JERUSALEM: As Israeli forces are still fighting Hamas gunmen, the Jewish state’s military on Monday termed the unprecedented attacks launched by the Palestinian militant group from Gaza as “this is our 9/11, they got us”.
This was in reference to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks carried out by the Al Qaeda against the US.
In a statement on Monday, military spokeperson Major Nir Dinar said: “This is our 9/11... They got us,” the BBC reported. The spokesperson’s comment echoed Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus’s remark in which he not only compared the Hamas attacks to 9/11 but also to Pearl Harbor — the surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the American naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.
“This could be a 9/11 and and a Pearl Harbor wrapped into one,” he said.
“It is, by far, the worst day in Israeli history. Never before have so many Israelis been killed by one single thing let alone enemy activity on one day.” As airstrikes continued on the Gaza Strip on Monday, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) claimed that more than 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the coastal enclave were hit overnight, the BBC reported.
The IAF said that fighter jets, helicopters, aircraft and artillery struck the targets, adding that seven Hamas command centres and an Islamic Jihad command centre were hit. “The scope of this operation is something completely different... It’s taking more time than we expected to get things back to a defensive, security posture,” Lt Col Richard Hecht told reporters. (IANS)
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