The attack out of Gaza at dawn by rockets, commandos with bulldozers, hang gliders and small boats came as a total surprise. By dusk at least 300 had been killed, Palestinian and Israeli, and thousands injured and displaced.
As night fell, Israeli bombed more buildings in Gaza City, trying to strike the military headquarters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who must have been planning the offensive for months. But no one in the Israeli Defence Forces, intelligence and domestic security arms, Shinbet, seemed to have an inkling of what was in the wind.
