Palestinian Islamist group Hamas took Israel by surprise on Saturday with the biggest attack for decades, a sudden assault by gunmen who crossed into Israeli villages, killed dozens of people and brought hostages back into the Gaza Strip.

Israel responded with massive air strikes deep inside the coastal enclave, killing scores and wounding hundreds of people and vowing unprecedented retaliation.

"Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. "We are in a war and we will win it".

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault that had begun in Gaza would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem.

"This was the morning of defeat and humiliation upon our enemy, its soldiers and its settlers," he said. "What happened reveals the greatness of our preparation. What happened today reveals the weakness of the enemy."

In southern Israel near Gaza, bodies of Israeli civilians lay strewn across a highway in Sderot, surrounded by broken glass. A woman and a man were sprawled out dead across the front seats of a car. A military vehicle drove past the bodies of another woman and a man in a pool of blood behind another car.

Israel's N12 News reported that at least 100 Israelis were killed. Israeli security forces said there were 21 active scenes of gunbattles with infiltrators, and its navy had killed dozens more Palestinians attempting to infiltrate by sea.

In Gaza, black smoke and orange flames billowed into the evening sky from a high rise tower hit by an Israeli retaliatory strike. Crowds of mourners carried the bodies of freshly killed militants through the streets, wrapped in green Hamas flags.

Gaza health officials said at least 198 Palestinians had been killed and more than 1,600 had been wounded, carried into crumbling and overcrowded hospitals with severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment. (Reuters)
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Last updated: 2023-10-08 HKT 01:09