Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “crush and destroy” Hamas and said every member of the organisation was a “dead man”.
It comes as the death toll for US citizens in the Hamas attack on Israel rose to 22, with 17 more Americans yet to be accounted for and believed to have been taken hostage.
In his televised address on Wednesday night, Mr Netanyahu detailed atrocities that he said took place during the attack, including boys and girls bound and shot in the head, people burned alive, women raped and soldiers beheaded.
Netanyahu joined with a top political rival on Wednesday to create a wartime cabinet to oversee Israel’s retaliation against Hamas, with hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops amassed at Gaza’s border in preparation for a potential ground attack on the besieged enclave.
Jonathan Conricus, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, said up to 300,000 troops had been deployed to the border fence with Gaza to make sure Hamas won’t have any “military capabilities” in the future.
Israeli village near the Gaza border lies in ruin, filled with the bodies of residents and militants