EL Salvador President Nayib Bukele of Palestinian ancestry calls Hamas ‘criminals'

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has Palestinian ancestry, decried Hamas after its attack on Israel. “The best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians,” Bukele said on the social network X, previously known as Twitter. “Anyone who supports the Palestinian cause would make a great mistake siding with those criminals.” He also compared Hamas to the MS-13 gang, which has terrorised El Salvador for years.

Israel intensified its bombardments of the Gaza Strip on Monday after declaring war and vowing to destroy the “military and governing capabilities” of the enclave’s Hamas rulers, as Israeli soldiers fought to secure the border and dislodge Gaza gunmen from areas of southern Israel, reported The Associated Press. 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. Palestinian militant groups claimed to be holding over 130 captives from the Israeli side. More than two days after Hamas launched its unprecedented incursion out of Gaza, Israeli forces were still battling militants holed up in several locations. As Monday began, the military said it was fighting Hamas in “seven to eight” places in southern Israel. Meanwhile, Israel hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza, its military said, including airstrikes that leveled much of the town of Beit Hanoun in the enclave’s northeast corner. With inputs from agencies