KFAR AZA, Israel, Oct 10 (Portal) – A baby’s crushed crib lies outside a burned-out house. Bodies scattered on the streets. Body bags lined up on an outdoor basketball court. The stench of death everywhere.
Just a few days ago, this was the sleepy, picturesque kibbutz of Kfar Aza, an Israeli farming community of about 750 residents, many of them families with small children. Now it has become a charnel house after Hamas gunmen broke out of Gaza on Saturday and laid waste to the village.
“Mothers, fathers, babies, young families who were killed in their beds, in the shelter, in the dining room, in their garden,” Israeli Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv said on Tuesday, the veteran soldier visibly shaken as the troops closed the door door went. Door to collect the bodies of residents killed in their homes.
“It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre,” Veruv said. Some victims were beheaded, he added. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve served for 40 years.”
Kfar Aza, just 3 km from the Gaza Strip, was among the communities hardest hit by the Hamas attack on southern Israel, which Israeli officials said killed at least 1,000 people, mostly civilians, in their homes, on the streets or were shot at a dance festival.
Israeli retaliatory strikes have killed at least 830 Gazans and leveled entire districts, according to Palestinian officials.
Kfar Aza attack survivor Avidor Schwartzman said he hid with his wife and one-year-old daughter in the safe room of their home for more than 20 hours before being rescued by Israeli soldiers and resurfacing to face one to present a scene of “pure hell”.
“There were bodies everywhere. Bodies everywhere,” said the 38-year-old. “We saw our little piece of paradise, our little piece of heaven, completely burnt – burnt and covered in blood.”
Armed men break through the kibbutz fence
On Tuesday, Israeli forces led foreign press through the kibbutz, where ruins of burned-out houses littered the streets, littered with dead residents and militants, torched cars and piles of broken furniture and other debris.
As of Tuesday evening, there was no official death toll at Kibbutz Kfar Aza as Israeli soldiers were still searching houses they suspect were booby-trapped.
[1/7]An Israeli soldier walks past a damaged building in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel on October 10. Portal/Ronen Zvulun acquire license rights
The local military spokesman said at least dozens of residents were killed in the attack. She added that the military had not yet reconstructed the exact sequence of events and that fighting did not fully end until late Monday.
The Hamas gunmen rammed the kibbutz’s fence, possibly with the help of an earth-moving machine, clearing the way for dozens of other gunmen to enter through the breach, she said.
The militants also arrived on motorcycles and a hang glider, the spokesman added. Veruv, the major general, put the total number of armed men who entered the kibbutz at about 70.
Waves of attackers armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades stormed the village, a reserve soldier told Portal, declining to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Some of the militants’ bodies could still be seen on the streets around the kibbutz, wearing black shirts, khaki pants and army vests. One still had a pistol in his hand.
“Our Worst Nightmares”
Schwartzman told Portal that he was awakened by the roaring sounds of rockets around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday and that he and his family moved to their safe room an hour later after receiving a kibbutz-wide text message telling them it was dangerous to stay outside.
“We heard gunfire and were essentially barricaded for 21 hours until the army rescued us,” said his wife, Keren Flash. “We kept hearing shots, shots, bombs and alarms and we just didn’t know what was happening. Our worst nightmares.”
Soldiers still secured the kibbutz’s streets, once neatly lined with palm trees, banana trees and one-story houses with porches.
In front of a house, the body of a resident lay covered by a purple bedsheet with a bare foot sticking out of it, as if he were just sleeping. Next to it was a pillow with other utensils from her everyday life.
Gunshots and explosions could be heard in the distance. Jets could be heard from above and smoke could be seen rising from Gaza. Sirens warned of incoming missiles intercepted overhead.
A soldier shouted, “Tell the world what you saw here.”
Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Additional reporting by Janis Laizans and Emily Rose; Writing by Michael Geordie; Editing by Pravin Char
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