CBN News Visits a Kibbutz Where Hamas Unleashed Evil: 'This Is Taken Out of a Horror Movie'

KIBBUTZ KFAR AZA, Southern Israel – October 5th, two days before Hamas would go on their killing spree, more than 600 Christians from 50 countries, visited areas in southern Israel, close to Gaza's border.

Ofir Libstein, a well-known mayor, welcomed the Christian guests taking a unity tour of the country. "Welcome again to Sha'ar Hanegev. You've been here last year and I hope to see you again next year."

"I promise to do everything to keep the land of Israel, to keep the land of this area and to build stronger and stronger. I'm so happy to see you from all over the world to come and see this beautiful place," Libstein said.

Just 48 hours after those brief remarks, the 50-year-old mayor, who lived in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, less than two miles from the Gaza Strip, awakened to the noise of rapid gunfire.
 
On that October 7th morning, Mayor Ofir came running because he could hear the gunfire right outside his home. Not knowing what was going on, he came down one of the main arteries of the Kibbutz and then he encountered a Hamas fighter who shot and killed him.

David Parsons, of the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem, lost a close friend that day. "The death of Mayor Libstein, a good friend of the embassy, it was so surreal that we were here two days before, and it's been very personal for us," he said.

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Seventy Hamas terrorists descended on Kibbutz Kfar Aza that morning, going house to house.
  
"The mission was simply to kill," explained captured terrorist Omar Abu Rusha, a member of Hamas' elite naval commando force that took part in the civilian massacre at Kfar Aza.

"We weren't supposed to kidnap, just kill," he explained. His Israeli interrogator asked, "What were you told? To kill every person you see?" Rusha confirmed, "To kill every person we see and come back."

The interrogator asked, "No difference between men, women, children? Everyone?" Rusha replied, "Yes."

A graphic map shows the exact locations in the kibbutz where Rusha and his accomplices murdered 58 residents of Kfar Aza, including 40 children. Hamas also took 17 hostages from the village. 

Radical Muslims from Hamas have been reported as saying that they have an advantage in the conflict because they "love death." And Member of Knesset Sharren Haskel told us, "Golda Meir said it the best. She said that this war will end when they love their children more than they hate us."

Haskel gave CBN News and other media a tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza this week. Almost four weeks after the horrific attacks of October 7th, everything has just kind of frozen in time. Nothing has been touched. Every home here sustained some level of destruction. Windows were blown out. Furniture and clothes strewn all over the place. 

"I mean this is taken out of a horror movie, out of a horror scene. This is just unbelievable," Haskel said.

Major Diamond of the Israeli Defense Forces tells CBN News that once terrorists took over the kibbutz, hundreds of Gazans then broke through the border fence.
 
"The clothing that you see scattered here this wasn't done by IDF, this was done by Hamas and Gazans that just came in here and started to loot the houses and just steal whatever they could," he said.

And then there's the smell of tragedy that still lingers in the air all these many weeks later.
 
The one thing you immediately recognize is the smell of death here. Blood is still splattered on the floor, on the couch, along with hundreds of bullet marks. The reports are that many of the homes in this kibbutz sustained RPG attacks and in the situations when Hamas wasn't able to actually get the residents out, they ended up setting them ablaze.

Mayor Ofir, like so many of the residents here, had spent years on numerous initiatives to foster peace between Jews and Palestinians living in Gaza.

Haskel said, "Many people here in this town, who were peace-loving people who looked to how to advance and better the life of Israelis and Palestinians, were murdered here in front of their homes with their family members; some of them burned to the ground in these houses and when Hamas came and did that they burned and they murdered people with that kind of vision."

Parsons, whose Christian organization has helped build more than 200 bomb shelters throughout southern Israel, says despite the ongoing war with Hamas, they are here for the long haul.

"We are going to stand with these communities and help them rebuild. We've been doing it for over 10 years now with bomb shelters and firefighting equipment and things they need to stay here," Parsons said. "It is not going to deter us. We are going to stand with Israel even stronger and help these communities rebuild here along the Gaza wall."