I got up at 7 am on a Sunday morning to check YouTube and see if Ukraine had made any military advances. Even worse, I wanted to find out if Russia had engaged in more rocket attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets in what could only be considered state sponsored terrorism. Instead, I was shocked to see Hamas had breached Israeli defenses in the Gaza strip and initiated a dawn attack on Israel.

Gunmen in motorised paragliders scooting over the border, heavy machinery knocked holes in the border fence and gunmen filed through. An Israeli military base was overrun, gunmen were entering houses and taking people hostages. From the reports I read, families were locking themselves in safe rooms to escape capture or shooting. First, Israel will have to negotiate the release of their citizens including soldiers and offices captured along with families in the border towns.

One thing that I do know, the Israeli response will be disproportionate, this highly coordinated attack. Thousands of rockets have been launched, there appears to be assistance from Hezbollah so this conflict could widen. What I do know is this is a massive failure of Israeli intelligence services, there was pretty much no pre-warning of this attack. In the months ahead, we will see Israel strike back and I suspect they will target the Gaza Strip and then the Left Bank.