The sounds of what was unfolding in Gaza last night boomed across Israel, reports of hearing the bombardment spread across these lands.
From a distance news cameras captured the dramatic images of black plumes of smoke pouring into the sky from Gaza. When night eventually fell, the darkened strip was lit up with huge orange balls of light. It's skyline illuminated, revealing for flash seconds the horror of what was unfolding.
The Israeli Defence Forces say 150 underground targets were hit. They describe the targets as underground combat spaces, terror tunnels and "additional underground infrastructure". This is the war on Hamas that Israel promised its people following the 7 October Hamas massacre of 1,400 of it’s people.
Israel has committed to wiping out Hamas. Last night an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was "starting the payback" to Hamas, and he said it would feel Israel’s "wrath". Evidence of that wrath was clear to be seen as Gaza was pummelled from air, sea and land.
On the ground, Hamas confirmed it engaged with Israeli ground force incursions in Beit Hanoun and Bureij in Gaza. There are reports that Israeli tanks have crossed into parts of northern Gaza.
Israel says it has killed the Hamas leader who oversaw the air operations on 7 October. It says that Abu Rakaba was responsible for the Hamas drone, paraglider and aerial detection operations.
Yet, strangely this is just an expansion of the operation in Gaza, not likely the full-scale ground invasion threatened.
At this point, following an overnight bombardment, we would normally be pouring over pictures and video footage of what had unfolded. We could have spoken to people inside Gaza and started building an account of what happened.
However the decision to take out the communications network in Gaza has hampered efforts to fully account for what has happened inside Gaza. Last night aid agencies and other working in Gaza said they were very concerned for their people, whom they could not contact. Some international SIM cards are operating out of the strip, but the main Palestinian phone network is down.
Israel didn’t just focus on Gaza last night, it has also said that Hezbollah targets in Lebanon were struck by one of it’s fighter jets too. It said the target was the location of rockets launched towards Israel, which actually landed in Syria.
Last night, in several parts of the West Bank, Palestinians took to the streets to block roads, a direct response to what was happened in Gaza.
This latest ramping up of Israel’s response came as a chorus of international figures, and even the United Nations, appealed for calm and ceasefire.
Since the start of this war, 21 days ago, there have been ongoing fears about it spreading. Nothing that has happened in the past 24 hours has done anything to ease those fears.
