Israel to besiege Gaza and annihilate all of Hamas leaders

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered to besiege the Gaza Strip completely.

"I ordered to besiege the Gaza Strip completely. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything has been shut down," Gallant said after an assessment by the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba, The Times of Israel reports.

According to Gallant, Israel is "fighting animals” and is acting accordingly.

Chief spokesman for the Israeli Army, Brigadier General Daniel Hagari, promised that the IDF would annihilate all Hamas military leaders including Yahya Sinwar.

"Yahya Sinwar is the commander of the campaign, and he is a dead man,” Hagari said in a press conference. Hamas's "military and political leadership, all of its assets, are attackable, and doomed,” he added, The Times of Israel reports.

The IDF spokesman also said that troops regained control of all cities in the south of the country on the border with the Gaza Strip. Hamas militants entered those territories on October 7. They partially destroyed border barriers, took control of several Israeli army headquarters and took about 100 people hostage.

According to Hagari, there is no fighting in the area, but a small number of militants could still be staying there.

Since the beginning of the hostilities, Hamas fired as many as 4,400 missiles at Israel, the IDF representative noted.

In 48 hours, the Israeli army mobilised 300,000 reservists, the call was the largest and fastest in the history of Israel, Hagari added.

One rocket crashed near Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The airport building was not damaged, a spokesman later said.

On October 9 at night, the Israeli military launched rocket attacks on more than 500 targets in the Gaza Strip associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad — IDF.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Hamas had been harbouring plans to attack Israel for two years.

A source close to Hamas told the agency that in preparation for the attacks, a mock-up of an Israeli settlement was built in the Gaza Strip, where the military practiced landing and assault operations.

Israeli officials were aware of that, but they were convinced that Hamas was not interested in confronting Israel, the source said.

Since the escalation in 2021, Israel issued thousands of work permits to residents of the Gaza Strip to ensure a basic level of economic stability in the region, Reuters said.

"We believed that as long as they were coming to work and bringing money to Gaza then it would create a certain level of stability. We were wrong,” a source in the Israeli army told the agency.

Death toll in Gaza rises to 493, more than 2,700 injured — Palestinian Health Ministry.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia has no information about pilgrims from Russia who could be either   killed or injured in Israel. However, there are many victims among repatriates, RIA Novosti reports.

Russian embassies in Israel and Palestine do not yet have information about the injured Russians, Kremlin official spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"We are watching everything that is happening in Israel with great concern. This is a matter of our special concern these days. It is necessary to bring the situation back to a peaceful direction as soon as possible. Spiralling violence is fraught with the escalation of this conflict. This is a great danger for the region," Peskov said.

Hezbollah assured the Lebanese authorities that it would not attack Israel first, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib said, The Times of Israel reports.

Death toll in Israel has exceeded 800, about 2,400 injured - Kan Radio.