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<\/div>\nHamas operatives swept across the Gaza border to kill an estimated 1,200 people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sderot, Israel: <\/b><\/p>\n
Yossi Landau has spent decades collecting corpses in Israel, but he almost reached breaking point recovering the remains of people killed by Gaza militants in the country’s deadliest assault. Landau woke to the sounds of sirens on Saturday, a moment he had become “used to” as Israelis took shelter from incoming rocket fire.<\/p>\n
It was not until later that he realised the launches were “only a cover up, because the main part is the invasion” by Hamas militants, who swept across the Gaza border to kill an estimated 1,200 people.<\/p>\n
From his home in Ashdod, a coastal city north of Gaza, he recalled seeing “the horror” as he rushed to the scene.<\/p>\n
“I saw cars turned over, I saw people on the street dead,” Landau said in Sderot, a town near the border where multiple residents were killed.<\/p>\n
He has 33 years of experience volunteering for Zaka, an organisation that recovers the bodies of people who suffered unnatural deaths.<\/p>\n
But as gunfights raged between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces, Landau said he witnessed violence he had never seen before.<\/p>\n
“A piece of road that should’ve taken 15 minutes, it took us 11 hours because we went and picked up everyone, put them in a bag,” said the 55-year-old.<\/p>\n
Abandoned cars that were torched or riddled with bullet holes still litter the landscape of southern Israel.<\/p>\n
After already loading dozens of corpses onto refrigerated trucks, Landau and fellow volunteers reached Beeri, a kibbutz of around 1,200 residents five kilometres (three miles) from Gaza.<\/p>\n
“I felt that I’m falling apart, not only me, my whole crew,” he recalled, after entering the first home and finding a dead woman.<\/p>\n
“Her stomach was ripped open, a baby was there, still connected with the cord, and stabbed,” said Landau.<\/p>\n
The Zaka volunteer said he saw multiple civilians, including around 20 children, who had their hands tied behind their backs before being shot and torched.<\/p>\n
“We saw some victims positioned that they were sexually abused,” he added.<\/p>\n