Israel is at war with Hamas following an unprecedented attack of rocket and ground assault by Hamas militants who broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip early Saturday morning, striking five Israeli cities, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Officials say at least 900 people have been killed in Israel, including at least 11 Americans.

And more than 550 Palestinians have died, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Hamas has also claimed more than 100 civilian hostages.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded immediately, formally declaring war, ordering a full siege of the Gaza Strip and vowing to turn parts of Gaza, quote, into rubble.

Israel is pounding Gaza with airstrikes.

The United Nations says Palestinian civilians are trapped and helpless in the bloody conflict.

The White House today authorized military aid to support Israel and deployed aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean Sea in an effort to stabilize the region.

New Jersey's U.S.

Senator Cory Booker was in Jerusalem for official meetings when the attacks occurred.

He posted a video to social media that he departed safely.

New Jersey, though, is home to some of the largest Jewish and Palestinian communities in the U.S. with deep economic ties and direct government relations.

Organizers from both sides of the conflict are planning rallies throughout New Jersey this week.

Governor Murphy and other top leaders in the state are pledging their solidarity with Israel.

Haggai Matar is a journalist in Tel Aviv who's long reported on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

And he joins me now with the latest hug.

I just want to thank you for taking a few minutes to speak with me.

Talk to me about what you've been witnessing in the last 48 hours, the sights, the sounds.

Are you safe?

I live in Tel Aviv, which means we have had some sirens and some explosions and some direct hits from rockets from Gaza.

Not too far from here.

But thankfully, I.

My family are safe right now.

The worst of what has been happening has been happening down south where we are now hearing over 800 Israelis were killed, many of them in massacres in their homes or at a music festival.

And about 100 abducted.

And also in Gaza, where since the middle of the day yesterday, there's been ongoing bombardment that has killed so far about 500 Palestinians.

This, by and large, is being described as a surprise attack.

But was it unprovoked?

Well, I think it was a surprising indeed.

There was no leader in the sense of a direct warning, as we have seen in previous incidents.

At the same time, I think it would be wrong to call it unilateral or unprovoked in the sense that Israel has been maintaining a siege of the Gaza Strip for many, many years, almost 20 years now, and ongoing occupation in the West Bank with apartheid policies throughout the country.

And that reality we're in.

Palestinians are regularly exposed to violence from Israel, where Palestinian families are also massacred by Israel, occasionally, especially in Gaza.

These things are things that happen to Palestinians on a regular basis.

And in that sense, it was not unprovoked, although still a war crime and deeply, deeply unjustified.

I mean, you've you've written pretty extensively about the terror that you and your colleagues or family are feeling is really a sliver of what Palestine means, the peril Palestinians have been living under for decades now.

Yes.

Like I said, it's a reality we're in within this very leading conflict that has taken so much of a toll also on Israelis.

The toll on Palestinians from day to day of living under occupation, of siege, which is a huge toll over for the entire society.

And on top of that, just the death toll on the Palestinian side is exponentially larger than on the Israeli side and specifically in the context of Gaza.

In the previous wars, we've seen a casualty ratio of about one to 101 to 200 or even more, where thanks to the Iron Dome and all sorts of mechanisms Israel has.

The rockets fired from Gaza are rarely as little as the aerial bombardment that Israel is initiating within Gaza today or the past couple of days have been the exception of that.

The very painful, terrible, dreadful exception to that, where for the first time in many years we have been feeling what it is like to be exposed, to have absolutely no defenses facing these massacres.

It feels different this time.

I mean, you had Prime Minister Netanyahu come out right away declaring this award.

Does it not feel different from your perspective as well, this this conflict?

It feels very different.

Like I said, I mean, the experience of being defenseless is something that I think we are not used to.

We are used to the occasional death as part of the resistance due to apartheid.

It is a reality that we live with.

But we also feel that there are people there defending us.

I think that that feeling, that sense of security has been just obliterated over the past few days.

The understanding that, you know, hundreds and some say thousands of people in Gaza from Gaza could have sworn into Israel and kill people in their homes and abduct people.

Is a sense of defense witness that Israelis have not felt, I think, in decades?

The White House, Hagai has said that it will send military aid aid in a number of ways.

What's the sense there?

Is there frustration about that rather than the White House setting up, say, negotiations or peace talks?

I think for the vast majority of Israelis right now, the focus is on the military response and not, say, military revenge.

That is a very strong motivation for many people.

You can hear it in TV studios.

The one thing people are talking about is, you know, we need to flatten Gaza.

We need to cause destruction in Gaza.

Netanyahu's promise was to cause more harm and more pain in Gaza than in any of the previous wars.

And just as a reminder, we've seen some of those wars with thousands of casualties on the Palestinian side.

So Netanyahu's promised to do even worse than that.

It is truly terrifying.

And I think that's unfortunately where most Israelis are at right now.

And in that sense, the US has been complicit in all these wars by offering that support throughout the years.

I think right now with the U.S. sending support, there is the angle of defense and stopping the attack on Israeli communities that needs to be stopped.

I hope that we can quickly turn away from the path of violence that solves nothing, as we've seen with these recurring rounds of brutalities and turn to, first of all, releasing the captives and a prisoner exchange program between the two sides that will hopefully lead to a shift in consciousness and a realization that only through negotiations and peace can we actually offer ourselves and our neighbors justice and security.

Haggai Matar is a board member of the Union of Journalists in Israel.

He's also the executive director of nine seven to magazine.

Hagai, thank you so much.

And you are in our thoughts and you very much for having me.