Israel formally declared a state of war on Sunday as the death toll from an unprecedented Hamas attack a day earlier rose above 700 and was expected to rise further, with the fate of over a hundred people abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip still unclear, as per media reports.
On Israeli television, family members of the dead, and of dozens of missing people taken hostage by Hamas, wept down phones as they described how their homes and communities had been attacked while families slept.
Mohammed Deif, the Hamas commander in Gaza, called for an all out attack on Israel on Saturday morning in a message that was posted on social media, a media report said.
Palestinian militant group Hamas on Saturday declared a new military operation against Israel and fired a barrage of missiles towards the Jewish state from the Gaza Strip for the first time since May last year, which has so far killed one Israeli woman and injured two other people.
