Israeli police station stands by the bodies of militants outside the police station that was overrun by Hamas gunmen on Saturday, in Sderot, Israel, Sunday, Oct.8, 2023. Hamas militants stormed over the border fence Saturday, killing hundreds of Israelis in surrounding communities.

 　　On October 7, 2023, the Israeli police station in Sderot (Sderot) was overrun by Hamas militants from the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The next day, October 8, outside the police station, Israeli police stood by the body of a dead militant from the Palestinian Gaza Strip and performed an autopsy.On October 7, Hamas militants attacked Sderot near Gaza, exchanged gunfire with Israeli police and civilians in the streets, and took over the town's police station. At least 20 Israeli police were killed. Hamas militants stormed across the border fence on October 7, killing hundreds of Israelis in the surrounding communities.

　The Hamas surprise attack from the Gaza Strip that broke out on October 7, 2023, was Israel's worst death toll in decades. Approximately 1,000 Hamas fighters participated in the initial invasion. Hamas gunmen breached the border fence surrounding Gaza with explosives and crossed the coast on motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders, and speedboats. The large number of deaths, the large number of prisoners, and the slow response to the onslaught pointed to a serious intelligence failure and undermined long-held perceptions that Israel has been handing out surveillance of the small, densely populated Gaza Strip territory it has controlled for decades. at least about 700 people, including 44 Israeli soldiers. killed, media reports said. The Israeli government formally declared war on Hamas on October 8. Israel has conducted major military operations in Lebanon and Gaza over the past 40 years, but no formal declaration of war has been made.

　Since October 7, Hamas militants have forcibly taken dozens of Israelis, including women, children, and elderly people, to the Gaza coast. Relatives of captured and missing Israelis were televised wailing in the fog and pleading for assistance. Hamas and smaller Islamic Jihad groups claimed to have detained about 130 more in Israel and forced them into Gaza. Israeli security forces killed about 400 Hamas militants. The United Nations put the number of displaced Gaza residents at more than about 123,000.

　The Palestinian Gaza Strip, a small enclave with a population of about 2.3 million, has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt for about 16 years since the Hamas occupation. Israeli retaliation against Hamas has hit more than about 800 targets, including an airstrike that destroyed most of the town of Beit Hanoun, northeast of Gaza, the Israeli military said. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on October 8 that some 413 Palestinians, including 78 children and 41 women, were killed and some 2,300 injured.

Warning: Israeli police station stands by the bodies of militants outside the police station that was overrun by Hamas gunmen on Saturday, in Sderot, Israel, Sunday, Oct.8, 2023. Hamas militants stormed over the border fence Saturday, killing hundreds of Israelis in surrounding communities. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)