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We watched the latest feed of pictures and interviews sent to us in southern Israel by our Sky News colleagues in Gaza.

We are only a few miles apart but we could be on different continents.

The Sky News team and other journalists who live in Gaza are our eyes and ears to what is happening there.

Their work is dangerous, and vital to all of us who want to know what is happening.

Follow live: Israeli soldier rescued from captivity in Gaza

Like them we know what it’s like to work in dangerous places; unlike them, we aren’t doing our job with our mothers, fathers, partners, children, nephews and nieces, brothers and sisters living alongside us.

But they do it every day to bear witness.

What their latest feed shows is Gaza being split in two.

Only two roads connect the north and the south of the Gaza Strip; one is a main road, the other is a smaller coastal road.

Both are impossible to drive down with any safety anymore.

In a series of interviews, the Sky team spoke to some of the last people to make it south from Gaza City.

Their stories are uniformly terrifying and almost all the same – attacked as they drove, cars in front of them destroyed, and bodies strewn across the road.

The city of Khan Younis is on its knees
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The city of Khan Younis is on its knees

A family with a baby seen in Khan Younis
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A family with a baby seen in Khan Younis

Khan Younis

‘Everywhere is being bombed’

With a mattress strapped to the top of his car, and his children by his side, Abdul Nasr Lajkar told Sky News he doesn’t know where to go.

“It doesn’t matter if you are in Gaza or Khan Younis or anywhere else. There is no safe place. There is no place that is immune from bombing,” he said.

“Gaza is being bombed, Nuseirat is being bombed, Khan Younis is being bombed. Everywhere is being bombed. That is why we are sitting on the street.”

Abdul Nasr Lajkar told Sky News there is "no place immune from bombing"
Image:
Abdul Nasr Lajkar told Sky News there is ‘no place immune from bombing’

The father, driving with his children and a mattress strapped to his car, said he has nowhere to go
Image:
The father said he has nowhere to go

He then recounted the story of his dangerous and almost tragic trip to the city of Khan Younis.

“We saw a lot of destruction, they hit a car in front of us and we saw legs and hands on top of the car, and it was the car immediately in front of us,” he said.

“They all became like when you slaughter an animal, how you cut them up into pieces – that’s what happened to the occupants of the car.

“We got out of our car, and we could not comprehend what we were seeing.”

The windscreen of his car was damaged in the blast.

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Inside Gaza hospital where hundreds are sheltering

‘Nobody was alive’

Another evacuee, 30-year-old Hassan Abu Abdien, had a very similar experience on his drive south.

“We were moving and we passed that area and they hit the car in front, we were 40 to 50 metres away from them, and I pulled the handbrake and turned around but the shrapnel hit my windscreen,” he told Sky News.

“There were no ambulances or emergency services to help those casualties there, all of them got killed – kids, youngsters, they all got martyred – nobody was alive.”

Hassan Abu Abdien told how  shrapnel hit his windscreen as he tried to flee
Image:
Hassan Abu Abdien told how shrapnel hit his windscreen as he tried to flee

Map of buildings in the Gaza Strip, with major cities highlighted. SOURCE: Open Street Map
Image:
Map of buildings in the Gaza Strip, with major cities highlighted. SOURCE: Open Street Map

A Gazan journalist, Yusuf Al Saifi, actually filmed his and his colleague’s terrifying experience on the main road south.

He told Sky News he has been travelling north daily to cover the Israeli advance on Gaza, and then returning south, but on his latest trip, he realised everything had changed on the route – an Israeli tank is in control and he says it is showing no mercy.

He filmed the moment a family car drove on the road towards the tank, not realising it was there.

“The car that was moving forward didn’t realise there was a tank there, he kept moving forward quickly and realised there was a tank in front of him,” he said.

He continued: “They fired on him, the driver tried turning back.

“He had a family with him, I saw the family in the car… they struck him with a shell, and they died.

“We saw it with our own eyes.”

Sky News has reached out to the IDF for comment on this incident, but we are yet to receive a reply.

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Moment tank fires at car in central Gaza

‘Israel went to plan B’

As the Israeli campaign continues, it is starting to become clear the military wants to cut Gaza in half so it can concentrate its operations on Hamas strongholds in the north; an attempt to dismantle its network of tunnels and ultimately the organisation itself.

Palestinian political leaders like Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, told me this was always the plan.

Mustafa Barghouti, President of the Palestinian National Initiative
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Mustafa Barghouti, President of the Palestinian National Initiative

He believes it is not just a military decision but a deep-rooted strategy to literally redraw the map of the Middle East.

“I think Israel went to plan B, which is to ethnically cleanse Gaza City and the north of Gaza completely, and cut it off,” he told me.

