“The Palestinian militant group Hamas has launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, with its fighters entering communities near the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of residents and taking dozens of hostages,” according to BBC Oct. 9, 2023. Hamas is a Palestinian militant group sworn to see Israel destroyed and replaced with an Islamic state. Their primary target is the Gaza Strip, the 25-mile long territory between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea and has a population of 2.3 million. “The West Bank and Gaza, which are known as the Palestinian territories, as well as East Jerusalem and Israel all formed part of a land known as Palestine from Roman times until the mid-20th Century…Israel was declared a state in 1948, though the land is still referred to as Palestine by those who do not recognise Israel’s right to exist…After Hamas’s unprecedented attack, Israel announced a ‘siege’ of Gaza – cutting its supplies of electricity, fuel, food, goods and water… In the wake of the Hamas attack, the U.S. announced it was moving an aircraft carrier, ships and jets to the eastern Mediterranean, and that it would also give Israel additional equipment and ammunition… Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif has called on Palestinians and other Arabs to join the militants’ operation to ‘sweep away the [Israeli] occupation’. It is not clear whether Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem or elsewhere in the region will heed his call, according to the BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent Yolande Knell… The Israeli military has ordered a massive reinforcement of troops and is expected to launch a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip soon. It says 300,000 personnel including recently-mobilised reservists are near the Gaza border ‘ready to execute the mission we have been given.’”