British-Israeli man describes terrifying ordeal as Hamas militants stormed home

Published

2 years ago

October 9, 2023

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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.

Israel-Hamas War: Watch special programme on Sky News tonight at 9pm

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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 the 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”.

World

China and Hong Kong brace for super typhoon after 14 killed in Taiwan – with 129 missing

Published

6 hours ago

September 24, 2025

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China and Hong Kong brace for super typhoon after 14 killed in Taiwan - with 129 missing

At least 14 people have been killed in an area of Taiwan popular with tourists after Super Typhoon Ragasa lashed the island nation, with Hong Kong and mainland China braced for impact.

The powerful storm – the strongest in years – has forced thousands to flee their homes, with flights cancelled and schools and businesses shuttered as about 70cm (28 inches) of rain has fallen on eastern areas.

At least four more people were reported to have been killed in the Philippines, where nearly 700,000 people were affected by the super typhoon in the main northern region of Luzon.

The deaths in Taiwan were reported in the eastern Taiwanese county of Hualien, which is popular with tourists.

At least 129 people are missing after a town, Guangfu, was flooded by a deluge from a barrier lake which burst its banks on Tuesday afternoon.

Around 60 million tonnes of water was released, the Taiwanese government said, the equivalent of a major reservoir in southern Taiwan.

Taiwan’s fire department said all the fatalities and missing people are from Guangfu.

One resident, a postman who gave his family name as Hsieh, told Reuters news agency the water hit like a “tsunami” which swept his car into his living room.

Late on Wednesday morning, a new flood warning sounded in Guangfu, where shouts were heard from residents and rescuers of “the flood waters are coming, run fast”.

Elsewhere, Dama, a village of around 1,000 people, has been completely flooded.

Its chieftain, Wang Tse-an, told Reuters many locals are still stranded there, adding: “It’s chaotic now. There are mud and rocks everywhere.”

Regions across Taiwan have sent at least 340 soldiers to Hualien to help rescue efforts.

In Guangfu, troops operating from an armoured personnel carrier to avoid the thick mud on the streets went door-to-door
handing out water and instant noodles.

Ragasa is set to hit China’s Guangdong province, where more than 370,000 residents have been evacuated, on Wednesday.

Hong Kong’s storm level is at its highest level of 10 as people reported being woken by fierce winds in the early hours.

Parts of a pedestrian bridge’s roof were blown away, hundreds of trees were knocked down across the city and more than 30 injured people were treated at hospitals.

A video that showed waves of water crashing through the doors of a hotel and flooding its interiors went viral in the financial hub, where warnings of hurricane-force winds of well over 120mph have been issued.

World

Trump disparages Russian military – and backs Ukraine to retake all lost territory

Published

6 hours ago

September 24, 2025

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Trump disparages Russian military - and backs Ukraine to retake all lost territory

Donald Trump disparaged the Russian military and backed Ukraine to retake all its occupied territory in an astonishing about-turn on the war.

In a post on Truth Social, made after talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the United Nations in New York, the US president said a return to “the original borders from where this war started is very much an option”.

“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” he wrote.

Mr Trump said “time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO” could help Kyv win back lost territory, and said Russia was in “economic trouble”.

He said Moscow had been “fighting aimlessly” for three-and-a-half years – and had it been a “real military power” it would have defeated Ukraine in less than a week.

“This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like ‘a paper tiger’,” he added.

Mr Zelenskyy told Sky News US correspondent Mark Stone it was a “big shift” from his US counterpart.

He later admitted he was surprised by Mr Trump’s comments, telling Fox News’ Special Report he has a better relationship with the president than before.

Trump’s patience not ‘infinite’

Mr Trump also appeared to pour cold water on his hopes of persuading Vladimir Putin to sign a peace deal.

Speaking to Emmanuel Macron at the UN summit, he said their relationship had turned out to be meaningless.

