by Ilana Freedman, America Outloud:

When Israelis were awakened early Saturday morning to the sound of bombs, guns, and breaking glass, it was a wake-up call to the world. Hamas was out of control. In the hours that followed, some 2,500 fully armed terrorists descended on 22 southern Israeli towns and brutally and sadistically massacred 1,300 men, women, and children, including the elderly and even newborn babies. They visited atrocities on their bodies, mutilating them, decapitating them, burning them alive, and photographing them as trophies. And if that were not enough, they dragged off more than 200 men, women, and children into Gaza to be hostages. It was the worst assault against Jews since the Nazi holocaust, and it may well mark the opening salvo of a much wider war – perhaps the beginning of World War III.