Israel's defence minister orders 'complete siege' on Gaza in battle against Hamas

Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip Monday and cut off the water supply as it kept bombing targets in the Palestinian enclave in response to the Hamas surprise assault it has likened to the 9/11 attacks.

Reeling from the militant group's unprecedented ground, air and sea attacks, Israel has counted over 700 dead and launched a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza that have killed 560 people there.

The skies over Gaza were blackened by plumes of smoke from deafening explosions as Hamas kept launching rockets as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where missile defence systems fired and air raid sirens blared.

Hamas — whose militants surged into Israeli towns on Saturday, sprayed gunfire at civilians and dragged off about 100 hostages — claimed on Monday that Israeli air strikes had killed four of the captives.

Israel said it had called up 300,000 army reservists, and truck convoys were seen moving tanks to the south, where its forces had dislodged the last holdout Hamas fighters from embattled towns.

"We are in control of the communities," said military spokesman Daniel Hagari, cautioning that some "terrorists" may remain after about 1,000 militants swarmed into the region on the Jewish Sabbath.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel would impose a "complete siege" on the long blockaded enclave and stressed what this meant for its 2.3 million people: "No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it's all closed."

Palestinians in the impoverished coastal territory braced for what many feared will be a massive Israeli ground attack aiming to defeat Hamas and liberate the hostages.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Gaza civilians to get away from all Hamas sites, which he vowed to turn "to rubble".

The United States has pledged "rock solid" support for Israel and said it would send munitions and military hardware to its key ally and divert an aircraft carrier group to the eastern Mediterranean.

Israel has voiced alarm and revulsion after more than 1,000 militants broke through the Gaza border fence Israel had deemed impregnable and swarmed out into nearby Jewish communities.

Up to 250 bodies were strewn across the site of a music festival in a Negev desert kibbutz, mostly young people, while other revellers were feared to be among the hostages.

"They butchered people in cold blood in an inconceivable way," said Moti Bukjin, a spokesman for the Zaka volunteer group which helped collect the bodies.

Israelis have voiced anger at the intelligence failure that blindsided the nation, but have attempted to put aside for now deep political divisions of recent years as they braced for what Netanyahu has warned would be a "long and difficult war".

"Never before have so many Israelis been killed by one single thing, let alone enemy activity in one day," said army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus.

The multi-pronged attack had brought "by far the worst day in Israeli history", he said, likening it to a combination of the "9/11 and Pearl Harbour" attacks.

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