Kfar Aza, Israel
CNN
—
Bodies of Israeli residents and Palestinian attackers lay outside burned-out homes in the Israeli kibbutz Kfar Aza on Tuesday, days after Hamas launched a large-scale surprise assault on Israel.
Hamas sent waves of heavily armed fighters pouring across the border from Gaza and rampaging through rural communities – Israel said it found 1,500 bodies of militants in the aftermath of the assault.
Houses in Kfar Aza were ransacked and set ablaze. Overturned mattresses, destroyed furniture, broken trinkets and unexploded grenades lay strewn across the grounds, along with bodies – a window into the scale of devastation wrought by Hamas in this area.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my career, never in 40 years of service this something I never imagined,” Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv told CNN on Tuesday, just a few hours after Israeli troops secured the kibbutz from Hamas assailants.
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In Kfar Aza, the IDF was going house to house, collecting the dead in body bags and loading them onto a truck. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN that women, children, toddlers and elderly were “brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action.”
Kfar Aza is one of the several kibbutzim, small farming enclaves, that bore the brunt of Hamas’ ground assault on Saturday. A number of kibbutzim and towns were targeted, including Kfar Aza, Be’eri, Ofakim, Sderot, Yad Mordechai, Yated, Kissufim and Urim. Revelers at a music festival held in the desert outside of Be’eri were also gunned down and taken hostage.
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Smoke rises after Israeli strikes on the seaport of Gaza City on October 10.
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Palestinians mourn during the funeral of a relative killed in an Israeli strike, in Gaza City on October 10.
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Israeli soldiers take position in Kfar Aza near the border with Gaza on October 10.
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Palestinians rescue a young girl from the rubble of a destroyed residential building following an Israeli airstrike on October 10.
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Stranded travelers wait to be booked on a flight at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv on October 10.
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Palestinians walk amid the rubble following Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 10.
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Israelis in Ashkelon take cover in a shelter as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets on October 10.
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People gather around the bodies of two Palestinian reporters, Mohammed Soboh and Said al-Tawil, who were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 10.
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Israelis mourn as they attend the funeral of Israel Defense Forces soldier Noam Elimeleh Rothenberg at Mount Herzel Cemetery in Jerusalem, on October 10.
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A Palestinian man reacts as he carries the body of his cousin who was pulled from the rubble after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Monday, October 9.
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A family takes shelter at a neighbor’s house after their home was damaged in an Israeli airstrike in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza on October 9.
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Children run for cover as bombs fall near the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on October 9.
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A photo from a wedding is seen on the ground of a building in Ashkelon that was hit by rockets from Gaza on October 9.
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People take shelter in Jerusalem on October 9.
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The ruins of the Yassin mosque are seen in the Shati refugee camp just outside Gaza City on October 9.
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Friends and relatives of Ilai Bar Sade mourn next to his grave during his funeral at a military cemetery in Tel Aviv, Israel, on October 9.
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Six-month-old Sama Alwadia is rescued from the rubble in Gaza City on October 9. Though the child had survived the initial strike, she died later while being treated for her injuries.
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Lightning strikes over Gaza City following an Israeli bombardment on October 9.
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Israeli soldiers take position near the border between Gaza and Israel on October 9.
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A Palestinian man mourns over the body of his nephew killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 9.
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Israeli security and emergency officials respond after a rocket landed in the Israeli settlement of Beitar Ilit, in the occupied West Bank, on October 9.
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Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the Sousi mosque in Gaza City on October 9.
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Israeli soldiers work on a tank at the border between Israel and Gaza on October 9.
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Palestinians remove a body from the rubble of a building after an Israeli airstrike on the Jebaliya refugee camp in Gaza on October 9.
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A plume of smoke rises in the sky over Gaza City during an Israeli airstrike on October 9.
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The mother of Israeli Col. Roi Levy cries during her son’s funeral at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on October 9.
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Palestinians inspect damage from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp on October 9.
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An injured Palestinian child is pictured in the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes at al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza on October 9.
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Israelis view a damaged residential building in Ashkelon after it was hit by a rocket fired from Gaza on October 9.
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Tali Touito reacts as she describes how Hamas gunmen attacked and took over the police station on her street, in Sderot, Israel, on Sunday, October 8.
