Be’eri Kibbutz, where a British-Isreali man and his wife hid as Hamas stormed their house then set it alight (Picture: Google Maps)
A British-Israeli man has described the terrifying 12-hour ordeal that saw him and his wife locked up in a safe room as Hamas attacked their home.
The militants stormed the property, situated within a kibbutz, before setting it on fire.
It comes as fighting continues between Hamas and Israel, with more than 700 Israelis and 400 Palestinians confirmed dead since Hamas launched their attack on Israel Sunday morning.
The couple waited in their bomb-proof room as smoke began to seep through the door and Hamas and Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers engaged in gunfights.
‘For another six hours, we listened to gunfights all around us,’ Ben, who didn’t want to give his full name, told Sky News.
‘I think there was a gunman on our roof, as the shots sounded so close.’
Eventually – after 12 hours in the safe room – they heard Hebrew voices as IDF troops approached the house.
Rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza City are intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defence missile system in the early hours of Sunday (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)
The soldiers helped the couple escape through the safe room window and drove them to a nearby sports stadium, from where they were moved to a hotel in an area near the Dead Sea.
Ben is originally from Worcestershire but has lived in a kibbutz called Be’eri, around 5km from the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip for 26 years.
He said he awoke Sunday morning to the sound of rockets, but as this is a fairly regular occurrence and the rockets are generally intercepted by Israeli’s Iron Dome system, he was not too alarmed.
However, the 52-year-old soon received a text message telling everyone to lock themselves into their safe rooms.
The couple’s safe room is 5x4sq m and has a gas and blast-proof door and window, of which neither can be open from the outside.
Even at this stage, Ben and his wife assumed they’d soon be given the all clear but instead heard Arabic voices within the kibbutz.
Israeli families bring personal items of missing loved ones to a police station in Lod for DNA tests (Picture: Debbie Hill/UPI/Shutterstock)
Ben believes around 30 militants had stormed the complex.
The couple were lying on the floor of the room in silence when they heard a loud noise as the front door was knocked in.
The pair then heard smashing and banging in the house before it went quiet as, they presumed, the militants left.
They then noticed a crackling sound and saw smoke seeping through the door to their safe room. It turned out the sealant of the door had melted in the heat.
Realising their home was on fire, the couple hid under bedsheets to try and protect themselves from the smoke and used a crack in their blinds to access fresh air.
‘It was so hot, it was so unbelievably hot,’ Ben said, ‘I don’t know how we didn’t pass out.’
After they were rescued, and while waiting in a car park where they received food and water, Ben said a solider offered him a pair of socks as he was barefoot.
‘It was an act of kindness – I won’t forget it, no matter how small it was,’ he added.
Palestinians evacuate the area following an Israeli airstrike on the Sousi mosque in Gaza City today (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)
Ben said he’s now considering leaving Israel as his home of 26 years is ‘gone’.
Israel formally declared war on Hamas hours after it began pounding the besieged Gaza Strip, deploying some 100,000 reserve troops to the densely populated territory.
At least 123,538 people in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced as a result of the fighting between the two sides.
Most people have fled ‘due to fear, protection concerns and the destruction of their homes’, the United Nations have warned.
There are 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza, so officials expect the number to rise.
You can read Metro’s live blog on the hostilities here.
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