Israel defense minister orders 'complete siege' on Gaza Strip

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday, October 9, ordered a "complete siege" on the Gaza Strip as the military pounded the Palestinian territory with air strikes. "We are putting a complete siege on Gaza... No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it's all closed," Gallant said in a video message, referring to the enclave that is overcrowded with 2.3 million people. As a result, Energy Minister Israel Katz has ordered "to immediately cut the water supply to Gaza", his spokesman said in a statement.

At least 700 people were killed in southern Israel when Hamas militants stormed across the border on Saturday, shooting people in the communities and towns near Gaza before Israeli security forces began fighting back.

An estimated 250 people were killed by Hamas gunmen at a music festival attended by young Israelis and foreigners near Kibbutz Reim, close to Gaza, according to an organization that helped to recover the bodies. "We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly," Gallant said in Hebrew.

At least 493 people have also been killed in the Gaza Strip after Israeli military launched air strikes on the Palestinian enclave in response to Hamas's surprise attack which Israel has likened to 9/11.

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Israel's army declared Monday it had regained control of southern areas near the Gaza Strip. "We are in control of the communities," said military spokesman Daniel Hagari, cautioning that individual Palestinian "terrorists" may remain in the region where Israel was massing tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour.

The skies over Gaza were blackened by plumes of smoke and fighter jets roared above, even as Hamas kept firing rockets as far as Jerusalem, where air raid sirens blared and detonations were heard. Palestinians in the impoverished and crowded coastal territory braced for what many feared will be an Israeli ground attack aiming to defeat Hamas and liberate at least 100 hostages. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Gaza civilians to get away from all Hamas sites which he has vowed to turn "to rubble".

Middle East tensions have spiked as Israel's arch enemy Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah have praised the Hamas attack, although Tehran on Monday rejected any role in the military operation.

Hamas has called on "resistance fighters" in the occupied West Bank and in Arab and Islamic nations to join its "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood", launched half a century after the 1973 Arab-Israel war.

The United States has pledged "rock solid" support for Israel and said it would send munitions and military hardware to its key ally and divert an aircraft carrier group to the eastern Mediterranean.

Israel, which has long prided itself on its high-tech military and intelligence edge in its many conflicts, has been shaken to the core by Hamas's unprecedented ground, air and sea attack on the Jewish Sabbath.

It now faces the threat of a multi-front war after Hezbollah launched guided missiles and artillery shells from the north Sunday "in solidarity" with Hamas, in what some observers considered a warning shot.