'A senseless act of violence': Australian Galit Carbone's death in Israel has been confirmed.

The federal government has offered its condolences to the family of a Sydney-born woman killed by Islamic militants in Israel.

Grandmother Galit Carbone, 66, was murdered at the Be'eri kibbutz after the terrorist group Hamas launched deadly land and air attacks on Israel's southern border on Saturday.

She had reportedly raised her three children and previously worked as a librarian in the settlement, just kilometres from the Gaza Strip.

She is the first known Australian victim to have died during the current conflict.

"This is heartbreaking news," Home Affair Minister Clare O'Neil told Sunrise on Wednesday.

"What's happened here is a senseless act of violence ... and the Australian government condemns it in the strongest possible terms.

"I say to the Jewish community, we're standing with you, wrapping our arms around and you and I express my deepest condolences for what has happened."

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong is leading efforts by the government to help the estimated 10,000 Australian residents or travellers in Israel who want to leave.

More than 1000 people are dead after the Islamist group Hamas attacked Israeli towns from the Palestinian territories.

The dead were overwhelmingly civilians who were gunned down in homes, on streets and at an outdoor dance party.

Scores of Israelis and some foreigners were captured and taken to Gaza as hostages.

News Corp has reported mother of two Adi Kaplon, the daughter-in-law of an Australian man, and her two young sons are being held hostage by Hamas.

The Australian government has not confirmed any hostages.

On Monday, Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida threatened to execute one civilian hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning. 

"We announce that every targeting of our people who are safe in their homes without warning, we will regretfully meet with the execution of our enemy's civilian hostages," Obeida said. He threatened that executions would be broadcast "in audio and video".

Soon after, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that "what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations".

An estimated 150 people were reportedly captured by Hamas following the group's attacks on Israel.

Reports and video out of the conflict zone show women, children and seniors among them.

Civilian Yoni Asher said he had seen video of gunmen seizing his wife Doron and two young daughters Raz and Aviv, after she took them to visit her mother.

"My two little girls, they're only babies. They're not even five years old and three years old," he told Reuters.

 Doron and her two young daughters, Raz and Aviv. Image: X.

He told the New York Times he received a phonecall from his wife on Saturday morning, whispering down the line that they were huddled in her mother's safe room.

"She told me, 'There are terrorists inside the house,'" he said.

He said he had not heard from his family since, but later saw them being kidnapped in a video circulating on social media.

In other footage, 25-year-old Noa Argamani is seen being taken away on a motorcycle. Her partner Avi Nathan is seen being held back as she is taken away.

Both had been attending the Supernova music festival in Southern Israel, where militants killed more than 260 people.

"We were worried and tried to call. His phone was unavailable and so was hers," said Nathan's brother Moshe in an interview with Channel 12 News.

"I saw Noa looking scared and frightened in the video. I can't imagine what's going through her mind – screaming in panic, when some scumbags are holding her and not letting her go."

Her father Yaakov told CBS News he wanted to get his daughter back "by peaceful measures".

"We need to act with sensitivity," he said. "They also have mothers who are crying. The same as it is for us." 

One of the weekend's most viral videos purportedly showed Hamas fighters driving down the street with a naked woman being paraded in the back of a ute.

She has been identified by family members as Shani Louk, a German tattoo artist and dual citizen who refused to take part in Israel's mandatory military service.

"This is my sister Shani Louk... She [was] taken by Hamas... She is a German citizen," Adi Louk wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Their mother shared a video message online asking for more details about her daughter's wellbeing.

The mother of Shani Louk, the woman whose body was seen on video in the back of a pick-up truck driven by Palestinian terrorists to Gaza, released a statement earlier today.

She confirmed she had seen her daughter on the video & asked the public for help with more information pic.twitter.com/LDcPsjGHP8

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 8, 2023

Photos from AP show several other hostages being taken from Kibbutz Kfar Azza, a village about five kilometres east of Gaza.

In one photo, an elderly woman with a pink blanket sits in a gold buggy surrounded by heavily armed Hamas soldiers.

85-year-old Yafa Adar, captured by soldiers. Image: AAP.

An Israeli woman named Adva posted on social media that the image showed her 85-year-old grandmother, Yafa Adar.

Adva told Reuters she was concerned her grandmother's condition would rapidly deteriorate without her usual medication.

"I have a hope that they will understand that these people have done nothing wrong," Adva said. "I hope they treat them okay. Please bring them back home for us. They have done nothing wrong."

In other photos from Kibbutz Kfar Azza, a woman in a red shirt sits between Hamas soldiers on a motorcycle, and a third person is transported while covered in a white sheet.

Image: AAP.

Unverified footage circulating from Gaza also shows an Israeli child being threatened by children and a woman being dragged from the boot of a Jeep by a gunman.

In retaliation for the weekend's Hamas attacks, Israeli air strikes hit housing blocks, tunnels, a mosque and homes of Hamas officials in Gaza, killing more than 370 people, including 20 children, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed "mighty vengeance for this black day".

"This is my fifth war. The war should stop. I don't want to keep feeling this," said Qassab al-Attar, a Palestinian wheelchair user in Gaza whose brothers carried him to shelter when Israeli forces shelled their house.

Gaza authorities said more than 680 people had been killed and thousands more wounded in the Israeli strikes.

More than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have sought refuge in schools run by the United Nations, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency said.

In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, people searched through the remains of a mosque early on Sunday.

"We ended the night prayers and suddenly the mosque was bombed. They terrorised the children, the elderly and women," resident Ramez Hneideq said.

The escalation comes against a backdrop of surging violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian authority exercises limited self-rule, opposed by Hamas, which wants Israel destroyed.

Conditions in the West Bank have worsened under Netanyahu's religious-nationalist government, with more Israeli raids and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages, and the Palestinian Authority called for an emergency Arab League meeting.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the assault that began in Gaza would spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Gazans have lived under an Israeli-led blockade for 16 years, since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.

"How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognise the rights of our people?" Haniyeh questioned.

-With AAP.

Feature image: Instagram/AAP.