We’ve been travelling to the many different scenes where Hamas fighters carried out their terror attack on Israel this week, and it is becoming clear that their tactics and levels of brutality changed from location to location.
Warning – this story contains descriptions and pictures of a graphic nature
In the attack on the Nova music festival, for example, the gunmen abducted some of the partygoers, and then murdered many more, spraying them with gunfire and throwing grenades into places they were hiding.
The hiding places included toilets, dirt bins, cars, and bomb shelters.
Image: The attackers’ bodies are picked up with a forklift and put on a bulldozer
Image: Soldiers guard the team as they work
In the various kibbutzim they attacked nearby, their behaviour descended to a whole new level of depravity.
They didn’t just kill – they took their time. They bound families, tortured them, and eventually murdered them.
This is something fundamentally different to the behaviours of Hamas we have seen in the past.
I’ve met Hamas on many occasions and interviewed their fighters.
They were always much more like a militia at war with Israel, rather than bloodthirsty killers and torturers.
Something has changed.
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House in southern Israel hit by Hamas rocket
Bodies ‘tell stories of torture’
The testimony of the people charged with recovering the dead is disturbing and difficult to listen to, but they want everyone to understand just how horrific it was.
Zaka, a volunteer civilian emergency response organisation charged with recovering the bodies here, is still finding bodies of the victims over a week later.
Yossi Landau is the boss for the southern region – he has been doing this work for 33 years all over the world.
He tells me the latest person to be found at the Kfar Aza kibbutz has been beheaded.
Image: An Israeli flag outside a house
He says: “We thought we finished but we came back now this morning after being a week around here, and we just pulled out a body over here – no head – you know it’s the worst…”
He tells me he has never seen anything like this, and that the sheer brutality of Hamas has stunned his entire team.
“We saw women with no clothes and hands tied to the back,” he says. “We saw families… over here in this kibbutz I saw families with hands tied to the back, sitting parents and children, sitting one against the other, tortured.
“We could see the bodies were telling the stories.
“You know they can’t talk but they were telling us their stories, they were crying together with us.”
Image: Yossi Landau with members of Zaka
‘That’s a war crime’
Yossi and his team have carried out their work at all the sites of Saturday’s rampage.
He says there are noticeable differences between the way people were killed at the various locations.
“By the festival, they weren’t tortured – there was no torture because everything was on a field and they had no time for doing that,” he explains.
“There was no torturing, it was mass killing – like if they were hiding in a garbage can or something, they threw in a grenade to make sure everyone was killed.
“That’s a war crime for itself, and most of them, I would say 70%, were shot in the back – that’s a war crime.”
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Gaza: Rescuers pull bodies out of rubble
He continued: “In Kfar Aza and Be’eri, we are talking about a total of 280 bodies, 280 casualties.
“I would say 80% was tortured, and you’re talking children, adults…
“You’re talking a pile, two piles – when we found them in Be’eri, two piles of ten children each were tied to the back, burnt to death…”
He says as far as he can tell, Hamas’s killers had time to do whatever they wanted.
“They had the time, nobody bothered them, they had the manpower – I wouldn’t call it manpower – the butcher power…”
Image: Yossi Landau is Zaka’s southern region boss
‘We collect the terrorists’
When we met up with Yossi and his team, they had just been tasked with recovering the bodies of those gunmen.
We travel to one area of kibbutz Kfar Aza and are turned around – a soldier says it’s too dangerous.
Yossi wants to pick up the bodies – the soldier says he can’t.
They agree a digger will go forward and pick up the dead, and we take another route to another site to collect a handful of bodies.
The dead fighters are gathered together and placed in individual body bags.
Using a can of spray paint, members of Zaka then mark the bags with an X, designating that they aren’t civilians but that they are the bodies of the killers.
The bodies are then scooped up from the ground with a forklift and transferred onto a bulldozer.
Zaka already knows that their teams are suffering extreme psychological stress.
Their families have been briefed to pass up the line if their loved ones are behaving abnormally, so they can get help.
Image: Damaged cars near a kibbutz
Yossi says humanely retrieving the very people who carried out the attack is itself “very difficult” to do because they “killed our brothers and sisters and tortured the people”.
But he says it’s what they do.
“We do it for the families, for the dead people, and unfortunately we do it for the terrorists too…
“We collect the terrorists, we make sure they get in body bags, they go in for identity and they’re being stored, but that’s not our department it goes further.
