On the fourth day of the war in Gaza, the shocking testimonies from the burned kibbutzim began to come out. ZAKA personnel, who spend night and day collecting the many bodies, describe descriptions of horrors that have never been heard before, and are incomprehensible in the mind of a human being.
Moti Bukchin, ZAKA spokesman who is on the ground, talks about the reality in the envelope in the days since the outbreak of the "Iron Swords" war. "The horrific scenes we encountered on the kibbutzim are sights that have never been seen before. Children. Babies. In bed, in the stroller. Shot, burned. Tie people to a chair with their hands behind their backs, or tie them together as they lay on the floor – and then set fire to the building they were in while they were still alive. They burned people alive. Each arena was more difficult than the other, each house more horrifying than the other.
But the harsh sights were not only in the kibbutzim. Even on the grounds where the Nova party was held, which turned into a killing field, the sights were horrifying. "In the area of the party there were young people who exploded from the terrorists' fragmentation grenades.
"We found many young people shot in the trenches," says Bukchin. "We don't talk much about what we see. Silent. Don't share with each other. In places where a volunteer feels like he can't do it anymore, I tell him to wait outside. Some crash while working, collapse and go home.
Chaos: Footage from the nature party that took place near Kibbutz Reim
A race against time
"At the moment we are not thinking about the soul, we continue to work with all our might. We are in a race against time. The condition of the bodies is getting worse by the day. It's very hot here, the bodies are rotting and the collection work is getting harder by the day. In the Meron disaster, there were 45 fatalities, and we thought it wouldn't get worse. So it was the first time we transported bodies by truck. But what's worse here than the Holocaust, there's a smell of death everywhere."
Yossi Lando, a senior volunteer in the organization, shares his feelings from the sights he witnessed at Kibbutz Be'eri. "We saw children hugging their mothers, shot. We saw parents and children in the same room, facing each other. Their hands are tied behind their backs. By all indications, they must have been severely abused.
"We saw a family of five, along with the dog, burned inside the safe room. They threw a grenade into the safe room and made sure they burned alive. They also dressed civilians with explosive belts so that the security forces that reached these bodies would explode.
"Horrifying sights". ZAKA Spokesperson Moti Buktzin // Photo: ZAKA
"Worse than ISIS"
Lando goes on to describe the horror: "I saw about 20 children handcuffed from behind. They stood them in two groups, shot them and burned them inside the dining room. I saw a pregnant woman whose stomach was slit while the fetus was still attached to the umbilical cord. The fetus was stabbed with a knife and the mother was shot in the head, and I don't know who they murdered first - the mother or the baby."
ZAKA commander Mendi Habib says: "Already on the access roads to the kibbutzim, even before we went inside, we saw entire families burned in vehicles. Women. Children. People are shooting vehicles. Bloody carts and baskets are strewn outside the vehicles. Young girls who ran away barefoot from the party had bullets pierced their heads.
"They were severely abused." Yossi Lando, senior volunteer at ZAKA // Photo: ZAKA
"Inside the kibbutz it was already more horrifying. We saw a burnt child on the side of a house, and inside a house on the edge of Kibbutz Be'eri sat a couple tied together, shot and burned, and in front of them three burnt and shot children. There was a little boy among them, about 4 or 5 years old."
You could say that you met there the scene of ISIS's death.
"Much worse. I saw a severed head, severed organs that we had collected. Half a burnt body and I don't know where the other half is. Bodies are shot in all sorts of positions. I go through bodies on the kibbutz paths. Maneuvering between bodies strewn everywhere. We saw iron lodged in a skull. A kind of axe stuck inside the head.
"These are unimaginable horrors. I share with you after crying so much, after sharing endlessly. These monsters are worse than ISIS. The prime minister called their massacres 'barbaric' - but 'barbaric' is a compliment to them. 'Nazis' is a compliment to them. 'Cannibals' is a compliment to them. In some places, we saw that there was blood on the ceiling as well - I just try to imagine what they did to people so that the blood of the murdered reached the ceiling.
"I've been at ZAKA for 25 years," Habib concludes, "but such a horror as we saw in these four days we haven't seen cumulatively in all the disasters and terror attacks. I also saw dogs crying tears, frightened, shaking. Today we took a dog out of the home of one of the families. One of the friends of the woman who was murdered and slaughtered in the house recognized him. She contacted me and we were able to get the dog back to her."
ZAKA volunteers near the Gaza Strip, photo: ZAKA
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