A Community Shattered: Kibbutz in Southern Israel Grieves the Loss of 25% of Its Residents in Hamas Attack
“They burned the place to the ground – they even shot the dogs. There is nothing left.”
By World Israel News Staff
A staggering 25 percent of residents of a kibbutz in Israel’s south were either murdered or kidnapped following Hamas’ terror incursion last Saturday.
Some 100 out of 400 Kibbutz Nir Oz residents were either brutally slaughtered or still missing, presumably taken captive and transported into the Gaza Strip, meaning that about one out of four residents was a direct victim of the terror group.
“On Saturday morning, the Kibbutz where I was born and grew up, woke to a massacre – a second Holocaust,” said Noam, a former resident of the town who declined to provide his last name to the media.
Speaking in London to local media, he explained that Hamas terrorists had intentionally targeted “mostly young kids and elderly people. They gassed, burned, slaughtered, kidnapped.
“They burned the place to the ground – they even shot the dogs. There is nothing left. This was a peace-loving people that fought all of their lives for coexistence.”
In nearby Kfar Aza, at least 52 residents were murdered, seven have been confirmed as abducted by Hamas, and an additional 13 remain missing.
Before the massacre, Kfar Aza had a population of around 750, meaning that approximately 10 percent of the kibbutz’s residents were killed or taken hostage.
“We heard shootings and we were basically barricaded in for 21 hours until the army rescued us,” Keren Flash, a survivor of the massacre, told Reuters.
“We kept hearing shootings and gunfire and bombs and alarms, and we just didn’t know what was happening. Our worst nightmares.”
A Sky News journalist who toured Kfar Aza in the aftermath of the attack described the once idyllic kibbutz as a war zone.
“What happened in Kfar Gaza can only be described as a massacre, with shocking evidence of families who were caught in an unimaginable terror,” she said.
“I saw the stretcher-bearers find the body of a small child from one of the houses. They carried his body without saying a word, and put it in the car, alongside the bodies of other residents who were murdered while trying to hide or defend themselves.”
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The post A Community Shattered: Kibbutz in Southern Israel Grieves the Loss of 25% of Its Residents in Hamas Attack first appeared on United with Israel.
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