As the Jewish Sabbath fell and Muslims marked their principal prayer day, Israelis and Palestinians struggled with the terrifying new reality after the militant group Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel.
By Laura King, Nabih Bulos and Melanie Lidman, Los Angeles TimesMourners attend a military funeral for Staff Sgt. Tal Levi, 21, who was slain in the recent Hamas surprise attack in the country's south, at a cemetery in Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Israel, on Oct. 12, 2023.
His was one of a string of small southern Israeli communities targeted by Hamas, along with a sprawling all-night dance party that, fatefully, had drawn thousands of young Israelis to the desert near Gaza. By day’s end Friday, the Israeli toll stood at more than 1,300, the great majority of them civilians.For Palestinian civilians living in the crowded confines of sealed-off Gaza, the long-standing grind of daily hardship has been overshadowed by an Israeli aerial assault that military observers termed remarkable in scope and scale — bombardment that is seen as a likely prelude to a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of the narrow coastal enclave.
In a part of the world where biblical language often finds its way into common speech, some people speak of the week’s events in passionate floods of verbiage. Others stutter out a few words and fall suddenly silent. The strength of the Israeli security establishment has long been a foundational article of social faith, and catastrophic vulnerabilities exposed by Hamas attackers — who blinded electronic surveillance with drones, breached a high-tech border fence with construction equipment and soared over the barrier on paragliders — are likely to leave a generational scar, many observers say.
Many have likened the shock to that of the war in 1973, but with crucial differences. Half a century ago, Israel was caught off-guard by an attack by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria that also unfolded on a Jewish holiday — Yom Kippur, the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar. For Palestinians, this war’s political backdrop is also complicated. Hamas, which has denounced Israel’s existence, has held control over Gaza for more than 15 years, and while few Palestinians would dare to speak openly against the group, private conversations tend to reflect deep disillusionment with its rule.
Within Israel proper, Palestinians and other Arabs make up a full one-fifth of the country’s 10 million citizens, and as the crisis has spiraled, many fear being scapegoated and attacked, just as they have been during past conflicts between Israel and Arab foes. For some, the day’s religious rituals were a reminder of a painful temporal cleaving: the before-times, and the after. At this same hour last week, the current confrontation, already the bloodiest yet between Israel and Hamas, had not yet begun.
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