“But we have to make sure that to honour – that’s our religion, to honour death and life – because everyone has a family behind them, and that’s Zaka’s work.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is heading to Downing Street once again, but Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will be keen to make this meeting more than just a photo op.
On Monday the prime minister will welcome not only the Ukrainian president, but also E3 allies France and Germany to discuss the state of the war in Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will join Sir Keir in showing solidarity and support for Ukraine and its leader, but it’s the update on the peace negotiations that will be the main focus of the meet up.
The four leaders are said to be set to not only discuss those talks between Ukraine, the US and Russia, but also to talk about next steps if a deal were to be reached and what that might look like.
Ahead of the discussions, Sir Keir spoke with the Dutch leader Dick Schoof where both leaders agreed Ukraine’s defence still needs international support, and that Ukraine’s security is vital to European security.
But while Russia’s war machine shows no signs of abating, a warm welcome and kind words won’t be enough to satisfy the embattled Ukrainian president at a time when Russian drone and missile attacks continue to bombard Kyiv.
Image: Keir Starmer welcoming Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Downing Street during a previous visit. Pic: AP
What is the latest in negotiations?
Over the weekend, Mr Zelenskyy said he had discussed “next steps” with US President Donald Trump’s advisers and was “determined to keep working in good faith”.
“The American representatives know the basic Ukrainian positions,” Mr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “The conversation was constructive, although not easy.”
But on Sunday evening, ahead of an event at the Kennedy Center, President Trump said he was “disappointed” with Mr Zelenskyy, as was asked about the next steps in Russia-Ukraine talks following negotiations.
He said: “We’ve been speaking to President Putin and we’ve been speaking to Ukrainian leaders, including Zelenskyy, President Zelenskyy.
“And I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal. That was as of a few hours ago.
“His people love it. But he hasn’t – Russia’s fine with it. Russia’s you know, Russia, I guess, would rather have the whole country when you think of it. But Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelenskyy’s fine with it. His people love it but he hasn’t read it.”
On Saturday, Keith Kellogg, Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, had told the Reagan National Defence Forum that efforts to resolve the conflict were in “the last 10 metres”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised new US security strategy over the weekend, adding that Russia hopes this would lead to “further constructive cooperation with Washington on the Ukrainian settlement”.
Thailand has launched airstrikes and said it has struck military targets along the border with Cambodia, as both sides accused the other of attacking first.
One Thai soldier was killed and eight others wounded, according to Thai army spokesperson Major General Winthai Suvaree, who also said Cambodian troops fired first into Thai territory.
Thailand used aircraft “to strike military targets in several areas to suppress Cambodian supporting fire attacks,” he added.
In Cambodia, Met Measpheakdey, deputy governor of Oddar Meanchey province, wrote in a Facebook post that three civilians had been seriously injured.
Cambodian officials said the Thai military attacked their troops first in Preah Vihear province.
“Cambodia urges that Thailand immediately stop all hostile activities that threaten peace and stability in the region,” said Cambodian defence ministry spokesperson Maly Socheata.
Tensions have simmered since the neighbouring countries signed a US-brokered ceasefire agreement in October, put forward by US President Donald Trump.
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Image: Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet shake hands next to US President Donald Trump in October. Pic: Reuters
Their territorial disputes led to five days of combat in July that killed dozens of soldiers and civilians.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said that military operations would be carried out as necessary to defend the country and protect public safety.
“Thailand has never wished for violence. I’d like to reiterate that Thailand has never initiated a fight or an invasion, but will never tolerate a violation of its sovereignty,” he said.
In Thailand, more than 385,000 civilians across several border districts are being evacuated, with over 35,000 already housed in temporary shelters, military officials said.
Image: People rest at a shelter in Buriram province, Thailand, after fresh military clashes. Pic: Reuters
Image: A concrete shelter in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, the Cambodian Education Ministry said several schools along the border had been shut.
Footage posted online showed what appeared to be students hurriedly leaving classes to meet their parents.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim urged Thailand and Cambodia to “exercise maximum restraint”.
In a post on social media, he added: “Our region cannot afford to see long-standing disputes slip into cycles of confrontation.”
Si Sa Ket, Surin and Ubon Ratchathani provinces in Thailand, and Cambodia’s Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey provinces were among the areas said to be caught up in the latest clashes.