Just last month, Mr Trump rolled out the red carpet for the Russian president at a summit in Alaska – in a push to expedite the war’s conclusion.

Before returning to the White House, he repeatedly claimed he’d be able to end the conflict in 24 hours.

Speaking at the UN Security Council, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, admitted ending the war had proven an “extraordinary challenge”.

He said Mr Trump had “worked on it tirelessly”, but warned Russia his patience is not “infinite”.

The US president has previously suggested Ukraine will never be able to reclaim all the territory Russia has occupied since seizing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Ukraine has lost large areas of land in the east of the country.

In the Donetsk region, Russia now controls about 70% of the territory. Kyiv’s forces have been pushed back to four cities analysts have dubbed the “fortress belt”.

Moscow has partly annexed three other regions, too: Luhansk in the east, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson further west.

Trump tells NATO to shoot down Russian jets in its skies

Meanwhile, Russia appears to be provoking its neighbours to the west. Last week, Estonia said three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes before Italian NATO jets escorted them away.

The week before, about 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting NATO jets to shoot some of them down and the alliance to beef up its defence of Europe’s eastern flank.

While talking to Mr Zelenskyy at the UN, Mr Trump was asked by reporters whether he thought NATO should shoot down any Russian planes that entered NATO airspace.

“Yes, I do,” Mr Trump replied.

On Truth Social, he said the US would continue to supply weapons to NATO, and it was for the alliance to “do what they want with them”.

Mr Trump also suggested the Russian people are not aware of “what is really going on with this war”.

He added: “Most of their money is being spent on fighting Ukraine. Putin and Russia are in big economic trouble and this is the time for Ukraine to act.”

He has called on European and NATO allies to increase economic sanctions on Moscow.

In a joint statement following the president’s comments, G7 foreign ministers said discussions were ongoing about additional economic sanctions on Russia.

World

Why emboldened Donald Trump has changed his stance on Ukraine

Published

6 hours ago

September 24, 2025

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Why emboldened Donald Trump has changed his stance on Ukraine

As U-turns go, it’s a game-changer.

Donald Trump has pivoted from pressing Ukraine to surrender territory to suggesting it’s able to win all its land back.

This is the man who threw Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the White House in February and brought Russia’s Vladimir Putin in from the cold in Alaska last month.

So, why the handbrake turn from framing negotiations as the most practical outcome to a new-found confidence in Ukraine, when supported by its European neighbours and NATO?

Firstly, it could be the military and economic reality on the ground. Russia’s paying a high price for the war, both in manpower and finances.

Trump has acknowledged that Moscow is in “big economic trouble”, which strengthens the case for Ukraine prevailing with Western help.

Ukraine’s resilience has also shifted perceptions – the impossible now looking possible if allies remain committed.

Secondly, it could be the influence of allies. European leaders flew to Washington en masse last month to urge caution in dealings with Putin.

European NATO members have stepped up aid to Ukraine, further weakening the President’s rhetoric about America carrying the financial burden.

He’s suddenly aligning himself with European countries, endorsing the shooting down of Russian planes violating their airspace.

Thirdly, it could be more about domestic politics, with the president under bipartisan scrutiny at home over his “softly, softly” approach to Russia.

A tougher national defence posture could help him consolidate support among Republicans, while also appealing to moderates, who regard the defence of Ukraine as a test of national credibility.

Trump versus the world

There’s another factor worth considering – Trump’s negotiating tactic. He has a long record of changing position to gain leverage.

Talk of compromise might have been the strategy for getting Ukraine and Russia into talks, but with Russia showing no willingness to compromise, his calculation shifting back to the restoration of Ukraine.

Whatever the reason for his change of heart, and whether it translates into US policy, the last three days have shown an emboldened Trump.

From his declaration of “hate” for his opponents during a memorial service for Charlie Kirk, to his sensational claim to have “found an answer on autism”, to his derision of the UN, he’s unfiltered right now.

Place him in front of a microphone or online, and it’s Trump versus the world.