More than 1,500 militants quickly swarmed through in pick-up trucks and on motorcycles, joined by others using gliders and speedboats at sea, to unleash gun attacks that claimed hundreds of lives in nearby communities.
“At 6.30am the rockets started,” a lookout soldier who was stationed in Nahal Oz, across from Gaza City, said in a televised interview from her hospital bed.
“About 30” militants quickly occupied the army base and held it for seven hours, the soldier, identified only as Y, told Israel’s Channel 12.
“I sprinted barefoot to the bomb shelter, and after an hour we started hearing voices in Arabic, and they started shooting at the entrance,” she recalled.
Until an elite Israeli army unit finally retook the base, “for all those hours, it became their (Hamas’s) camp”, the soldier said.
SNIPER ATTACKS
In the opening moments of the massive attack, snipers “fired at the observation posts” dotted along the 65-kilometre long barrier, an Israeli army spokesperson told AFP.
A soldier stationed at an observation post also said the Palestinian gunmen “started shooting at … observation cameras, and it got to the point where we could no longer observe” the border.
In comments published by independent Israeli news website Hamakom, the unnamed soldier said that, as her army base came under attack, “we were told our only option was to … run for our lives into the situation room”.
Source: CNA
