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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
Image:
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 at Kibbutz Re'im
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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
Image:
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 at Kibbutz Re'im
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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.”

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‘They’re going house-to-house looking for traps’

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
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The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

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US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

More on Russia

General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

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Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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