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Actor Hugh Sheridan is among the many Australian residents who have been forced to take shelter after Gaza's militant Hamas rulers attacked Israel by air, land and sea.

The Aussie actor took to social media to share that he was seeking refuge on a stairwell during the "brutal" attack.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed this morning no Australians had been injured or killed in the unfolding situation, but noted that could change as the situation unfolds.

READ MORE: Death toll rises after Hamas launches surprise air and ground attack from Gaza

At least 300 people have died and thousands of others are wounded in Israel, according to officials after fighting carried through the day.

Sheridan, who is staying in Tel Aviv, said everyone had been living life completely as normal just hours before the first attack.

"Life (was) completely normal in Israel. It was a big Jewish holiday yesterday, one week after new year," he said via Instagram.

"I met a family who had 150 fly in for their wedding tomorrow. We were at a BBQ yesterday with young people who at this very minute are on their way to Gaza to fight.

"A few hours later, this country is at war. Their lives have completely changed in an instant."

Sheridan said it was "unbelievable how quickly" the attack unfolded.

"My heart breaks. I'm in the stairwell so safe for now," he said.

READ MORE: 'No hope for us': Israelis shaken after shocking Hamas attack

https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1710737658362876219

Albanese has described the surprise attack by the militant group as an "abhorrent attack on Israel".

"This is indiscriminate. Civilians being targeted, killed and murdered, and as well, many of them being taken as hostages," he told ABC's Insiders program.

"Of course, people are worried about escalation, but Israel has a right to defend itself and it will be doing so.

"This has been a very dark 24 hours."

Smart Traveller advises against any travel to Gaza, and for people to reconsider travel near the Israel border.

"There's ongoing armed conflict in Southern Israel and Gaza. Rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza," the alert says.

"There have been separate terror attacks on civilians."

Without warning on Saturday, Gaza's militant Hamas rulers attacked Israel by air, land and sea.

Millions of Israelis in the country's south awoke to the searing sound of incoming rockets and the inevitable thud of impact.

Air raid sirens wailed as far north as Tel Aviv. Israel's anti-rocket interceptors thundered in Jerusalem.

In an unprecedented escalation, armed Hamas fighters blew up parts of Israel's highly fortified separation fence and strode into Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier, terrorising residents and trading fire with Israeli soldiers.

READ MORE: Hundreds dead, hostages held after deadly Hamas attack

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies were scrambling to respond to the rapidly changing events.

As the day wore on, the casualties quickly mounted. Rescue Service Zaka, an Israeli group, said at least 200 people died in southern Israel and an additional 1100 people were wounded.

At least 198 people in the Gaza Strip were killed and at least 1610 wounded amid Israel's retaliation.

Here are some key takeaways from the multi-pronged attack that has suddenly plunged Israel and Gaza into battle.

READ MORE: Biden pledges to ensure 'Israel has what it needs' after attack

Did Israelis detect the attack ahead of time?

The shock that Israelis felt on Saturday morning — on Simchat Torah, one of the most joyous days of the Jewish calendar — recalled the surprise of the 1973 Mideast war.

Practically 50 years earlier to the day, a full-scale Egyptian-Syrian attack on a Jewish holiday quickly turned into a disaster for an unprepared Israeli military.

Then, as now, Israelis had assumed that their intelligence services would be able to alert the army to any major attack or invasion well in advance. That colossal failure still haunts the legacy of then-Prime Minister Golda Meir and helped bring down the lengthy rule of the once-dominant Labor Party.

Now, the question of how the militants were able to stage such a huge and coordinated attack — which has already killed more Israelis than any single assault since the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago — without triggering Israeli intelligence concerns has already presented a major challenge to Netanyahu's ultranationalist government.

The government's supporters had expected Netanyahu and hard-line ministers with a history of anti-Arab rhetoric like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to take a particularly belligerent stance against the Palestinians and respond more forcefully to threats from militants in Gaza.

As political analysts lambast Netanyahu over the failure, and the casualty count climbs, Netanyahu risks losing control of both his government and the country.

How was Hamas able to carry out the assault?

Hamas claimed its fighters took several Israelis captive in the enclave, releasing gruesome videos of militants dragging bloodied soldiers across the ground and standing over dead bodies, some of them stripped to their underwear. It said senior Israeli military officers were among the captives.

The videos could not immediately be verified but matched geographic features of the area. Fears that Israelis had been kidnapped evoked the 2006 capture of soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas-linked militants seized in a cross-border raid. Hamas held Shalit for five years until he was exchanged for over 1000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In a dramatic escalation unseen in decades, Hamas also sent paragliders flying into Israel, the Israeli military said. The brazen attack recalled a famous assault in the late 1980s when Palestinian militants crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel on hang-gliders and killed six Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli army belatedly confirmed that soldiers and civilians were taken hostage in Gaza, but refused to provide further details.

