Death Toll Soars As Israel Declares War With Gaza

At least 1,100 people have died and more than 2,000 others have been injured in Israel after the militant group Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from the neighboring Gaza Strip in an unprecedented incursion on Saturday, Israeli authorities said.

Palestinian militants have fired at least 2,200 rockets toward Israel, according to the Israeli Defense Forces. Hamas claimed at least 5,000 rockets were fired, all landing in southern and central Israel.

Israel has since declared “a state of alert for war” and launched a retaliatory attack with fighter jets on Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by neighboring Israel and Egypt since Hamas seized power in 2007.

At least 370 people have died and another 2,200 have been injured in Gaza, Palestinian officials said. Unlike Israel, the Gaza Strip has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.

BBC