Photo: Alexi J. Rosenfeld / Getty Images News / Getty Images
Israeli soldiers and reporters described the horrific scenes at the Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel, which was attacked by dozens of Hamas fighters.
i24NEWS Correspondent Nicole Zedek said that the brutality of the violence left many soldiers shocked as they tried to console each other after the horrors they saw.
"Many soldiers were called up for reserve service and could be seen actively consoling each other after what they had to witness. They arrived expecting the worst, but the scenes are beyond anything that one could imagine," she wrote.
Zedek said that entire families were killed in their homes. The terrorists spared no one, not even babies. She reported that at least 40 babies and young children were taken out in gurneys by soldiers.
"Some soldiers say they found babies with their heads cut off, entire families gunned down in their beds," Zedek added.
She noted that the attackers left behind booby traps in some of the homes, making recovery efforts extremely dangerous.
"It's not a war; it's not a battlefield. You see the babies, the mother, the father, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists killed them," Israeli Defense Force Major General Itai Veruv told reporters. "It's a massacre."