What prompted the attack?

Hamas officials cited long-simmering sources of tension between Israel and the Palestinians, including the dispute around the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews and remains at the emotional heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.

In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.

Hamas statements have also cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands that the Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir's efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

More recently, tensions have escalated with violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza frontier. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis that has sharpened public criticism of its rule.

Some political analysts have linked Hamas' attack to current U.S.-brokered talks on normalsation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So far, reports of possible concessions to Palestinians in the negotiations have involved Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, not Gaza.

"We have always said that normalisation will not achieve security, stability, or calm," Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told the AP.

READ MORE: 'No hope for us': Israelis shaken after shocking Hamas attack

Attack comes when Israeli society is divided

The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu's proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.

The protest movement, which accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab, has bitterly divided Israeli society and unleashed turmoil within the Israeli military. Hundreds of reservists have threatened to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest at the judicial overhaul.

Reservists are the backbone of the country's army, and protests within the army ranks have raised concerns about the military's cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu on Saturday called up "an extensive mobilisation of reserve forces."

READ MORE: Two earthquakes kill dozens and injure many more in Afghanistan

What kind of cease-fire or resolution can be expected?

Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and exchanged fire numerous times since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority in 2007.

Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky.

Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues of the conflict are rarely addressed and set the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.

With its increased leverage in this round, Hamas is likely to push harder for concessions on key issues, such as easing the blockade and winning the release of prisoners held by Israel.

Israelis peeked out their windows to see terrifying scenes of armed Hamas militants outside, trying to break into their houses and shooting at anyone they saw.

Thousands of Israeli party-goers at a desert rave screamed and ran for their lives as bloodied victims collapsed around them. Family members searching for missing loved ones were shaken to recognise them in haunting social media videos showing Hamas militants taking terrified Israelis hostage.

Israel was in shock Saturday, with the unprecedented scenes of violence and chaos unfolding across the country's south seared into people's minds.

READ MORE: Hundreds dead after Hamas launches surprise air and ground attack from Gaza

Even the steely-nerved residents of communities near the Gaza Strip who have grown used to the wail of air-raid sirens described Saturday's ground assault, with fighters entering their communities in pick-up trucks, on boats and by hang-gliders, as a nightmare come true.

For Israelis working and living within range of Gaza, the sight of Hamas militants roaming outside their homes Saturday, and reports that Hamas had taken dozens of civilians and soldiers captive, marked a terrifying turn of events unlike anything residents had experienced before.

"This was always the nightmare. We told ourselves that one day, the terrorists will come inside here," said Jehan Berman, a 42-year-old in the small community of Avshalom near Gaza. It took eight hours, he said, for the Israeli military to arrive to his kibbutz and start fending off the Hamas fighters.

Berman, who suffers from multiple wounds and disabilities inflicted by the past four wars and countless other skirmishes between Israel and Hamas over the years, said Israeli authorities notified him that Hamas kidnapped his 75-year-old mother-in-law, along with several friends in their 30s and their small children.

The last time he heard from his mother-in-law was 10.30am, he said, when she called him, panicked and distraught, to say that Hamas militants had shot and killed her husband.

While the Israeli military's Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system intercepted some 90 per cent of Gaza rockets heading for populated areas, there was nothing protecting Israelis from armed militants opening fire and entering their homes.

A fortified border fence, equipped with sophisticated sensors, proved no match for the heavy explosives unleashed by Hamas militants as they burst into Israel.

This time, few residents had their usual sanguine slogans to offer about Israeli resilience and defiance. They were clearly rattled and emotional.

"I feel so incredibly violated," said 68-year-old Adele Raemer from a safe room in the southern kibbutz of Nir Am after discovering that Palestinian militants had smashed her windows while trying to break into her house.

"This is so tough for us, I don't even have the words," she said.

READ MORE: World leaders unite to condemn unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas

Israel's Channel 12 aired a string of harrowing phone call recordings by civilians trapped inside their homes as militants closed in. The callers used hushed tones to describe terrifying scenes to their loved ones.

"We can hear them, they're breaking in through the windows and there's no one here to help us," one caller said.

A son whispered to his mother that he could hear gunshots. She pleaded with him to find somewhere secure to hide. Another caller told her relative she wasn't sure whether she would get out safely. "I love you, I love you," she said.

News of the surprise invasion, with its haunting echoes of the 1973 Mideast War, sent millions of Israelis rushing to bomb shelters. Some in hard-hit communities were evacuated to protected spaces farther north.

Families who huddled in their basements had little idea what was unfolding above them but heard deeply disturbing sounds, not just the usual shriek of rockets and muffled bangs of explosions, they said, but the loud crackling of gunfire that indicated fighters were on the ground, and getting closer.