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Fire and smoke rise from Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike on October 8.
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A relative of an Israeli missing since the attacks is overcome by emotion during a press conference in Ramat Gan, Israel, on October 8.
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Palestinians inspect a mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, Gaza, on October 8.
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An Israeli soldier prays standing in front of a tank on the outskirts of the northern town of Kiryat Shmona on October 8.
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Israelis inspect the rubble of a building in Tel Aviv on October 8, a day after it was hit by a rocket fired from Gaza.
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Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from Gaza on October 8.
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Palestinians search the rubble of a home in Khan Younis that was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes on October 8.
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Palestinian citizens inspect damage to their homes caused by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 8.
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Rockets launched from Gaza are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system on October 8.
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Palestinian children look toward the sky at the sound of airstrikes at a United Nations-run school in Gaza on Saturday, October 7.
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A woman runs to her family’s reinforced concrete shelter moments after rocket sirens sounded in Ashkelon on October 7.
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From the window of his family’s apartment, a man surveys damage from a rocket that struck a parking lot in Ashkelon on October 7.
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Palestinians gather around an Israeli army vehicle that Palestinian militants drove from Israel into Gaza on October 7.
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Palestinians break into the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, after gunmen infiltrated parts of southern Israel on October 7.
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Police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket in Ashkelon on October 7.
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Israeli police take cover in Ashkelon as sirens wail while rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel on October 7.
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Smoke rises over Gaza during Israeli airstrikes on October 7.
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An Israeli woman reacts over the body of her relative who was killed in the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 7.
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Children are seen in a damaged house in Gaza after Israeli airstrikes on October 7.
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Vehicles in Ashkelon burn as rockets are launched from Gaza on October 7.
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A man in Ashkelon runs after rockets were launched from Gaza on October 7.
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Israelis donate blood in Jerusalem on October 7.
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Palestinians inspect a destroyed building as emergency responders try to contain fires after Israeli jets bombed Gaza on October 7.
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Outside of a hospital in Gaza, men sit next to the covered body of a Palestinian militant killed during Saturday’s clashes.
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Relatives of Palestinians killed on Saturday, October 7, mourn at the morgue of a hospital in Gaza.
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An Israeli soldier stands by the bodies of Israelis killed by Palestinian militants in Sderot on October 7.
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A woman stands in a room damaged by rockets in Ashkelon on October 7.
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A building in Tel Aviv is ablaze Saturday, October 7, following rocket attacks from Gaza.
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Smoke rises as the clashes between Palestinian groups and Israeli forces continue on the streets of Beit Hanun in Gaza on October 7.
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People take cover in a bomb shelter in Rishon Lezion, Israel, as rockets are launched from Gaza on October 7.
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Rockets are fired toward Israel from Gaza on October 7.
At least 1,200 people have died in Israel since the conflict erupted, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said in an update on Wednesday.
Israel has retaliated by pounding Gaza with a relentless aerial campaign that has flattened homes, schools, medical institutions and government buildings in the besieged strip.
The death toll in Gaza has risen to 900, including 260 children and 230 women, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, with another 4,500 wounded.
02:16 – Source: CNN
See the devastation in Gaza after Israeli strikes
The kibbutzim go back to the time of the founding of Israel, when small groups of people set up communities based on the idea of communal living. About 125,000 people live across approximately 250 kibbutzim in Israel, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel. For many, they were symbols of good life and safety.
What happened at the weekend destroyed that idyll.
The IDF told CNN the killings at Kfar Aza amounted to a “massacre,” but said it could not confirm the number of people killed there and would not go into details how they died. CNN could not independently verify the IDF’s accounts of children being killed in the attack.
Maj. Gen. Veruv said his soldiers spent “about 48 hours” fighting “waves and waves of terrorists” on roads and in neighboring communities. He said he had started fighting militants in the Yakhini moshav (community) on Saturday, moving then “from battle to battle,” on the road to Sderot, before reaaching the Be’eri kibbutz on Monday evening.
“I saw hundreds of terrorists in full armor, full gear, with all the equipment and all the ability to make a massacre, go from apartment to apartment, from room to room and kill babies, mothers, fathers in their bedrooms,” Veruv said.
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A covered body is seen lying on the ground in Kfar Aza.
