The horrors inflicted on Israelis living at a kibbutz near the border with Gaza were exposed on Wednesday, as the world’s media were shown around the bullet-riddled and bloodstained settlement where more than 100 people were killed.
The Israeli Defense Forces have reporters including A Fox News team Tuesday to Be’eri, just three miles from the Gaza border.
The kibbutz was known as an arts and farming community of 1,200 people, but was overrun on Saturday by Hamas terrorists who attacked with grenades, guns and knives.
IDF soldiers fought for eight hours to push Hamas out of the camp, door-to-door to kill the terrorists inside the Israeli homes, and it was only liberated on Sunday – the last settlement to be liberated from Hamas.
Trey Yingst, a correspondent for Fox News, was one of the reporters shown inside a kibbutz attacked by Hamas on Saturday
Yingst tweeted photos of the destroyed houses inside the kibbutz
The Fox News reporter showed blood-stained floors and bullet-riddled homes
The site was only declared safe for outsiders on Tuesday: all the bodies of Israeli victims had been removed, but the burned and mutilated corpses of Hamas fighters still lay in heaps on the outskirts of the kibbutz.
The smell was stomach-turning, reporters said, and Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst took viewers inside one of the bullet-scarred and blood-covered homes.
“You can see the floors are stained with blood,” he said.
‘It was Saturday morning, around 7am, when militants stormed this village. You can see the weapons they brought with them, extra ammunition, bullet holes in the side of the house and knives on the floor.’
Yingst said the community was ‘littered with bodies’.
‘It was completely destroyed. It looks like some of the buildings have been hit with RPGs, explosives.’
He said he came across ‘beds full of blood’ where residents had been killed in their beds.
The IDF said some of the victims were beheaded.
Yingst, 30, said it was “hell on earth”, describing the scene as the most horrific he had seen in his career reporting around the world. Yingst joined Fox five years ago.
Yingst’s crew filmed weapons in the houses in the kibbutz, where Israelis were killed
Doors were riddled with bullets – proof of the ferocity of Hamas’ attack on Saturday
This graphic (above) shows how the Hamas massacre unfolded on the Kfar Aza kibbutz
Troops remove the bodies of victims killed during an attack by Hamas terrorists in Kfar Aza on Tuesday
Israeli soldiers walk next to the bodies of Hamas militant killed in Kfar Aza kibbutz on Tuesday
Israeli soldiers search for the bodies of Israelis killed in Kfar Aza Kibbutz near the border with Gaza on Tuesday
A charred house after an attack by Palestinian terrorists on the kibbutz on Tuesday
A house that was left in ruins after an attack by Hamas militants on this kibbutz days earlier when dozens of civilians died near the border with Gaza on Tuesday.
A soldier is overcome with emotion as he searches for bodies in the kibbutz
“We saw about eight bodies in body bags of the locals who were here,” he said.
‘Some may be militants. They still have to work to identify the bodies. Some are difficult to identify.
“I just want to tell you what the commander told me when we got here. He saw many of the families slaughtered in their beds and in their bomb shelters after Hamas militants broke through the door. He told us that there are people who have been beheaded here, people with their hands tied behind their backs and shot – executed.
‘And you saw the inside of that house: it is the most horrible thing I have ever seen.
‘This is a community where there are breakfast plates out with food still on them, on dining room tables.
‘There are fridges like you’ll see anywhere in the world with pictures of little kids playing sports. There are bicycles and more ceiling fans going into the house and there are beds soaked in blood. The floor of that kitchen, as you saw, and there are weapons lying everywhere from those militants. You can see some of their vehicles just outside.
“It’s a house of horrors behind me and the whole neighborhood looks like that.”