Reuters World News - ‘Hell’ at an Israeli kibbutz and Hamas’ secretive mastermind

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Who is the alleged mastermind of the Hamas attack and Israel’s most-wanted man? The harrowing first-hand stories from parents as attackers tore through their homes on a kibbutz. Biden promises unwavering support for Israel as it prepares its forces for a ground offensive into Gaza. Plus, how the global economy is being impacted by the escalating violence. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, the scale of Saturday's attack in Israel becomes clear with harrowing stories from inside an Israeli settlement. We kept hearing shootings and gunfire and bombs and alarms and just our worst nightmares. How the mastermind behind the attacks and Israel's most wanted man spent two years planning marades. Israel prepares its troops for a ground offensive as Egypt holds talk. on safe passage for civilians in Gaza. And the global economy watches closely as fears of all-out war rattle markets. It's Wednesday, October 11th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know

from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in Nicosia. Israel is preparing a ground offensive into Gaza, is the scale of last weekend's rampage by Hamas gunmen emerges. Defence Minister Yuav Galant told soldiers near the Gaza border that fighting will intensify. It's only now coming to light just how many people were killed by Hamas when its fighters crossed into Israel.

In towns and settlements along the border, bodies are still being uncovered. President Joe Biden can tell. condemned the attacks in a speech laced with emotion and pledged U.S. military assistance. You know, there are moments in this life, and I mean this literally, when the pure unadolored evil is unleashed on this world. People of Israel live through one such moment this weekend. In Gaza, Israeli bombs continue to rain down. The enclave is buckling under a total blockade. The fate of dozens of Israeli hostages, including American citizens, is unknown.

Washington says it's talking with Israel and Egypt about safe passage for Gaza civilians. At the Khafar Azakibbutz, the stench of death is everywhere. Just a few days ago, it was a sleepy farming community of about 750 people. But on Saturday, when Hamas gunmen arrived, Israel says a massacre took place. They say mothers, fathers and babies were killed in their beds. Israel's military is still trying to piece together exactly what happened and how many are dead. The fighting only just ended on Monday.

Mayan Lubel visited Kartharza. As I approached the gate of the kibbutz, we could already smell the bodies. There was a body of a Hamas gunman on the side of the road. As we approached the area where we were told was where the young families lived. First glance, it kind of looked like a tornado it hit because there was all this wreckage out on the paths

and furniture strewn and a baby crib and a baby buggy. And then you start to see more signs of what had happened and you see charred walls and houses burnt from the inside and a window to one of the safe rooms where a family was hiding a sign of an explosion and a hand grenade was thrown at them to get them out of the safe room. and I saw these soldiers loading the body bags on stretches onto a van to take them away. Our team spoke with a couple who survived with their young baby.

What did they tell us? So our team spoke with Karen Flash and her husband, Abidhar Swarteman, who were in their safe room in the kibbutz for around 20 hours with their baby. We kept hearing shootings and gunfire and bombs and alarms. and just didn't know what was happening, just our worst nightmares. The Kibbutz has around 750 residents, lots of young families. They live about three kilometers or a mile and a half or so from the Gaza border. And, you know, residents, they described it.

The people who spoke to us described it as, you know, their little spot of paradise, which turned into hell on Saturday. There's no going back from this. How can we go back to live in that? beautiful place when we know what happened there and all the people that we knew that we saw on the pavements every day going from the kindergarten and back then how can we just keep going on like nothing ever happens so it's only after you leave the scene that what you've seen actually hits you and it was chilling it was chilling uh it was it was clear that the devastation was

great and that people had seen absolute horrors, those who survived, and it seems like many have not survived or possibly been taking hostage to guys it. Israel says the incursion by Hamas is its 9-11. The man who masterminded the attacks, however, calls it the Alaksa flood. Reporting by our Middle East team reveals how Israel's most wanted man planned the most deadly assault in 50 years. Samia Nakul is global foreign policy editor and has spent more than 30 years covering the Middle East. Samir, what can you tell us about the Palestinian militant, Mohamed Daif.

Who is he? Muhammad Daif is a Palestinian refugee who grew up in the Khanunist refugee camp. He joined Hamas in the 80s, around 87. He was arrested a year after joining, spent another year in prison and got more radicalized when he was in prison. He started becoming one of the militants who organized attacks against Israeli forces and sometimes civilians. He studied chemistry, biology and physics at Gaza University, Islamic University, and he became one of the expert in bomb making.

He is the military leader of Hamas, Al-Qasan Brigade. He's the mastermind of this attack and previous attacks against Israeli troops. In an audio tape broadcast as Hamas fired rockets into Israel on Saturday, he calls it the Al-Axa flood. What is he referring to? He called the Al-A-Flaude because he said it was conceived in 2021 when Israeli forces stormed Al-Aqa Mosque, which is regarded at the third holiest side for Muslims. They attack Palestinians, they beat Palestinians, they dragged many outside the mosque. and he felt that this anger was building up since then, and this is when he started planning the attack.

How did Israel miss this? Because he is very, very secretive. He doesn't trust anyone. Even planning this attack, he and only two other military commanders knew about the operation. He doesn't use any iPhones. He doesn't use any technology because he's always worried about leaks, about interception, about cybersecurity. He never appeased in public. Nobody has seen him. If you see him on the street, people say in Gaza, they wouldn't know who he was.

Where is Mohamed Deif now? Will he become Israel's bin Laden? I think he has been Israel bin Laden for many years. They've been trying to kill him. They tried seven times to kill him and they missed him. In one of the attacks in 2014, it was an air strike. They killed his wife, his seven months old baby and his three-year-old daughter. But he wasn't in the building then. He was seriously wounded in one of the attacks. He lost an eye and a limb. But he's still moving around. Nobody has seen him. There are only three photos of him. One when he was in his 20s.

And one, his masks, nobody can see him. And one he appears in one of the videotapes that he released as a shadow. The conflict has markets on edge. Dan Burns is our US economics editor. Dan, how could Watts unfolding impact the broader global economy? Well, it can do that in a number of ways. We saw a 4% or so increase in the price of crude oil in the first couple of days of the week. That said, it's still about 8% below where it was at the end of September. So all things equal a fairly muted response and maybe even some diminishing worries about the way the conflict may interfere with the global supply of oil. In times of big uncertainty, you get what's called a flight to quality trade. Right. And the world's biggest quality asset market is the U.S. Treasury market. So not surprisingly, you've seen a lot of inflows into U.S. government bonds, and that's driven their yields lower. U.S. stocks are a little bit higher, mostly because of that drop in bond yields. And some comments by Federal Reserve officials early in the week that indicated a number of them are less inclined toward further interest rate increases from here. Afghanistan's been hit by another earthquake, days after more than 2,400 people were killed in a series of quakes.

The latest one hit in the western province of Herat, with some areas completely flattened and a warning of huge losses. Over in D.C., the House of Representatives is still without a speaker after Republican Kevin McCarthy was removed from his post. But the speaker's race is finally heating up. And as President Biden mentioned, a lot is at stake, including funding for Israel. When Congress returns, we're going to ask them to take urgent action to fund the national security requirements of our critical partners. An Australian journalist who had been held in China on national security charges for more than three years has returned home. Cheng Li worked as a TV anchor on Chinese state television when she was detained for allegedly sharing state. secrets. Finland says an underwater gas pipeline and a telecoms cable, linking it with

Estonia, has been damaged in a possible deliberate act. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Thursday with our daily news show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.