Veruv said he had been retired from the IDF for eight years before rushing to join the counter-offensive efforts on Saturday morning, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
“I have heard during my childhood about the pogroms in Europe, the Holocaust, of course. All my family came from Europe, they are survivors. But I never thought I would see…things like that,” he said about the scene in Kfar Aza.
More than 100 bodies were found in Be’eri on Monday. Civilians were killed and taken hostage in the kibbutz, which is home to about 1,000 residents, according to Israeli authorities and videos obtained and authenticated by CNN.
Heavily armed militants arrived in Be’eri on motorbikes around 7 a.m., just half an hour after they breached the typically high-tech, tightly guarded border fence between Gaza and Israel, videos show.
Obtained by CNN
A screenshot from a video, geolocated by CNN, shows six Hamas militants arriving at Be’eri on Saturday morning local time.
A bloodbath followed.
Footage shows militants pulling three bodies out of a car, before stealing the vehicle and driving north. The video, which first surfaced on Telegram, was taken by a surveillance camera in Be’eri. CNN has geolocated the video to an intersection in the northeastern part of the kibbutz.
Another video shows armed militants taking five Israeli civilians captive, with the bodies of four later seen lying on the ground nearby in another video verified by CNN.
Terrified residents told Israel’s Channel 12 television station that assailants went door to door, trying to break into their homes.
Of at least 107 bodies discovered in the aftermath, most were of local residents of the kibbutz, though some were of Israeli security forces, a search and rescue spokesperson told CNN.
The IDF acknowledged on Monday that Be’eri was “very badly hit.”
“We thought we would need more rooms (to house the evacuees). We didn’t need all the rooms,” said IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht.
The attack on Be’eri came around the same time as Hamas militants descended upon a music festival, known as Nova, just three miles south, shooting revelers at point-blank range and looting their belongings.
More than 260 bodies were later found at the festival site, with many attendees believed to have been captured and brought to Gaza, sparking a desperate search by family members and foreign governments.
In Urim, a kibbutz 10 miles south of Be’eri, residents awoke at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday to the sound of sirens and rushed to above-ground bomb shelters. The routine reaction to incoming rocket fire soon became more concerning, as the sirens continued sounding throughout the morning and they went in and out of hiding.
Members of the community, which is not far from where militants rampaged the Nova music festival, began to see reports of Hamas attacks on kibbutzim and towns near the border.
Wayne Lucas, a Virginia native who serves as a “lone soldier” in the IDF and lives in Urim, said that he spoke to several friends “who were hiding in their houses from the terrorists,” and, as the day progressed, he heard of attacks closer to home.
“We learned that someone from our kibbutz who I know very well, whose family also hosts lone soldiers was shot at the junction outside our kibbutz near the gas station. Luckily, he was only shot in the hand,” he told CNN.
There are over 7,000 lone soldiers currently serving in the IDF, according to the Lone Soldier Center, many new immigrants or volunteers from Jewish communities abroad.
On Sunday, after a restless night, residents in Urim heard gunshots close by.
“Shortly after 1:30 in the afternoon, we heard gunshots coming from inside the kibbutz. We all dropped everything. We ran as fast as we could to the shelters. We locked the doors, and we were barricading ourselves inside. People had knives and random things to use as weapons,” Lucas said.
All Israeli buildings erected after 1993 are required to have bomb shelters – reinforced rooms with concrete walls and heavy steel doors. But these safe rooms are designed to withstand a rocket attack, not an armed incursion. The doors are heavy, but they don’t have locks – they are not supposed to be lockable, for safety reasons.
Another soldier who lives in Urim said he heard gunfire but couldn’t make it to the shelter in time. “I heard a round of six bullets being shot right outside my room. I cannot tell you how scared I was. I didn’t know what I needed to do first: hide, lock my door, find a weapon, run to the nearest shelter?” the soldier, who asked not to be named, told CNN. “There was nowhere good to hide, and I ended up hiding in my closet.”
The soldier and Lucas said that when they were given the all-clear, an Israeli army unit was outside and had apprehended several militants who had tried to storm the kibbutz.
CNN’s Martin Goillandeau, Paul P. Murphy, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Kathleen Magramo and Ruba Alhenawi contributed reporting.
