Two members of the US Congress were stuck in Israel but managed to escape unharmed as Hamas militants stormed the country over the weekend, their office said.
Senator Cory Booker, who was scheduled to speak on Tuesday in Israel, was in the country for planned meetings, site visits, and an economic summit, his office said on Sunday. He and accompanying staffers were in Jerusalem when the attacks began. They were “sheltered in place for their safety”, his spokesperson said.
The senator was “able to safely depart Israel” on Sunday.
Mr Booker took to social media to detail how he learned that Israel “was under attack”.
The senator said he was jogging in Jerusalem’s Old City when he received an “urgent call from my chief of staff telling me to get back to the hotel as quickly as I could – that Israel was under attack. There were thousands of rockets being launched”.
“When I got back to the hotel I joined others in the bomb shelter or the stairwells,” he said, adding that there were “frightened faces”.
“There were children and elderly, families, many Americans. There was a sense of fear and worry, and a knowledge to many of us that there were horrific things going on,” he said in the video.
Democrat leader Daniel Goldman, his wife, and their three youngest children were also in Israel for a Bar Mitzvah on Sunday when the missile attacks and bombing rocked the middle-eastern country, his spokesperson said in a statement.
“Congressman Goldman and his family sheltered from Hamas rocket fire in their hotel’s interior stairwell until early Sunday morning, when they were able to safely depart for New York,” his spokesperson said.
The Democratic lawmaker managed to get out of the country with help from the State Department and Israeli authorities, the statement added.
The Israeli government on Sunday formally declared war and approved “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas for its surprise attack, as the military laboured into Monday to crush fighters in southern towns and intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
The toll passed 1,100 dead and thousands wounded on both sides. More than 123,000 people have become displaced in the Gaza Strip, the UN said on Monday.
Over 40 hours after the Hamas launched its unprecedented incursion out of Gaza, Israeli forces were still battling with militants holed up in several locations.
At least 700 people have reportedly been killed in Israel – a staggering toll on a scale the country has not experienced in decades – and more than 400 have been killed in Gaza.
