The Hamas leader behind the deadliest attack on Israel watched and celebrated the invasion from the safety of his Qatar office.
Ismail Haniyeh was seen with other Hamas officials cheering with joy before prostrating themselves on the floor and praising God.
It came as the terror group launched the single deadliest attack ever launched against Israel – which the Jewish state says is ‘our 9/11’.
Israeli media said at least 700 people were killed and 2,000 wounded in Saturday’s attack.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as many as 1,000 Hamas fighters were involved in the assault, a high figure that underscores the extent of planning by the militant group that rules Gaza.
Ismail Haniyeh, pictured, was seen with other Hamas officials rejoicing in the safety of Qatar
A member of the Israeli security forces stands near burning cars after a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel
The gunmen went on a rampage for hours, shooting dead civilians in towns, along roads and at a techno music festival held in the desert near Gaza.
Hamas fighters also captured an unknown number of civilians and soldiers in Gaza.
Haniyeh emerged as the public face behind Saturday’s attack.
He gave a speech in which he welcomed the killings as the beginning of a new era in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He said: ‘Enough is enough, the cycle of intifadas and revolutions in the struggle to liberate our Palestinian land and our prisoners languishing in occupation prisons must be completed.’
The terror chief also hinted that further violence is coming to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Hamas, which advocates Israel’s destruction, said the attack was prompted by what it said were Israel’s escalated attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
“This is the day of the greatest struggle to end the last occupation on earth,” Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif said, announcing the start of the operation in a broadcast on Hamas media and appealing to Palestinians everywhere done to fight.
However, Saturday’s attack may have been coordinated with Hamas’ regional allies such as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, The Telegraph reported.
Qatar said it held Israel responsible for Saturday’s massacre.
They housed Hanieyh in an office in Doha for a number of years, but also deny supporting Hamas.
The Gulf state has also hosted the Taliban in what it claims is an attempt to promote mediation efforts between the terrorist group and the West.
Haniyeh was born in the al-Shati refugee camp in 1962. His parents fled their home in what is now Ashkelon near the Gaza border during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
He joined Hamas while studying Arabic literature at university and rose through the ranks.
During his earlier life, he was in and out of Israeli prisons, including a six-month stint in 1988.
He was also locked up for three years in 1989 during the First Intifada on charges of terrorist group membership.
He was deported to Lebanon before returning to Gaza where he survived at least one Israeli assassination attempt in the early 2000s during the Second Intifada.
In 2006, he became famous worldwide, leading Hamas to an early election victory.
This led to a civil war and a complete takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas. In 2016, Haniyeh moved from Gaza to Qatar.
The attacks on Saturday led to mass violence and bloodshed.
The Israeli Defense Forces launched artillery strikes against Lebanon in the disputed area of Mount Dov, following mortar fire directed at Israel from its northern neighbor.
The UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said more than 20,000 people were sheltering in 44 of its schools around Gaza by Saturday evening – adding that three of them had suffered ‘collateral’ damage from Israeli airstrikes.
Iran-backed Hezbollah militants said it was behind the attacks and the attack was carried out ‘in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance’, the BBC reports.
The Islamic Republic of Iran also waved a giant anti-Israel billboard in Tehran after the strike.
It showed a checkered keffiyeh covering the Star of David, titled ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’.
The Israeli government formally declared war on Sunday and gave the green light for “significant military action” to retaliate against Hamas for its surprise attack.
Palestinians cross the Gaza-Israel border fence in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip in a surprise incursion into southern Israel on Saturday
The statement came as the army sought to crush fighters still in southern towns and stepped up its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
The toll passed 1,000 dead and thousands wounded on both sides.
More than 24 hours after Hamas launched its unprecedented incursion from Gaza, Israeli forces were still trying to defeat the last groups of militants trapped in several towns.
At least 700 people are believed to have died in Israel, a staggering toll on a scale the country has not seen in decades, and more than 300 were killed in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes pounded the area.
The Israeli rescue service Zaka said its paramedics had removed about 260 bodies from a music festival attended by thousands that came under attack.
The total figure is expected to be higher as other paramedic teams worked in the area.
Video on social media and Israeli news outlets showed dozens of festival-goers running through an open field as gunshots rang out. Many hid in nearby orchards or were shot dead as they fled.
The declaration of war predicted greater fighting, and a big question was whether Israel would launch a ground offensive in Gaza, a move that has seen heightened casualties in the past.
People walk on top of the rubble of a tower destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Saturday
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from Ashkelon in southern Israel early Sunday
Meanwhile, in northern Israel, a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah has raised fears that the fighting could escalate into a wider regional war.
Authorities were still trying to determine how many civilians and soldiers were seized by Hamas fighters during the chaos and taken back to Gaza.
From videos and witnesses, it is known that the prisoners include women, children and the elderly.
Among the missing is British soldier Jake Marlowe (26), who has not been heard from since Saturday morning after he was part of a security team at the festival near Re’im, a village near the border with Gaza in the south of Israel.
A member of Israeli police is seen yesterday in Ashkelon, southern Israel after the Hamas offensive
The Jewish nation is raining fire on fighters in the Gaza Strip in a relentless counter-offensive in the south while also pounding Lebanon with artillery in the north.
In a post on X, he said: ‘As the barbarity of today’s atrocities becomes clearer, we stand unequivocally with Israel.’
US President Joe Biden ‘condemns this appalling attack against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza’, and said ‘we stand ready to provide all appropriate means of support to the government and people of Israel’.
‘Terrorism is never justified. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people,’ he said.
Gaza has been devastated by four wars and countless skirmishes between Hamas and Israel since the militants took control of the strip in 2007. But the scenes of violence within Israel itself were beyond anything seen there, even at the height of the Palestinian Intifada uprisings of recent decades.
That Israel was caught completely off guard was lamented as one of the worst intelligence failures in its history, a shock to a nation that prides itself on its intensive infiltration and monitoring of militants.