Israeli troops were reportedly still fighting Hamas gunmen in the southern town of Sderot 12 hours after the attack was launched.
“I went out, I saw loads of bodies of terrorists, civilians, cars shot up. A sea of bodies, inside Sderot along the road, other places, loads of bodies,” said Shlomi from Sderot. In one incident, young Israelis told of fleeing a dance party in the early hours of Saturday as Hamas gunmen backed by rocket barrages entered towns and villages by the border.
Another partygoer, Esther Borochov, said a car had rammed her vehicle as she tried to flee before a young man told her and her friend to jump into his vehicle before he was shot point blank while she played dead until she was rescued. The assaults on Israeli civilians were the deadliest since the Palestinian suicide bombing campaigns of the Second Intifada that hit the country’s main cities some two decades ago.