jewish holiday period became a scene of carnage as people were gunned down or taken hostage.

Israel had been caught napping – but it didn’t take them long to retaliate. “The country is at war,” Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu declared. “We will enact an immense price from the enemy.”

Airstrikes on Gaza followed and soon at least 400 Palestinians, including children, were dead. By the Monday, Israel had ordered a “complete siege” on the long-blockaded Gaza Strip as it strove to drive militants from towns near the Israeli border.

But what sparked the attack? And why did Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, do it when they would have known the military might of Israel would rain down on them?

SPARKS THAT LIT THE FIRE

Violence had been escalating in the region between Israeli soldiers and settlers and Palestinians in the notoriously volatile West Bank.