‘Terrorists are in my bedroom’: The haunting messages helpless relatives received after Hamas abductions
“Everything I have in my life – my family – is missing,” Gaya Kalderon tells Sky News.
“I’m terrified from the photographs and can’t believe my eyes. It feels like a horror movie that would never come true. But it did.”
Gaya, who is 21, lives in Tel Aviv. Much of her family is in Nir Oz, situated in the south of Israel.
Read more: ‘800 Hamas targets’ struck in Gaza – Israel-Gaza latest
On Saturday morning, Hamas swept into the village.
“I was terrified to wake up on Saturday morning and receive messages like ‘the terrorists are in my bedroom’ and my 16-year-old sister writing to me: ‘I’m so scared.'”
Her father, Offer, her sixteen-year-old sister, Sahar, and her brother, Erez, 10, were abducted from their homes by Hamas.
Erez, who lives in Nir Oz, southern Israel.
Sahar lives in Nir Oz, southern Israel
“I don’t know what happened to my father that raised me or my young siblings that I tried to protect my whole lIfe. And now I can’t do anything.”
Israel is reeling from the attack.
Israel-Hamas War: Watch special programme on Sky News tonight at 9pm
Beyond the immediate suffering, it is a huge psychological shock, both in terms of the people taken captive and the death toll.
Consider casualties alone.
This chart shows the number of Israeli casualties over the years, compiled by the UN.
The latest official figure of hundreds of deaths as of Sunday afternoon is more than every year since 2008 put together.
The number of Palestinian casualties over the same period is consistently much higher.
But the Israeli death count over the last few days is something that the nation has simply not seen before.
It is the upending of a world-view, something that will inform the Israeli response over the days to come.
So too will the hostage-taking – a violation of international humanitarian law – by Hamas.
Sky News has been verifying videos of abductions.
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They show similar tactics: gunmen going house to house in villages, searching for civilians. In some, they use power drills to take doors off the frames.
Once they have their captives, they speed away across the desert – presumably to Gaza.
These are snatch and grab raids against a civilian population.
Noa Argamani is a 25-year-old student who was attending a music festival near Re’im, also in the south.
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Moment woman ‘kidnapped’ by Hamas fighters
A video shows Noa being bundled onto a motorbike – a friend of Noa confirmed to Sky News that it is her on the bike.
She reaches out beseeching hands to a companion, also being led away, and says to her captors: “Please don’t kill me.”
‘I couldn’t offer her a hand’
A subsequent video appears to show her sitting down, drinking water. We don’t know where.
Her father, Yakov Argamani, spoke afterwards.
Noa’s father, Yakov Argamani
“What can I say? All my life, since she was born, I tried to protect her, and hug her, and support her, and love her,” he said.
“And here at this difficult moment, even to cheer her up, I couldn’t offer her a hand.”
As with the number of dead, the captive Israelis has double significance.
The first is tactical. What does it mean for any military operation in Gaza, from airstrikes to potential troops on the ground?
How are they to be rescued, or are they to be swapped for Hamas prisoners.
But the second is again psychological: the pain caused to family members taken, the idea that no Israeli going about their normal life is really safe.
All of that will be part of Israel’s ongoing response.
As Gaya tells Sky News: “I just want my family back and wish my country will bring them back home.”
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Pic: Reuters
It comes as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had a “very good conversation” with Mr Trump late on Monday. He thanked him for the “willingness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings”.
Weapons being sent from to Ukraine include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which the country has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
Mr Zelenskyy previously criticised Vladimir Putin’s “desire to drag [the war] out”, and said Kyiv was “working on major defence agreements with America”.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump over Mr Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump threatens Russia with ‘severe’ tariffs’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call”, but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
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