It will be a month tomorrow, 7 November, since the terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel by air, land, and sea to massacre 1,400 people, mostly civilians, while causing injuries and inflicting wounds on over 5,500 others. The numbers had been fluctuating, but the last estimate put it at about 240, the number of people that Hamas has kidnapped to serve as hostages.

Tales of heroism have surfaced, nonetheless, including by Filipinos in Israel who talked and, in one instance, offered money so Hamas would spare her and her ward from being killed. An ex-Israeli policeman narrated how he and a son fought using mere pistols, Hamas terrorists, who were armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Trapped inside their house as the only buffer between Hamas and their helpless loved ones—the elderly, women, and children—father and son exchanged gunfire with the terrorists until members of the Israeli Defense Force arrived to stop their house from being burned by Hamas.

The ex-cop said that with the 1,400 Hamas killed last 7 October, Israel's response to stop the terrorists and their allies like the Islamic Jihad must be of "biblical proportions," referring to the ground-and-pound attacks that the IDF has unleashed on Hamas, who are now like rats hiding inside their tunnels in the Gaza Strip.

In another interview, a veteran female commander of the IDF narrated how Hamas forces overran their position, and that realizing the scale and magnitude of the attacks, she led her soldiers — whom she dubbed as her own children — to repulse wave upon wave of attackers. Many of the Hamas members wore uniforms similar to the IDF, said the mother of three, thus they had to fight close-quarter battles with them, determining friend or foe only by the weapons they carried. She explained that the Kalashnikovs or AK-47 rifles that the terrorists carried were dead giveaways.

Going a month into the attack, it is critical to understand the scope of the attacks against Israel and the ever-present threat to its very survival as a nation on multiple fronts, not only from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also from the proxy groups of Iran like the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and those terror groups that Syria and Yemen harbor within their borders.

Amid the IDF's operations in the Gaza Strip, Israel's wrath must be taken in the context of a nation mourning and yet steeled by the largest massacre of Jews in a single day since Holocaust. People to this day have remained unidentified because many of the victims — women, children, and even babies — were mutilated or burned or both.

The attacks on civilians at kibbutzim and a music festival were undertaken even as Hamas fired thousands of rockets and mortars into Israeli cities, and launched armed drones to attack both military and civilian targets. Meanwhile, other terrorist groups are also carrying out attacks in the West Bank.

To date, over 9,000 projectiles have been fired into Israel. Israel's Iron Dome aerial defenses intercepted many, but many others hit residential areas, resulting in deaths and injuries. The irony of it is that, according to multiple sources, more than 700 Palestinian rockets have misfired, causing death, injury, and devastation within Gaza itself.

Iranian proxies, such as Hezbollah, have also attacked Israel from the north and northeast, and Iran has explicitly threatened to attack Israel on other fronts. Numerous projectiles, including anti-tank missiles and rockets, have been fired into Israel from Lebanon and Syria, injuring and killing soldiers as well as civilians.

Given the ongoing hostilities and extensive destruction of homes and residential areas, many cities and communities in southern Israel have been forced to evacuate, and it is unclear when their residents will be allowed to return home. Additionally, settlements in the north near the border with Lebanon have been evacuated. There are currently more than 200,000 internally displaced Israelis.

By comparison, Hamas has carried out horrifying crimes against humanity, and it still targets Israeli civilians without distinction while utilizing the Gaza Strip inhabitants as human shields. It has shown complete disdain for the law, elementary considerations of humanity, and the well-being of the civilian population under its control.

The taking of hostages is strictly forbidden by international law and is considered a war crime and a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions. Crimes against humanity also include acts of systematic violence against hostages. The immediate and unconditional release of all hostages must remain a demand of all States and international organizations.