‘Wrong place at the wrong time’: Inside the kibbutz next to where 250 festivalgoers were murdered
Shortly before 9pm on Tuesday, a Hamas fighter tried to kill an Israeli soldier with a knife.
The attack took place at Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel, about four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the border with Gaza.
The man was shot dead by another soldier.
What is remarkable is that the would-be assassin had been hiding in the kibbutz since Saturday morning when he and about 50 fighters stormed the community.
Bullets on the ground at Kibbutz Re’im
The defence forces thought they’d cleared the kibbutz but evidently, they were wrong – another search of the entire complex is under way.
This story, told to me by the head of security at the kibbutz, shows what many have been hearing about for days.
The Hamas fighters came over the border with ease and might not have returned to Gaza.
This is important because as Israel considers a ground offensive in Gaza, the government and the military can hardly expect their soldiers to cross the wire if they think the enemy is still behind them.
Over the past few days, Israel has struggled to convincingly take control of the border line.
A burnt-out nursery school in the kibbutz
Only on Tuesday, I saw defence force soldiers firing machine guns at targets inside Israeli territory, while helicopter gunships attacked Hamas positions just a few kilometres inside the Gaza Strip.
The military has now moved into Kibbutz Re’im.
It is adjacent to where the Supernova music festival took place on Saturday – the scene of the murder of over 250 young men and women.
This small community was attacked by about 50 heavily-armed men intent on killing and kidnapping.
Eilan, the security chief at Kibbutz Re’im
Eilan is the head of security here. He is a veteran border guard volunteer who doesn’t want his last name used.
He, along with other community volunteers, led the fight back against Hamas, and he walked me through the remains of the community scarred by an intense fight.
Standing in front of the rubble of two houses and a bomb shelter, he described what they had to do to stop the gunmen firing at them.
A discarded anti-tank weapon
Eilan said the Hamas fighters were in the buildings.
“They came and started shooting from this house, we brought the tank, we launched a missile, it didn’t stop.
“We launched a second one, and it didn’t stop, we launched the third one, and it didn’t stop – it stopped when we came with the tractor and we broke the walls, we destroyed everything, as you can see.”
Eilan said that this was a different type of Hamas tactic, where usually attacks inside Israel are suicide missions. This marked a significant change of strategy.
They intended to go home to Gaza having killed or abducted Israelis.
“This is a nightmare, we never thought this could happen, that they’re coming with so many terrorists,” he told me.
“Now it’s completely different, completely different, they came to murder and to take hostages to the Gaza Strip, and you can see the evil that they took families, they took children.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘They’re going house-to-house looking for traps’
Read more:
Briton who was missing after Hamas attack is confirmed dead
Gaza runs out of electricity
What we know about viral report of beheaded babies in Israel
Less than a kilometre away from this community, the Supernova music festival was in full flow when the attack on the kibbutz began.
The mass murder of so many young people has sent shockwaves through Israel, but Eilan believes the real targets of the attack were the kibbutzim that border Gaza, and not the party itself.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israeli city shocked by attack
He thinks it was an opportunistic attack on defenceless youngsters who’d been out all night.
“Not the party, I think it’s not the reason, the party, no, I think it’s by mistake.”
I asked him if he thought they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Yes”, he nodded.
The entire community has now been moved away and Eilan says he is unsure how many will ever come back.
Eilan told me that seven people from Kibbutz Re’im were killed, and one was taken hostage.
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
He said people here wanted to live in peace with the Palestinians, but after this attack, once considered impossible, everything has changed.
“Our kibbutz and all this region thought about living together with the Palestinians, with the people. I employed them, I gave them jobs, money, a salary, but now I changed my mind,” he explained.
“I don’t want any peace with them, I don’t want to deal with them at all, and if I need to consider my children or the Palestinian children, I would think about my children – never again.”
World
25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK
A charity has warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing to evacuate children who need “critical medical assistance” to the UK.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels – with patients and healthcare workers both fighting to survive.
It claimed that, at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks – and described the lack of food and water on the ground as “unconscionable”.
Pic: Reuters
The charity also criticised the high number of fatalities seen at aid distribution sites, with one British surgeon accusing IDF soldiers of shooting civilians “almost like a game of target practice”.
MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said: “Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”
The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food – the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the GHF.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Many more deaths unless Israelis allow food in’
In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.
The GHF has also previously disputed that these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and has accused the UN of failing to distribute it, in what the foreign ministry has labelled as “a deliberate ploy” to defame the country.
‘Humanitarian catastrophe must end’
In a video message posted on X late last night, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the scenes in Gaza as “appalling” and “unrelenting” – and said “the images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying”.
The prime minister added: “The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed while seeking aid – children, killed, whilst collecting water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it must end.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
Sir Keir confirmed that the British government is now “accelerating efforts” to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance, so they can be brought to the UK for specialist treatment.
Israel has now said that foreign countries will be able to airdrop aid into Gaza. While the PM says the UK will now “do everything we can” to get supplies in via this route, he said this decision has come “far too late”.
Read more:
WHO: Gaza faces ‘manmade’ starvation
UN: People in Gaza ‘walking corpses’
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Last year, the RAF dropped aid into Gaza, but humanitarian organisations warned it wasn’t enough and was potentially dangerous. In March 2024, five people were killed when an aid parachute failed and supplies fell on them.
For now, Sir Keir has rejected calls to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and recognise a Palestinian state – despite more than 220 MPs signing a cross-party letter to demand he takes this step.
The prime minister is instead demanding a ceasefire and “lasting peace” – and says he will only consider an independent state as part of a negotiated peace deal.
World
‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.
It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike