Israeli soldiers removing civilian bodies who were killed days earlier in an attack by Hamas militants on this kibbutz in Kfar Aza, Israel.
Alexi J. Rosenfeld via Getty Images
A kibbutz attack survivor says Hamas turned his “little piece of paradise” into “pure hell.”
Avidor Schwartzman told Reuters that he hid in his safe room with his family when Hamas attacked.
Schwartzman said he saw bodies and blood everywhere after he was rescued by the military.
A man who survived a Hamas attack on his kibbutz said the militant group turned his home into “pure hell.”
Avidor Schwartzman, 38, and his family stayed in a kibbutz in Kfar Aza, located three kilometers from the Gaza strip.
Schwartzman told Reuters in a story published on Tuesday that he hid in his house’s safe room with his family when Hamas attacked on Saturday morning. The Palestinian militant group launched a surprise attack on Israel on Saturday, firing thousands of rockets from Gaza.
Schwartzman said the family went into hiding after they were woken by the sound of rockets. They were later rescued by Israeli soldiers, after hiding in the safe room for more than 20 hours.
“There were bodies everywhere. Dead bodies everywhere. We saw our little piece of paradise, our little piece of heaven, was totally burnt and with blood everywhere,” Schwartzman told Reuters.
Schwartzman’s wife, Keren Flash, told Reuters the family heard the sound of shooting outside while they were barricaded in the room.
“We kept hearing shootings and gunfire and bombs and alarms, and we just didn’t know what was happening,” Flash told Reuters. Our worst nightmares.”
Nir Dinar, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, told Insider on Tuesday that soldiers have found decapitated corpses of babies at a kibbutz in Kfar Aza. Dinar said in a later statement that they weren’t able to confirm the number of bodies.
“What happened in Kibbutz Kfar Aza is a massacre in which women children, toddlers and elderly were brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action,” Dinar told Insider.
CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, reporting from the ground in Israel, said he saw “bodies everywhere” when he visited the kibbutz.
“There were so many murdered members of this kibbutz. Men, women, children, hands bound, shot, executed, heads cut,” Robertson said in his report.
Israel declared a state of war on Sunday, with officials saying their goal was to vanquish Hamas and take complete control of Gaza.
Civilian deaths and injuries have been reported on both sides. More than 1,000 Israelis have been killed, per the Israeli embassy in the US. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, the war has claimed at least 830 lives in Gaza, with thousands more injured.