“That is exactly what they are doing and what they will be trying to do through their ground operation.”

This is a proper invasion and bombing campaign that appears to be growing by the day.

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Gaza: Baby caught up in hospital mayhem

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The Israeli military is determined to succeed, and Hamas and its militias are determined to fight.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there will be no ceasefire and there will be no let up.

Which means for the civilians trapped in Gaza, there really is nowhere to run or to hide.

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Ukraine war: Russia launches drone strike on Kyiv – as commander ‘sacked for lying about war progress’

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Ukraine war: Russia launches drone strike on Kyiv - as commander 'sacked for lying about war progress'

Russia launched a large drone attack on Kyiv overnight, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning the attack shows his capital needs better air defences.

Ukraine’s air defence units shot down 50 of 73 Russian drones launched, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries as a result of the attacks.

Russia has used more than 800 guided aerial bombs and around 460 attack drones in the past week.

Warning that Ukraine needs to improve its air defences, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “An air alert has been sounded almost daily across Ukraine this week”.

“Ukraine is not a testing ground for weapons. Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state.

“But Russia still continues its efforts to kill our people, spread fear and panic, and weaken us.”

Russia did not comment on the attack.

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It comes as Russian media reported that Colonel General Gennady Anashkin, the commander of the country’s southern military district, had been removed from his role over allegedly providing misleading reports about his troops’ progress.

While Russian forces have advanced at the fastest rate in Ukraine since the start of the invasion, forces have been much slower around Siversk and the eastern region of Donetsk.

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Russian war bloggers have long complained that units there are poorly supported and thrown into deadly battles for little tactical gain.

Russia’s ministry of defence has not commented on the reports.

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Russian forces capture ‘former British soldier’ fighting for Ukraine – reports

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Russian forces capture 'former British soldier' fighting for Ukraine - reports

Russian forces have reportedly captured a British man while he was fighting for Ukraine.

In a widely circulated video posted on Sunday, the man says his name is James Scott Rhys Anderson, aged 22.

He says he is a former British Army soldier who signed up to fight for Ukraine’s International Legion after his job.

He is dressed in army fatigues and speaks with an English accent as he says to camera: “I was in the British Army before, from 2019 to 2023, 22 Signal Regiment.”

He tells the camera he was “just a private”, “a signalman” in “One Signal Brigade, 22 Signal Regiment, 252 Squadron”.

“When I left… got fired from my job, I applied on the International Legion webpage. I had just lost everything. I just lost my job,” he said.

“My dad was away in prison, I see it on the TV,” he added, shaking his head. “It was a stupid idea.”

In a second video, he is shown with his hands tied and at one point, with tape over his eyes.

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He describes how he had travelled to Ukraine from Britain, saying: “I flew to Krakow, Poland, from London Luton. Bus from there to Medyka in Poland, on the Ukraine border.”

Russian state news agency Tass reported that a military source said a “UK mercenary” had been “taken prisoner in the Kursk area” of Russia.

The UK Foreign Office said it was “supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention”.

The Ministry of Defence has declined to comment at this stage.

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Body of missing rabbi Zvi Kogan found in UAE – as Israeli PM says he was murdered in ‘antisemitic terror incident’

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Body of missing rabbi Zvi Kogan found in UAE - as Israeli PM says he was murdered in 'antisemitic terror incident'

The body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been found, Israel has said.

Zvi Kogan, the Chabad representative in the UAE, went missing on Thursday.

A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office on Sunday said the 28-year-old rabbi was murdered, calling it a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.

“The state of Israel will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death,” it said.

On Saturday, Israeli intelligence agency Mossad said it was investigating the disappearance as suspicions arose that he had been kidnapped.

The Emirati government gave no immediate acknowledgment that Mr Kogan had been found dead. Its interior ministry has described the rabbi as being “missing and out of contact”.

“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the interior ministry said.

Mr Kogan lived in the UAE with his wife Rivky, who is a US citizen. He ran a Kosher grocery store in Dubai, which has been the target of online protests by pro-Palestinian supporters.

The Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of Orthodox Judaism, said Mr Kogan was last seen in Dubai.

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Israeli authorities reissued their recommendation against all non-essential travel to the UAE and said visitors currently there should minimise movement and remain in secure areas.

The rabbi’s disappearance comes as Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the two countries traded fire in October.

While the Israeli statement on Mr Kogan did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have previously carried out kidnappings in the UAE.

The UAE diplomatically recognised Israel in 2020. Since then, synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners have been set up for the burgeoning Jewish community but the unrest in the Middle East has sparked deep anger in the country.

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