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.
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.
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
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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.
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.
Image: 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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2:51
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.”
Worldwide stock markets have plummeted for the second day running as the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariffs continues.
While European and Asian markets suffered notable falls, American indexes were the worst hit, with Wall Street closing to a sea of red on Friday following Thursday’s rout – the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic.
All three of the US’s major indexes were down by more than 5% at market close; The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 5.5%, the S&P 500 was 5.97% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.82%.
The Nasdaq was also 22% below its record-high set in December, which indicates a bear market.
Ever since the US president announced the tariffs on Wednesday evening, analysts estimate that around $4.9trn (£3.8trn) has been wiped off the value of the global stock market.
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Mr Trump has remained unapologetic as the markets struggle, posting in all-caps on Truth Social before the markets closed that “only the weak will fail”.
The UK’s leading stock market, the FTSE 100, also suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing 4.95% down, a level not seen since March 2020.
And the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.75% at end of trading, down 20% from its recent peak in July last year.
Image: US indexes had the worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pic: Reuters
Trump holds trade deal talks – reports
It comes as a source told CNN that Mr Trump has been in discussions with Vietnamese, Indianand Israelirepresentatives to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries before a deadline next week.
The source told the US broadcaster the talks were being held in advance of the reciprocal levies going into effect next week.
Vietnam faced one of the highest reciprocal tariffs announced by the US president this week, with 46% rates on imports. Israeli imports face a 17% rate, and Indian goods will be subject to 26% tariffs.
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China – hit with 34% tariffs on imported goods – has also announced it will issue its own levy of the same rate on US imports.
Mr Trump said China “played it wrong” and “panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do” in another all-caps Truth Social post earlier on Friday.
Later, on Air Force One, the US president told reporters that “the beauty” of the tariffs is that they allow for negotiations, referencing talks with Chinese company ByteDance on the sale of social media app TikTok.
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Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump
He said: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’
“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.