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.
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.
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 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.
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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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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4:02
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.”
The COP29 climate talks have reached a last ditch deal on cash for developing countries, pulling the summit back from the brink of collapse after a group of countries stormed out of a negotiating room earlier.
The slew of deals finally signed off in the small hours of Sunday morning in Azerbaijan includes one that proved hardest of all – one about money.
Eventually the more than 190 countries in Baku agreed a target for richer polluting countries such as the UK, EU and Japan to drum up $300bn a year by 2035 to help poorer nations both curb and adapt to climate change.
It is a far cry from the $1.3trn experts say is needed, and from the $500bn that vulnerable countries like Uganda had said they would be willing to accept.
But in the end they were forced to, knowing they could not afford to live without it, nor wait until next year to try again, when a Donald Trump presidency would make things even harder.
Bolivia’s lead negotiator Diego Pacheco called it an “insult”, while the Marshall Islands’ Tina Stege said it was “not nearly enough, but it’s a start”.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said: “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country.
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“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps.”
The funding deal was clinched more than 24 hours into overtime, and against what felt like all the odds.
The fraught two weeks of negotiations pitted the anger of developing countries who are footing the bill for more dangerous weather that they did little to cause, against the tight public finances of rich countries.
A relieved Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, climate envoy for Panama, said there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Just hours ago, the talks almost fell apart as furious vulnerable nations stormed out of negotiations in frustration over that elusive funding goal.
They were also angry with oil and gas producing countries, who stood accused of trying to dilute aspects of the deal on cutting fossil fuels.
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Climate-vulnerable nations storm out of talks
The UN talks work on consensus, meaning everyone has to agree for a deal to fly.
A row over how to follow up on last year’s pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels” was left unresolved and punted into next year, following objections from Chile and Switzerland for being too weak.
A draft deal simply “reaffirmed” the commitment but did not dial up the pressure in the way the UK, EU, island states and many others here wanted.
Saudi Arabia fought the hardest against any step forward on cutting fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change that is intensifying floods, drought and fires around the world.
Governments did manage to strike a deal on carbon markets at COP29, which has been 10 years in the making and will allow countries to trade emissions cuts.
‘Not everything we wanted’
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The UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said the deal is “not everything we or others wanted”, but described it as a “step forward”.
“It’s a deal that will drive forward the clean energy transition, which is essential for jobs and growth in Britain and for protecting us all against the worsening climate crisis,” he added.
“Today’s agreement sends the signal that the clean energy transition is unstoppable.
“It is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century and through our championing of it we can help crowd in private investment.”
The Azerbaijan team leading COP29 said: “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator.
“We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.”
At least 20 people have been killed and 66 injured in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dig through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
The attack destroyed an eight-storey residential building and badly damaged several others around it in the Basta neighbourhood at 4am (2am UK time) on Saturday.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack and has not commented on the casualties.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack – the fourth targeting the city centre this week.
A separate drone strike in the southern port city of Tyre this morning killed two people and injured three, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The victims were Palestinian refugees from the nearby al Rashidieh camp who were out fishing, according to Mohammed Bikai, spokesperson for the Fatah Palestinian faction in the Tyre area.
Israel’s military warned residents today in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs that they were near Hezbollah facilities, which the army would target in the near future. The warning, posted on X, told people to evacuate at least 500 metres away.
The army said that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It said it hit several command centres and weapons storage facilities.
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.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 3,670 people have been killed in Israeli attacks there, with more than 15,400 wounded.
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.
Meanwhile, six people, including three children and two women, were killed in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.
Some 44,176 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
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.
Israeli intelligence agency Mossad is investigating the disappearance of a rabbi in Abu Dhabi after receiving information indicating a “terrorist incident”, the Israeli prime minister’s office has said.
Zvi Kogan, an Israeli-Moldovan citizen, has been missing since Thursday.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said the country’s security and intelligence services have been investigating in Abu Dhabi.
It said: “Mossad has updated that since his disappearance, and given information indicating that this is a terrorist incident, an active investigation has been going on in the country.
“Israeli security and intelligence organisations, concerned for Kogan’s safety and wellbeing, have been working tirelessly on this case.”
In a travel advisory, it warned Israelis: “In major cities, or locations where demonstrations or protests are taking place, conceal anything that could identify you as Israeli or Jewish.”
The Israeli government’s travel advisory service warns its citizens to “avoid unnecessary travel” to the UAE as “there is terrorist activity in the UAE, which constitutes a real risk to Israelis who are staying/visiting in the country”.
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The UAE diplomatically recognised Israel in 2020, a deal it has honoured throughout the Israel-Hamas war and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon.
The Chabad movement is a Hasidic branch of Judaism, according to Chabad Lubavitch UK.
The organisation describes the work of emissaries like Zvi Kogan as “explaining, shedding light, dispelling myths, countering stereotypes” about Judaism.