Israel Defence Forces international spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht has said the Hamas attacks are “Israel’s 9/11” as he sent a fierce warning to the terror group.
Branding the attack “barbaric”, Hecht’s comments come after the armed wing of Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” against Israel early on Saturday morning.
Hecht said: “In a way, this is our 9/11, and you know even more than that, it wasn’t crashing into a building, it’s also mutilating, attacking a party that was happening around the Gaza Strip.”
Hecht said it has been a “very, very hard 24 hours” and said the attacks were “unprecedented.”
“We were attacked with a combined offensive by Hamas by surprise,” he said.
“They want the annihilation of our state, and everybody got a taste of who they are yesterday.”
British-born Hecht said the IDF will respond “very severely” to the attacks against Israel, which are believed to have killed more than 700 people in Israel so far, including 260 massacred at a music festival.
Air strikes performed by Israel have killed more than 400 people in the Gaza Strip overnight, according to Palestinian health officials.
The IDF said in an update this morning where that they have attacked around 1,000 targets inside Gaza since Saturday.
This morning, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has ordered a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip: “No electricity, no food, no fuel.”
Hecht continued: “They attacked us on the ground, in the air, and also through the sea.
“And they didn’t go for military targets, they went for civilians. They went for grandmothers, children, babies.”
Hecht said Israel are going to do “whatever is needed” to stop Hamas, saying their “style of attack” was “barbaric”.
Other Israeli officials have likened the attack to 9/11, which killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001 and is America’s worst ever terrorist attack.
“This is our 9/11,” spokesman Major Nir Dinar, a senior member of the Israeli military said. “They got us.”
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus went further, saying this attack was like “9/11 and and a Pearl Harbor wrapped into one”
He said: “It is, by far, the worst day in Israeli history. Never before have so many Israelis been killed by one single thing let alone enemy activity on one day.”
