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– They burned everything, and made sure that no one got out alive. You can see the brutality. Just see for yourself.
The Israeli soldier Ayal Avriel stands in the middle of a press corps in Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
The small farming community was one of 27 places in Israel taken over when Hamas entered the country on Saturday.
The smell of the dead hangs in the air here on Tuesday.
Israeli soldiers collect the bodies from Kibbutz Kfar Azza in body bags.
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are liberating more and more kibbutzim and villages. The chaos that has unfolded inside is revealed continuously.
In Kfar Azza, fighting continued until Tuesday morning, when the IDF regained control.
– This is not over. We do not know if we have cleared all the areas. We expect and prepare for the next match, says Avriel to Reuters, among others.
– Didn’t stop shooting
The Israeli soldiers count the bodies in Kfar Azza.
Pictures and little bits of detail from here have arrived over the weekend, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that you could see the extent.
The kibbutz near the border with Gaza consists of neighborhoods with small houses and green gardens under palm trees. Around 1,000 Israelis live and farm together in Kfar Azza.
Israeli soldiers carry a corpse in Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
One of them is Avidor Schwartzman. Like many other Israelis, he woke up early Saturday morning to the sound of rockets.
They are basically used to that. An hour later, however, he received an SMS from the kibbutz management that it was dangerous to be outside.
An Israeli soldier rescues a small dog from Kfar Azza.
Photo: Erik Marmor / AP
Believing that a militia or two had entered the area, he sought shelter.
The next 18 hours consisted of “complete and paralyzing terror”, says Schartzman to Reuters.
– They did not stop shooting at our house. I heard people speaking Arabic. And all the time: shooting. We heard what sounded like automatic fire.
Empty casings and dripping blood on a mattress testify to the drama that has unfolded in Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Together with his wife and daughter, he lay quietly and waited. Only when the Israeli soldiers came and rescued them did he see the extent of the massacre.
– It looked like a mixture of a war zone and pure hell. Bodies and bullet holes everywhere. And my wife’s parents are gone.
Infants among the killed
Schwartzman struggles to understand why the Hamas fighters entered the quiet neighborhood apparently “just to kill people.”
– Please stop this bloodshed, he asks.
It is unclear how many were killed in Kfar Azza.
The soldier Avriel is clearly affected when he talks to the press.
– Most were students with small families. The average age here is between 18 and 25. And this neighborhood was brutally attacked and people slaughtered.
The bodies of Hamas soldiers are also strewn in Kfar Azza.
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Several of those killed are said to have been beheaded, writes Reuters.
Major General Itai Veruv goes on to say:
– You see babies, mothers and fathers in their bedrooms, in their shelters, and how the terrorists have killed them. This is not a war, it is not a battlefield – this is a massacre, an act of terror.
Israeli soldiers take in the destruction in the normally idyllic Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Several were also taken as hostages from Kfar Azza back to Gaza.
85-year-old Yaffa Adar went around the world when the video of her being kidnapped went viral on social media.
– I can’t imagine how scared she is. She is 85 years old, sick and does not have her medication. Without the medicine, she is in a lot of pain, said her granddaughter, Adva Adar, to NRK on Sunday.
Over 100 drept i Be’eri
On Tuesday, the soldiers work on explosives in Kfar Azza to retrieve the bodies of the killed residents.
Several houses have been burnt down. The work is painstaking, because the Hamas fighters have placed so-called booby traps, or trip traps.
Killed Hamas fighters lie in several places indoors and outdoors in Kfar Azza.
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Several other kibbutzim were also badly hit in the Hamas attacks.
When the defense and the press gained access to Be’eri on Monday, it became clear that over 100 were killed there.
The traces of blood on the floor in one hallway bear witness to the massive violence that was carried out there.
Yoni Asher has told NRK how he heard Hamas fighters razing the house of his mother-in-law in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the phone with his wife.
His wife, mother-in-law and his two daughters were then taken to Gaza as hostages.
Traces of blood in Kibbutz Kfar Azza show the brutality that took place.
Photo: Reuters
2023-10-10 20:09:46
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