WATCH: Among thousands of Gazans fleeing south, the IDF is trying to locate hostages
Israeli media team for the first time films the thousands of Gazan refugees
For the first time since the Swords of Iron war between Israel and Hamas began, a team of reporters from Israel's Kan news was allowed to accompany the IDF soldiers facilitating the escape of Gazan residents from the northern Gaza Strip to the south.
While Israeli soldiers are securing the humanitarian corridor on Salah al-Din Street, they are also scanning the crowds for the possibility that hostages, or terrorists, are being smuggled among them.
“Is there a girl here who understands Hebrew? Is there a boy or girl here who understands Hebrew?” the soldiers could be heard shouting through loudspeakers.
“Children, anyone who understands Hebrew, run to me, don’t be afraid!
When asked if the Israeli soldiers are operating under the assumption that hostages were already smuggled south, Col. Nitai Okashi, commander of the Jerusalem Reserve Brigade, responded: “For now, as far as we understand, at least on the humanitarian corridor, they haven’t taken hostages south, but what I’m saying here is just an assumption and not something certain.”
Kan reporters were later taken to an innocent-looking home on the outskirts of the Zeitoun neighborhood, where the battle still rages. Under the stairs, the soldiers found a 15-kg (33-lb) claymore mine.
“We were clearing the house and then, as you saw, in the stairwell we found the mine… and in what is called the underwear drawer, three hand grenades. I have to say, there is nothing innocent here, the whole area here is one big battlefield,” Okashi explained.
Later, the reporters also met IDF Battalion Commander Lotem, whose speech to his soldiers just before the ground invasion began went viral.
“War can degrade the human being to the lowest creatures and impulses: Fear, cruelty, egoism, evil. To strip us of everything that makes us human, of humanity,” he had told them.
Now, in the depths of the battlefield, he stood by his words from before.
“I told my soldiers… We are better than our enemy in how we fight, in quality, and in humanity and morality. That’s how we win.”
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
