On 7 October 2023, Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The attack coincided with the Jewish religious holiday Simchat Torah. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups named the attacks Operation Al-Aqsa Flood (or Deluge; Arabic: عملية طوفان الأقصى, romanized: ʿamaliyyat ṭūfān al-ʾAqṣā, usually romanized as "Tufan Al-Aqsa" or "Toofan Al-Aqsa"),[1] while in Israel they are referred to as Black Saturday (Hebrew: השבת השחורה)[25] or the Simchat Torah Massacre (הטבח בשמחת תורה),[26] and internationally as the 7 October attacks.[27][28][29] The attacks initiated the ongoing Israel–Hamas war.
^"Biden Energy Adviser to Discuss Lebanon Border Issues on Israel Trip". Asharq Al-Awsat. 20 November 2023. Archived from the original on 28 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023. In the months before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants who run the Gaza Strip, Hochstein said the United States was exploring the possibility of resolving the longstanding border dispute between Lebanon and Israel.
^Jason Burke (9 November 2023). "A deadly cascade: how secret Hamas attack orders were passed down at last minute". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 December 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023. Analysts said other objectives of the 7 October attacks probably included halting efforts to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, further undermining the Palestinian Authority, distracting from Hamas's failure to deliver services or break the blockade of Gaza, and provoking a violent reaction from Israel that would mobilise its own supporters in Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere.
^"Evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian". amp.theguardian.com. Archived from the original on 4 February 2024. Retrieved 4 February 2024. By cross-referencing testimonies given to police, published interviews with witnesses, and photo and video footage taken by survivors and first responders, the Guardian is aware of at least six sexual assaults for which multiple corroborating pieces of evidence exist. Two of those victims, who were murdered, were aged under 18. At least seven women who were killed were also raped in the attack, according to Prof Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a legal scholar and international women's rights advocate, from her examination of evidence so far. The New York Times and NBC have both identified more than 30 killed women and girls whose bodies bear signs of abuse, such as bloodied genitals and missing clothes, and according to the Israeli welfare ministry, five women and one man have come forward seeking help for sexual abuse over the past few months.
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^"New signs emerge of 'widespread' sexual crimes by Hamas, as Netanyahu alleges global indifference". AP News. 5 December 2023. Archived from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 4 February 2024. Such accounts given to The Associated Press, along with first assessments by an Israeli rights group, show that sexual assault was part of an atrocities-filled rampage by Hamas and other Gaza militants who killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages that day.
^Chotiner, Isaac (10 December 2023). "How Hamas Used Sexual Violence on October 7th". The New Yorker. ISSN0028-792X. Archived from the original on 24 January 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2024. What I can say with a really high degree of certainty is that it wasn't a few cases. It wasn't here and there, or only on one occasion. There were many cases of different gender-based and sexual violence, and they were in the kibbutzim and in the Nova music festival: the most extreme gang rapes, mutilation of body parts, putting objects into women's bodies, and having women paraded like trophies when they were taken into Gaza.
^Michaelson, Ruth (7 October 2023). "Condemnation and calls for restraint after Hamas attack on Israel". The Guardian. ISSN0261-3077. Archived from the original on 7 October 2023. Retrieved 7 October 2023. International leaders condemned an unprecedented incursion by Palestinian militants into southern Israel, while governments across the Middle East called for restraint after an attack that shook the Israeli security establishment. [...] The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said his organisation would send support to Israel. 'Over the coming days the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism,' he said.
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^"Hamas's attack was the bloodiest in Israel's history". The Economist. 12 October 2023. ISSN0013-0613. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 15 October 2023. The most searing historical comparison predates Israel's founding. Not all of Hamas's victims were Israeli, and not all of the Israeli dead were Jewish. But under reasonable assumptions about the ethnic make-up of those killed in this and previous attacks, the last time before October 7th that this many Jews were murdered on a single day was during the Holocaust.
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