The Israeli rescue service Zaka says its paramedics removed more than 260 bodies from a music festival that came under attack by Hamas militants.
The total figure of bodies found is expected to be higher, as other paramedic teams were also working in the area and Zaka added that the bodies “haven’t all been collected yet”.
Early on Saturday morning, Hamas targeted Nova music festival, a techno rave in the desert near the border with Gaza.
Videos shared on social media and by Israeli news outlets showed dozens of festival-goers running through an open field as gunshots rang out. Many hid in nearby fruit orchards or were gunned down as they fled.
Plenty of people, within Israel and outside, care quite a lot about those deaths and also consider them tragedies. You’ll remember that Netanyahu isn’t exactly an uncontroversial figure within Israel.
That’s why this has been such an incredibly frustrating and disappointing series of events, because any possibility of peace has been thoroughly extinguished now, and Palestinian citizens are going to suffer even more. Hamas of course knew this going into it, and didn’t care because its aim has never been peace for Palestinians, but rather the extermination of all Jews within Israel (as explicitly stated in its founding charter).
Both Netanyahu and Hamas are probably riding a nice high right now. Both of their political positions improve the more people die on both sides.
There may be a real rally around the flag effect, but there’s a lot of anger at Netanyahu on the massive military and intelligence failures that made this possible. He may be able to stick around for this conflict, but he’s probably toast afterwards.
Likud’s entire thing has always been that they’re the ones that can be trusted to keep Israelis safe. That view is now completely shattered.
Do you think they are going to elect a more moderate government to keep them safe?