British-Israeli man describes terrifying ordeal as Hamas militants stormed home
A British-Israeli citizen and his wife have told of their 12 hour ordeal locked in a bomb-proof safe room as Hamas militants set their house on fire and gunfights erupted around them.
At times, they were just inches from the militants and were forced to stay put as Hamas fighters engaged Israeli Defence Force (IDF) troops for hours with no water and no food, stuck in the pyjamas they were wearing when they woke up.
Ben, who did not wish to give his second name, shared his terrifying ordeal with Sky News from an evacuation point near the Dead Sea.
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Originally from Worcestershire, Ben and his wife have lived in a kibbutz named Be’eri, located around 5km from the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, for the past 26 years.
This map shows the position of Kibbutz Be’eri
The 52-year-old moved there after meeting his wife-to-be while visiting his brother, who had travelled to Israel as a volunteer.
Ben woke up to sounds of rockets being fired, something he said was “not unusual”, and was met outside by his neighbours, who – like him – were in their pyjamas.
“We assumed it would be over soon, but it wasn’t,” he said.
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system seen intercepting rockets launched from the Gaza Strip – as seen from Sderot, southern Israel on Sunday
He watched the Iron Dome system intercept a number of rockets, before receiving a text message telling all those in the area to lock themselves in their safe rooms.
The safe room, like many in the area, is a small 5x4sqm room with gas and blast-proofing on the door, which cannot be opened from outside when shut.
There is a small window, which is reinforced with blast-proof steel, that can be opened to the outside.
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The room also doubles up as a bedroom for his son when he stays over.
He expected to receive an all-clear message within half an hour, but instead began hearing Arabic voices in the distance gradually approaching his house.
‘They were a few centimetres away from me’
Ben estimates 30 Hamas militants were in his kibbutz, and the speed and scale of the attack took the neighbourhood by surprise.
Ben’s neighbourhood in Kibbutz Be’eri, before the attack
“We were so underprepared for such an unprecedented attack, and we didn’t have water, food, anything [in the safe room]” he said.
Ben and his wife were laying silent on the floor of the room when they heard a commotion outside his house and more shouting – before hearing a “tremendous boom” as his front door was knocked in.
“They were a few centimetres, a few inches away from me as I’m holding the door,” he said.
“I was cold, I was sweating profusely within an instant on such a high level of alert.”
Despite their close proximity, the militants didn’t try to enter the safe room, but Ben heard them smashing the house outside.
‘It was so unbelievably hot’
He presumes the TV and windows were broken, as crashing and banging was heard for some time before the attackers appeared to leave the house.
“Very soon afterwards, we could hear crackling and we could begin to smell smoke,” he said.
Becoming emotional, he said “we understood that our home was on fire”.
Ben and his wife listened as their house fell apart around them, with the roof caving in and more windows shattering from the heat.
The door, which is built to prevent a gas attack, had its seal melted away – allowing thick smoke to enter the safe room.
“It was so hot, it was so unbelievably hot,” Ben said, “I don’t know how we didn’t pass out.”
He described how the pair of them lay on the floor with bedsheets from their son’s bed covering their mouths to block out the smoke.
“We managed to breathe every now and again through a crack in our blinds,” he said.
After hours in what he called “hell”, Ben and his wife heard Israeli forces arrive and engage the Hamas fighters.
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How the Hamas attack on Israel unfolded.
Despite the arrival of friendly troops, there would be no respite from the heat and the smoke for Ben and his wife for another six hours, while they listened to gunfire.
“For another six hours, we listened to gunfights all around us,” he said.
“I think there was a gunman on our roof, as the shots sounded so close,”
The pair were trapped, with no choice but to stay put.
Through the crack in the blinds of the safe room, they watched a neighbour’s house get set alight.
“We saw it burst into flames,” Ben said, explaining that the fire quickly spread to other houses in the neighbourhood.
He doesn’t know the fate of many of his neighbours, but he saw a massive explosion emanate from the safe room of another house nearby.
After hours of fighting, Ben said he and his wife took heart after “the shouting turned from Arabic to Hebrew”, and IDF soldiers began going house to house in the neighbourhood evacuating survivors of the attack.
Soldiers were able to pull the pair through the window of the safe room once opened by Ben, as the house on the other side of door was presumably too unstable to escape through given the fire damage.
They were rushed into the back of a 4×4 and driven away under the cover of darkness, unable to survey the damage to their home or even grab any spare clothes.
‘When on earth are we going to be safe?’
Ben and his wife had entered the safe room at around 7am and emerged more than 12 hours later, sweat-drenched, dehydrated and still in the pyjamas they wore when they entered.
When they were dropped off at an extraction point in a car park, Ben said they were given some food and water.
Becoming emotional again, Ben said a soldier offered to give him a pair of socks, as he noticed he was walking around barefoot on the gravel of the car park.
“It was an act of kindness – I won’t forget it, no matter how small it was.”
But they weren’t out of the woods yet.
Waiting in the car park for over an hour, Ben said a shout rang out that Hamas militants were nearby, which was quickly followed by the sound of gunshots and small puffs of dust popping up on the ground around him.
“I thought, ‘when on earth are we going to be safe?’,” he said.
When the fighting ceased, he and other survivors were loaded onto an open-top truck and taken to a nearby sports stadium, before they were moved on to an area near the Dead Sea and put up in hotels.
When asked what he will do now, Ben said he didn’t know if he could stay in the country after the ordeal, given the presumed damage to his home and the wider kibbutz.
“A big part of me wants to leave Israel, even though we’ve lived here for 26 years.”
“It’s our home,” he said, “and all that’s gone”.
The US joined Russia to vote against a UN resolution on the Ukraine war – and abstained from voting on one it drafted after amendments proposed by European countries were added.