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On Sunday, both nations accused each other of opening fire along the border in what the Thai army said was an incident that lasted around 20 minutes and resulted in the injury of two of its soldiers.
But Cambodia said that the Thai side fired first and that Cambodian troops did not retaliate.
For more than a century, Thailand and Cambodia have contested sovereignty at points along their 508-mile (817km) land border.
Donald Trump’s eldest son has said his father may walk away from the Ukraine peace process, claiming the issue is not a priority for Americans, and signalling Europe needs a better plan.
In a wide-ranging discussion with Sky’s lead world news presenter Yalda Hakim at Doha Forum 2025, Donald Trump Jr addressed issues including the US administration’s recent diplomatic efforts around the world.
He was speaking in his capacity as a business leader, setting out his agenda for “America first” investments in defence technology and artificial intelligence (AI), drawing a direct line between global stability and economic prosperity.
Image: Donald Trump meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington earlier this year. Pic: Reuters
When asked directly if he believed the US president would walk away from Ukraine, he answered: “I think he may, what’s good about my father and what’s unique about my father is you don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s unpredictable.”
President Trump has led renewed efforts for a ceasefire deal with Russia in recent months.
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Drawing a parallel with his father’s current “war” on drug cartels, Donald Trump Jr described gangs bringing illegal drugs into America as a “far greater clear and present danger to the US than anything [going on] in the Ukraine or Russia”.
While he said he did not believe Ukraine would be “abandoned”, he said: “The American public doesn’t have the appetite [for endless wars and further funding of Ukraine’s military efforts].”
Describing Ukraine as “a far more corrupt country than Russia”, he characterised Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as “one of the great marketeers of all time”, who he said had become “a borderline deity, especially to the left”.
He went on to describe President Trump’s approach as “common sense”.
China rivalry was the focus, but Musk got a mention
In a country and at a conference which is friendly, even admiring of the Trump administration, Don Jr was in his element.
He’s here in his capacity as a business leader, promoting his venture, 1789 Capital which claims to be focused on “America First” investments.
But he wasn’t shy about discussing his father’s foreign policy achievements, boasting that Donald Trump had resolved seven or eight wars – conflicts that most ordinary Americans were unaware of.
His pitch is bullish and direct – the current US administration is projecting strength globally, stopping wars and creating investment opportunities which serves the American economy. It’s the MAGA mentality for the global audience.
It’s clear that the rivalry with China is their biggest focus, especially finding ways to combat their dominance over critical minerals.
“America can no longer just sit there and hope that China is going to be a good actor… I think the rest of the world understands that they want America to be at the forefront of all of that.”
When I asked him about recent efforts by President Trump to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, he responded forcefully. “We want peace, we want to stop the death.”
But he went on to say that Europe needed to shoulder the burden and currently they have no plan.
As he sat on the stage in Qatar, the country which has been at the centre of the ceasefire efforts for Gaza, he expressed hope that peace would prevail, but balanced expectations America would fund its re-construction. This would have to be a global effort.
“If there’s one thing my father is, it’s a builder… I think he can be the greatest construction manager in the history of the world, but no one in America wants to bear the entire responsibility of that.”
And, away from international diplomatic efforts, he was happy to announce a breakthrough closer to home.
The “bromance” with Elon Musk and President Trump is back on – calling the entrepreneur a “generational talent, a generational level of genius”.
‘Bromance’ back on
He also confirmed that Tesla billionaire Elon Musk was “100% back in the fold”, after previously appearing to fall out with the president.
Earlier this year, Donald Trump Jr’s investment company, 1789 Capital, heavily invested in some of Musk’s companies, including SpaceX.
Image: Elon Musk and Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in May. Pic: AP
Directly comparing President Trump with Musk, he said: “Imagine dealing with one Donald Trump – now I have to deal with two.
“They’re very similar that way, so it created some headaches… but the reality is they’re both very much aligned, they’re on message with what we want to do with our country. What we want to do with freedom of speech.”
He went on: “Elon did incredible things for Twitter, really allowed the democratisation of truth and freedom and free speech to occur. That’s something that is a true threat in America right now.”
He also praised Musk as “changing the face of free speech, science and technology”, adding, “we have to protect our geniuses”.
When asked whether Mr Trump would stand for a third term, he joked that he could be “just trolling” those on the left.
He went on, “He’s the most unpredictable person, probably in the history of politics. Which is why he’s able to get something done. We’ll see.”