As Israel's military and Hamas militants from Gaza continue fighting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis that they are entering a "long and difficult war."

In an overnight message, Mr Netanyahu said that the war had been "forced on us by a murderous attack by Hamas", and the first stage would end in the coming hours when most of the militants on Israeli territory had been wiped out.

Hamas militants infiltrated Israel's southern communities on Saturday and have since left a reported 250 people dead.

Israel responded with air strikes in Gaza, where Palestinian health officials said more than 230 people have been killed.

The Israeli government also said it would cut off electricity, fuel and goods supplies to Gaza - Israel has blockaded the area, along with Egypt, since 2007, citing its security as a reason.

Read more here.

Israel has responded to Hamas' attack with airstrikes - more than 230 Gazans have been killed in the strikes, according to officials there.

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

Israel was taken by surprise in one of the most serious cross-border attacks it has faced in more than a generation.

For months, it has been clear that there was a deepening risk of an explosion between Palestinian armed groups and Israel.

Israelis and Palestinians have been focusing on the West Bank, the territory between Jerusalem and the Jordanian border that Israel has occupied since 1967, where there has been almost continuous confrontation and violence throughout the year.

Armed Palestinians, especially those operating out of the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus, have attacked Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers.

The Israeli army has mounted dozens of raids. Armed settlers have taken the law into their own hands, with reprisals against Palestinian villages.

No-one expected Hamas to conceive and meticulously plan such a complex and coordinated operation out of Gaza.

Israel has launched multiple airstrikes on the Gaza strip following Hamas' surprise attack.

More than 230 Gazans have been killed and a 1,000 others wounded so far, according to officials there.

The Israeli army has asked residents of seven different areas across long-blockaded Gaza to leave their homes and move to the city centres or take refuge in shelters.

Witnesses have told the BBC that dozens of families started leaving their homes and sheltering in UN-run schools.

On X (formerly Twitter), users in Gaza are describing the airstrikes as "continuous" and "massive", external.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Israel will cut off the supply of electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza, according to media reports citing a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

Gaza was already thrown into darkness on Saturday as Israeli authorities cut power to its territories.

Along with Egypt, Israel has blockaded the Gaza Strip since 2007 citing security reasons.

Israel controls the air space over Gaza and its shoreline and restricts who and what goods are allowed in and out through its border crossings. Similarly, Egypt controls who passes in and out through its border with Gaza.

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

The complexity of the Hamas operation shows that it had been planned over months. It was not a hasty response to events in Jerusalem in the last week or so.

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has been heating up even when it is far from the headlines of international news organisations.

At the heart of the trouble is the intractable and unresolved century-long conflict between Arabs and Jews for control of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the river Jordan.

These rapidly-escalating events prove once again that the conflict cannot simply be managed.

When it is left to fester, violence and bloodshed are guaranteed.

Image source, Getty Images

As Israel reels from the biggest attack in years, Germany and the US have displayed their solidarity.

The columns of Germany's Brandenburg Gate in Berlin have been been lit up in the blue and white of the Israeli flag, with the flag itself at the monument's centre.

"This is a dark day for all of us here in Israel, but we can feel your love and warmth from miles away," Israel's state X account tweeted.

In the US, New York City's Empire State Building was also lit up in the colours of Israel's flag.

Gun battles raged into the night between Israeli forces and hundreds of Hamas fighters in at least 22 Israel locations, including at least two where gunmen were holding hostages, the Israeli army has said.

Hostages were also taken across the border into Gaza in by far the deadliest day of violence in Israel since the Yom Kippur war.

At least 250 Israelis have been reportedly killed following Hamas's ground, air and sea offensive. More than 1,000 people have been wounded - and more than 3,000 rockets have been fired into the Israeli territory, according to the Israeli army.

More than 230 Gazans were also killed when Israel responded with retaliatory strikes, Gaza officials have said.

Hostages who were held in the southern town of Ofakim have been rescued, according to Israel's public broadcaster Kan.

Three Israeli soldiers were moderately and lightly wounded, the broadcaster has said in a post on Twitter. It added that the Hamas attackers had been killed.

We'll bring you more details as we get them.

Let's take a look at the latest developments from the last few hours:

• The Israeli army has told residents of seven different areas across the Gaza Strip to take refuge in shelters as it prepares to launch new attacks on Hamas targets
• Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that he would take "mighty vengeance" for what he described as a "black day"

• Israel's TV channels reported that after 18 hours, hostages being held in a dining room in Kibbutz Be'eri had been released
• A bulldozer was seen breaking into a Sderot police station as it became one of several locations of continued stand-offs in the early hours of Sunday morning

• A Hamas spokesperson told the BBC that the militant group had backing from its ally, Iran, for its surprise attacks on Israel
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called for "calm and stability" in the West Bank in a call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
• Saudi Arabia has called for an “immediate halt to the escalation of conflict between Palestinians and Israel”

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent

The word of the day is unprecedented.

It's also a very dangerous moment. For decades, Israeli leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu, have resisted a major ground offensive into Gaza. Even more, a reoccupation of the territory its troops pulled out of in 2005.

But this is a whole new war, mostly because of the staggering number of hostages - more than 50 - and the high level of Israeli causalities.