The 193-member assembly approved a US-drafted resolution, marking the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which had originally called for an end to the conflict but did not mention Moscow’s aggression.
It also made no mention of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
However, it was amended after European nations said that it should include references to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the need for a lasting peace in line with the UN Charter.
It was also amended to include references to Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Follow latest: Ukraine war live updates
The amended US-drafted resolution won 93 votes in favour, while 73 states abstained – including the US – and eight – including Russia – voted no.
On the same day, the UN General Assembly approved a European-backed resolution from Ukraine which demanded Russia immediately withdraw from the country.
There were also 93 votes in favour of this resolution, while 65 abstained and 18 voted against it.
The UK, France and Germany were among the countries that voted in favour of the Ukraine-backed resolution, which called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
The US, Russia, Belarus and North Korea were among those that opposed it.
The US voted against Ukraine’s resolution. Pic: AP
The duelling proposals reflect the tensions that have emerged between the US and Ukraine after Donald Trump suddenly opened negotiations with Russia in a bid to quickly resolve the conflict.
It also underscores the strain in the US’ relationship with Europe over the Trump administration’s decision to engage with Moscow.
The outcome marks a setback for the Trump administration in the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are not legally binding but are seen as a barometer of world opinion.
However, later in the day, the UN Security Council approved the US resolution calling for an end to war in Ukraine – but without mentioning Russia’s aggression. The resolution received 10 votes in favour, while the remaining five members – including France and the UK – abstained.
Dame Barbara Woodward, the UK’s ambassador to the United Nations, said after the UN Security Council approved the motion: “What, how and on what terms this war ends can only be decided by negotiations with Ukraine.
“No peace will be sustainable without Ukraine’s consent.
“We regret that our proposals making these points clear were not taken on board, and as such we could not support this resolution.
“But we share the ambition to find a lasting end to this war, supported by robust security arrangements that ensure Ukraine never again has to face Russia’s attack.”
It came after the results in the General Assembly had showed some diminished support for Ukraine – as more than 140 nations had voted to condemn Russia’s aggression in previous votes.
The United States had tried to pressure the Ukrainians to withdraw their resolution in favour of its proposal, according to a US official and a European diplomat.
US deputy ambassador Dorothy Shea, meanwhile, said multiple previous UN resolutions condemning Russia and demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops “have failed to stop the war,” which “has now dragged on for far too long and at far too terrible a cost to the people in Ukraine and Russia and beyond”.
“What we need is a resolution marking the commitment from all UN member states to bring a durable end to the war,” Ms Shea said.
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Dorothy Shea said the war has ‘dragged on too long’. Pic: Reuters
The world is marking the third anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine as America’s allies try to navigate a new reality as Washington’s stance appears to favour Moscow.
European leaders were dismayed last week when they and Ukraine were left out of preliminary talks on ending the conflict.
Mr Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator,” falsely accused Kyiv of starting the war and warned that he “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
Mr Zelenskyy responded by saying the US president was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space”.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron is at the White House holding talks with Mr Trump to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine.
At the start of the meeting, Mr Trump told reporters Russian President Vladimir Putin will accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the war in the country.
Mr Trump and Mr Macron have been meeting after the pair had earlier joined a call between G7 leaders.
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Trump on Ukraine’s territory: ‘We’ll see’
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who will meet with Mr Trump at the White House on Thursday, appeared virtually and said G7 nations should be ready to “take on more risk”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in Kyiv, called Russia’s aggression a war on “our way of life”.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said Europe’s “first priority” is to strengthen Ukraine’s resistance.
She said this includes speeding up the delivery of weapons and increasing investment, announcing a further €3.5bn (about £3bn) in aid for Ukraine.
Friedrich Merz, who is set to become the new German chancellor, has vowed to “create unity” in Europe as it adjusts to the new Trump administration and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Mr Merz’s task will be complicated by the need to form a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats of outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz, who will remain in office for the immediate future.
He has repeatedly pledged not to work with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, despite its second-place finish but which is under observation by the country’s intelligence agency for suspected right-wing extremism.
Mr Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union, which won with 28.5% of the votes, and the Social Democrats have a combined 328 seats in the 630-seat parliament.
The 69-year-old, who put toughening Germany’s immigration laws at the forefront of the election campaign, said he hopes to complete a deal by Easter.
Experts believe this could prove to be a challenging timescale as the rivals try to find common ground over key policies.
Co-leader of the Social Democrats, Lars Klingbeil, indicated a deal with Mr Merz is not a formality.
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He said: “The ball is in Friedrich Merz’s court. Only the course of any talks will show whether a government can be formed.”
With US President Donald Trump back in the White House and tensions rising over how to resolve the war in Ukraine, Mr Merz wants to unify Europe in the face of challenges from the US and Russia.
“I have no illusions at all about what is happening from America,” he told supporters.
“We are under such massive pressure… my absolute priority now is really to create unity in Europe.”
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At a media conference later, he added: “There are three topics we need to talk about. Of course, external and security policy – especially following the statements coming out of Washington.
“It is clear that we as Europeans need to be able to act swiftly. We need to be able to defend ourselves. That is a topic that is a top priority in the next few weeks.”
Mr Merz said he remains “hopeful” of maintaining the transatlantic relationship, but warned if it “is destroyed, it will not only be to the detriment of Europe, it will also be to the detriment of America”.
On the other key issues, he added: “Another important topic is the immigration – that is an area where we have proposals. I suppose the Social Democrats will be prepared to talk to us about this as well.
“The third topic is the economic situation. We have to protect work in the industrial sector in Germany.”
He also earlier used social media to say “Europe stands unwaveringly by Ukraine’s side” and how “we must put Ukraine in a position of strength”.
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