Netanyahu Tells Biden Hamas Is Worse Than ISIS As Death Toll In Terror Attack On Israel Crosses 1,000: Highlights

The Israeli military is continuing its attack on Hamas targets in Gaza after the surprise attack last week by the Palestinian terror group in Israel that killed over 1,000 people.

Here are the key highlights of the development surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict:

Israel bombs over 200 locations in Gaza

The Israeli military says it launched attacks on more than 200 locations in the Gaza Strip overnight, including the Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City as well as Khan Younis city.

The military said the locations hit included a weapons storage site inside a mosque as well as an apartment used by Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile forces.

Further, the Israeli Air Force jets also hit over 70 Hamas targets in the Gaza City district of At-Tuffah as well as a military structure operated by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

According to the local media, the military said the area served as a “terrorist nest” for Hamas and a center from which it carried out operations against Israel. A structure used by Palestinian Islamic Jihad was also targeted.

Further, the Israeli security forces were also still battling terrorists in southern Israel on Tuesday, with two killed in an agricultural field near the southern community of Kfar Maimon and another two gunmen killed near the Erez Crossing into the Gaza Strip late Tuesday.

Death toll from Hamas terror attack on Israel crosses 1,000

The death toll from Palestinian terror group Hamas’s shock attack on Israel on Saturday has surpassed 1,000, with close to 3,000 injured and the fate of an estimated 150 people abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip still unclear.

Local media reported that the death toll hit a grim 1,000 late Tuesday as security forces and Zaka, a volunteer group that handles human remains after terror attacks and other disasters, worked in southern Israeli communities to clear and collect bodies.

Netanyahu speaks with US President Biden

In his call with Biden, Netanyahu’s office said the Prime Minister told the US President, “We’ve never seen such savagery in the history of the state” nor “since the Holocaust".

“They took dozens of children, bound them up, burned them and executed them. They beheaded soldiers, they mowed down these youngsters who came to a nature festival, you know, put five jeeps around this depression in the soil and like Babyn Yar, they mowed them down, making sure that they killed everybody," Netanyahu said, according to the readout.

“They’re even worse than ISIS and we need to treat them as such," he added.

US Tells Israel's adversaries to stay away from the conflict

During his address to the nation, US President Joe Biden disclosed unprecedented and explicit details of the “sheer evil” inflicted by Hamas against Israel in an emotional speech during which he promised to ensure that the Jewish state would have what it needs to respond to the shocking weekend onslaught.

“There are moments in this life — I mean this literally — when a pure unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” he said, adding “This is an act of sheer evil.”

“Parents butchered, using their bodies to try to protect their children; stomach-turning reports of babies being killed; entire families slain; young people massacred while attending a musical festival… women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies,” he recounted.

“There are still so many families desperately waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones. Not knowing if they’re alive or dead or [being held] hostage. Infants in their mother’s arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage," he added.

“This is terrorism. But sadly, for the Jewish people, it’s not new,” Biden continued.

“This attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people," he added.

“Like every nation in the world, Israel has the right to respond - indeed has a duty to respond - to these vicious attacks,” the president said.

Biden said he had one word - “Don’t” - for any of Israel’s adversaries who might try to get involved, in a clear message to long-term Israeli foe Iran, which backs Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.