Israel-Hamas war: Photos show fear, death and destruction in battle scenes

8 Oct, 2023 08:22 PM2 mins to read

Police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip. Photo / AP

In Israel, a frightened woman runs down the street cradling a young girl in her arms as a car behind her is engulfed in a ball of flames from an unprecedented surprise attack by Hamas militants.

In Gaza City, an anguished Palestinian woman embraces the head of a dead man carried by a crowd through the streets after he was killed in retaliation by Israeli forces.

Mourners pray by the bodies of Salem Abu Quta family members, a Hamas fighter, during a funeral after they were killed in an Israeli strike on their house in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip. Photo / AP

The images are just two of hundreds by Associated Press photographers that show the destruction, terror and sadness on both sides of the conflict — and the triumph by some Palestinians who see the attack as a victory. Hundreds have been killed on both sides of the border in fighting that continued on Sunday.

A ball of fire and smoke rises from an explosion on a Palestinian apartment tower following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Photo / AP

In Saturday’s early morning assault, a photo shows the smoky trail of rockets from Gaza arcing through the sky against the backdrop of a rising sun. Rockets that struck a parking lot next to a residential building in the Israeli city of Ashkelon torched cars and sent thick black plumes skyward. Israeli security forces used a table like a stretcher to rescue a woman who lay in tattered, bloody clothes.

Israeli airstrikes on Islamic National Bank of Gaza destroy buildings and neighborhoods. Photo / Getty Images

People dance in celebration of the attacks that the militant Hamas group carried out against Israel, at Bourj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp. Photo / AP

A Palestinian man sits in the rubble of a building after it was struck by an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City. Photo / AP

Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip. Photo / AP

Men in Gaza stood atop a burning Israeli tank with their arms raised in victory. On Sunday, a Palestinian man sat alone in front of the rubble of a destroyed apartment building that was tilted on its side behind him, exposing partial rooms still intact and laundry that had been hanging on balconies now covered in dirt and rubble.