"We are too scared to go out (from the shelter) even for a second to get water or food or use the bathroom because we know they are still fighting out there," said Janet Cwaigenbaum, a 57-year-old in the southern kibbutz of Nir Yitzhak.

READ MORE: Man dead after 'targeted' shooting at Melbourne shopping centre car park

She said her neighbours had shared photos of bodies lying in the streets and their homes trashed by militants, the walls covered in red graffiti of Hamas slogans.

"I've lived here for so long that I know what to do within 15 seconds of hearing an alarm," she said. "But today was different. It was the hardest day of my life."

The biggest shock of all, residents said, came from footage on social media that showed fighters taking Israeli soldiers and civilians captive.

The military confirmed Hamas' claims that it had captured a number of Israelis, declining to comment on how many but saying it was "significant."

One blurred-out video showed Hamas fighters shouting at an Israeli family, including terrified young children on the floor, held hostage in their own living room.

"I will not kill you," the fighter could be heard yelling in broken English while gunfire sounded.

READ MORE: Twin boys open up on surviving Melbourne school bus crash

Other footage captured moments of terror and desperation: Hamas fighters paraded a disoriented-looking elderly woman in a golf cart down a dusty Gaza street while Palestinian crowds cheered.

Israeli civilians were led into Gaza, crammed into the back of a pick-up truck with their heads down and hands tied.

A gray-haired Israeli woman was sandwiched on a motorbike between a driver in a flak jacket and a man with a rifle. An Israeli captive swaddled in a sheet like a mummy cowered among militants on a golf cart.

Some Israelis found out from videos on social media that their loved ones were missing.

Such was the case for Moshe Or, who discovered his brother was captured by Hamas after seeing footage of him being led into Gaza alongside his wailing girlfriend. In an interview with Channel 12, Or expressed anger at Israeli authorities, who he said never contacted his family about the kidnapping.

READ MORE: Australia's worst alleged sex offender attacked in prison

Moment of impact

The awful realisation of the attack came at different times for Israelis.

Some 3000 Israelis at a desert rave came under attack. Witnesses told Israeli media that Hamas militants sprayed bullets into the crowd of revelers, who just moments earlier had been drinking, laughing and dancing.

Videos showed Israelis racing across vast open fields and taking cover in orchards. Channel 12 said the bodies of dozens of party-goers had been recovered.

In the kibbutz of Kfar Azza near the Gaza frontier, at least six young people lay lifeless in pools of blood, according to videos captured shortly after Palestinian militants left the area. At a bus shelter in the south, at least nine bloodied bodies were sprawled out on stretchers.

Berman, the war-wounded resident of Avshalom, said he was still struggling to grasp the attack's staggering toll. While reaching out to his loved ones to find out if they were safe and trying to distract his son in the bomb shelter, he said felt a deep grief — not only for his missing mother-in-law and friends, but for Israelis and Palestinians.

"I'm sad because I know there is no hope," he said.

"There is no hope for us, or kids in Palestine or this whole region."

An Australian expat has described the moment she had to wake up her three children and seek shelter in a bunker after one of the deadliest attacks on Israelis in decades.

Emily Gian, who has been living in Yehud, about 18km from Tel Aviv, for the past three months told Weekend Today she had never experienced violence like this before.

Hamas militants fired thousands of rockets in an unprecedented attack on residents living in Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip yesterday.

READ MORE: Gunfire, rockets and carnage: Israelis are stunned and shaken by unprecedented Hamas attack

At least 250 deaths have been recorded, and more than 1500 people are wounded, according to Israeli media.

Gian, who currently remains in the bunker, said it had been a "terrifying night" for her family.

"We were woken in the morning by red alert sirens, which gives us 30 seconds to get down to a bomb shelter," she told Weekend Today.

READ MORE: Hundreds dead after Hamas launches surprise air and ground attack from Gaza

"We have spent the day staying as close to there as possible. We have been glued to the news and our phones trying to hear stuff from friends across the country.

"We are safe at the moment but we have three kids. They are sleeping (with us), because they didn't want to sleep in their bed

"It's pretty terrifying."

The Israeli military said about 2200 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel, while armed terror groups infiltrated into Israel by land, sea and air – in paragliders.

Multiple explosions were heard over Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and in southern Israel.

READ MORE: US President pledges to ensure 'Israel has what it needs'

Footage circulating social media showing the aftermath of the attack was shocking, Gian said.

"I have visited here many times and have been here through various different phases but never anything like this," Gian said.

"Everything that has unfolded on the news with ladies being dragged out of their houses and mothers holding their children also being dragged across the street – I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime.

"I have been writing about Israel for over 20 years and I have never seen anything like this."

Militant Hamas carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel, launching thousands of rockets and fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations.