JERUSALEM: Palestinian fighters shocked the world on Saturday, launching a daring attack by land, sea and air against targets across Israel, nearly 50 years on from the day when Egyptian and Syrian forces tried to reclaim territory annexed during the war of 1967.

The incursion, which took Tel Aviv completely by surprise, was met with a brutal response as the occupying state responded with a heavy air strike campaign on targets mostly civilian buildings in Gaza.

At least 232 people were killed in the Israeli strikes on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, while Israel estimated the number of deaths to be 200. The toll on both sides is expected to rise.

Hamas has fought four wars against Israel since coming to power in 2007. But the scenes of violence inside Israel itself were unlike anything seen since the suicide bombings of the Palestinian Intafada uprising two decades ago.

The day began with a Hamas rocket barrage on targets across southern Israel, with sirens heard as far away as Tel Aviv and Beersheba. Hamas said it had fired 5,000 rockets in a first salvo, some of which bypassed the Iron Dome defence system and hit buildings.

The barrage served as coverfor an unprecedented multi-pronged infiltration by hundreds of fighters, most of whom crossed through breaches in land security barriersseparating Gaza and Israel.

Some fighters were also seen crossing on a powered parachute while a motorboat was filmed heading to Zikim, an Israeli coastal town that houses a military base.

Israel was caught completely off guard amid one of the worst intelligence failures in its history, a shock to a nation that boasts of its intensive infiltration and monitoring of Palestinians.Hamas labelled its attack `Operation Al-Aqsa Flood` and called on `resistance fighters in the West Bank` as well as in `Arab and Islamic nations` to join the battle.

The group said the attack was driven by Israel`s escalated attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and violence against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

`We decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation,` the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Prisoners and captured bases Israel`s military claimed that Palestinian fighters had penetrated atleastthreemilitaryinstallations around the frontier the Erez border crossing, the Zikim base and the Gaza division headquarters at Reim.Hamas videos showed fighters running towards a burning building near a high concrete wall with a watchtower and fighters apparently overrunning part of an Israeli military facility and shooting from behind a wall.

Several captured Israeli military vehicles were later pictured being driven into Gaza and paraded there.

Hamas deputy chief Saleh alArouri told Al Jazeera that the group was holding a large number of Israelis captive, including senior officials. He said Hamas had enough captives to make Israel free all Palestinians in its jails.

Israeli media has reported that the fighters have taken prisoners in various places, such as Ofakim and Beeri, two communities in the Negev desert east of Gaza. Islamic Jihad aslo said it was holding several Israeli soldiers captive and Hamas social media accounts also posted footage appearing to show captives being taken alive into Gaza.

By mid-morning, Israel`s police chief Yaacov Shabtai said forces were engaging fighters in 21 locations and at 1.30 pm the military said troops were still working to clear communities that had been overrun by fighters. Even late on Saturday night, the Israeli militaryclaimeditwasstillfighting `hundreds` of Palestinian fighters.

AFP journalists said they witnessed attackers gather around a burning Israeli tank, and others driving a seized Israeli military Humvee back into Gaza, where they were met by cheering crowds.

Hamas videos and unverified images circulating on social media showed dead civilians, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters.

Another video showed fighters dragging at least two Israeli soldiers from a military vehicle.

Bodies were seen lying on the streets of Sderot near Gaza and inside cars, their windscreens shattered by bullets.

By nightfall on Saturday in southern Israel, residents had yet to be given the all-clear to leave the shelters where they had hidden from the fighters since the early hours.

Destruction in Gaza By contrast, hundreds of people fle d their homes in northern Gaza, carrying food and blankets as black smoke and orange flames billowed into the evening sky from a high rise tower hit by an Israeli retaliatory strike.

An AFP journalist in Gaza saw smoke billowing from the remains of a residential tower which Gaza`s interior ministrysaid contained 100 apartments and was completely destroyed.

Crowds of mourners carriedthe bodies of freshly killed fighters through the streets, wrapped in green Hamas flags.Gaza`s dead and wounded were carried into crumbling and overcrowded hospitalswith severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment.

The aid group Doctors with-out Borders said one strike had hit the enclave`s Indonesian hospital and an ambulance out-side Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, causing multiple deaths.

Streets were deserted apart from ambulances racing to the scenes of air strikes.

As night fell, Israel`s staterun electricity company cut the power supply to Gaza.

Israeli posturing `We are at war,` Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the stunned nation. `Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known,` he said.

`The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,` the veteran premier vowed.

He warned Palestinians living near Hamas sites in Gaza to leave as he vowed to turn its hideouts into `rubble` followingthe surprise attack.

`All the places in which Hamas is based, in this city of evil, all the places Hamas is hiding in, acting from we`ll turn them into rubble,` he said.

`I`m telling the people of Gaza: get out of there now, because we`re about to act everywhere with all our force,` he said in a brief televised statement.

He vowed to avenge what he said was a `black day` for Israel, saying the army will strike back at Hamas in Gaza with full force.

`The IDF (army) is about to use all its force to destroy Hamas`s capabilities, Netanyahu said.

`We`ll strike them to the bitter end and avenge with force this black day they brought on Israel and its people,` he said.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said: `It`s a war crime committed by Hamas and they will pay the price.

-Agencies