That, plus a far-right Israeli government, is putting huge pressure on Netanyahu to do something big. And Hamas is not going to pull back either; it's not going to hold its fire.

In the same way Israelis are pulling together because of these attacks, Palestinians are pulling together too. They're fed up with Israeli restrictions. They're also fed up with their own leadership, most of all the Palestinian Authority, which is a rival to Hamas.

But behind the question of what happens next is another urgent question - what now?

What is the long-term solution to what is an endless cycle of suffering?

Nadia Ragozhina
Live reporter

Dov Trachtman, 32, is a resident of Sderot. It is 1am local time when I speak to him and he tells me that people in Sderot are still being told to stay at home, lock the doors and be alert. "We are hearing gunfire and explosions, choppers and all the war noises."

When he woke up and heard sirens, he thought it sounded like a regular escalation, like the sirens people there often hear when Hamas fire rockets into Israel.

"Closer to 7.30am I saw the first video of a Hamas gunman driving around the streets of Sderot. We saw pictures of groups of gunmen running around the city, they captured the police station, through social media I saw people saying there were gunmen in their homes."

A siren sounds while I talk to him and the phone line breaks up several times. Dov says that people are still shaking, many are trying to contact their friends and relatives.

A bulldozer was seen breaking into a Sderot police station where Hamas gunmen were believed to be holed up after staging a multi-pronged assault on various parts of Israel.

It is unclear how many gunmen were left barricaded at the station, which was one of several locations of continued stand-offs in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Rushdi Abu Alouf
BBC News

The Israeli army has asked residents of seven different areas across the Gaza Strip to leave their homes and move to the city centers or take refuge in shelters in preparation for launching attacks against Hamas targets.

Witnesses told the BBC that dozens of families had started leaving their homes and were sheltering in UN schools.

Israel’s public broadcaster Kan News has reported that, after 18 hours, hostages being held in a dining room in Kibbutz Be’eri have been released.

Sameer Hashmi
Middle East correspondent, reporting from Dubai

The attack by Hamas and Israel’s response could potentially derail three-way negotiations between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States to normalise relations between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, which gathered momentum in recent months.

Saudi Arabia has called for an “immediate halt to the escalation of conflict between Palestinians and Israel”.

It also appears to blame Israel for the escalation without directly naming the country. In an official statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said that it had issued “repeated warnings of the dangers of the explosion of the situation as a result of the continued occupation, and deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights".

The normalisation talks revolve around Saudi Arabia recognising Israel in return for US weapons sales, security guarantees and help in building a civilian nuclear programme.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said last month that a deal was getting closer but a solution was needed on the Palestinian issue before it could go ahead.

Image source, Israel Defence Forces

Israeli army says a commander was killed today by Hamas.

"The Commander of the Nahal Brigade, Colonel Jonathan Steinberg was killed today during a confrontation with a terrorist adjacent to Kerem Shalom," the army statement said.

Kerem Shalom is Gaza’s only commercial border crossing with Israel, with a check-point that is fully controlled by the Israeli army.

Jonathan Steinberg, who was from Kibbutz Shomria, was on his way to the scene of an exchange of fire that his soldiers were involved in, according to the statement. He was confronted by a militant and shot dead, it says.

Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent

With this latest operation, Hamas seems keen to burnish its credentials once again as a militant organisation. Its charter remains committed to the destruction of Israel.

Speaking at the start of the offensive, the shadowy Hamas militant commander, Mohammed Deif called on Palestinians and other Arabs to join the action to “sweep away the [Israeli] occupation”.

A big question now is whether Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem or elsewhere in the region will heed his call.

Israel undoubtedly sees the potential for a war that could open up on multiple fronts.

A worst-case scenario is that it could draw in the powerful Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has ordered a massive reinforcement of troops. As well as its intense air raids on Gaza, it has indicated that it is planning a ground operation there.

The capture of Israeli soldiers and civilians, who Palestinian militants will hope to use as human shields or bargaining chips, is a serious complication.

Image source, .

Major airlines have cancelled dozens of flights to Tel Aviv this weekend after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise, large-scale attack against Israel.

On the arrivals board at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport American Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa, Emirates, Ryanair and Aegean Airlines were among those pulling flights.

"Lufthansa is cancelling all flights to and from Tel Aviv up until and including Monday," a spokesman for the German carrier told AFP. "The airline was "monitoring the security situation in Israel," he added.

Air France said it had halted Tel Aviv flights "until further notice".

"Commercial measures are in place, allowing customers to postpone or cancel their trip free of charge", an Air France spokesman said.

Earlier, we reported on a Hamas attack at an outdoor party in Kibbutz Urim, a suburb of the city of Ofakim in southern Israel not far from Gaza.

Gili Yoskovich was there when gunfire broke out and hid in a ditch for hours to survive.

"I was the first one to go out of the field," she tells the BBC. "Still people took two to three hours to go out.

"And all the way people are dying. Many, many people were dying in the road," she says. "Whoever tried to run away they were shooting them from both sides."

Her partner, Boaz Porat, recalls:"There was bodies right and left.

"You could really see that the terrorists took out people from the car and just gunned them down."