Details are still emerging from many communities for miles around the Gaza Strip, and the authorities are still tallying the toll. But videos, photos and survivors have portrayed many attacks across the region.
One 30-minute video that was posted on Facebook and whose location was verified by The Times shows Palestinian gunmen crossing the border fence and heading toward the southern community of Nir Oz. The video follows the group to what appears to be a kibbutz. The sounds of loud shouting and gunshots follow.
The video eventually shows the inside of a room, where at least six bloodied bodies lie on the ground. One gunman opens fire on the bodies, and the video cuts off.
Israel’s military said on Tuesday that it did not have an estimate of how many people were killed or kidnapped in Nir Oz.
But when the army gathered all the survivors in a kindergarten after Saturday’s attack — which lasted at least eight hours — one resident, Irit Lahav, and her 22-year-old daughter, Lotus Lahav, noticed that many of the community’s residents were missing.
“We realized that it’s only about half of the people here,” the younger Ms. Lahav said. Residents estimated that the kibbutz had about 350 to 400 people when the attack started. Only about 200 left in buses, she said.
Arie Itzik, a retired nurse, went back to Nir Oz on Sunday to help with the bodies. He said on Tuesday that some were completely burned.
“Some people,” he said, “I could not recognize them.”
There are also indications of major tolls in other communities near Gaza.
In Nahal Oz, Noam Tibon, a retired general who traveled there to help his son, said he and Israeli soldiers had found the streets strewn with bodies, some Palestinian and some Israeli. In Alumim, photos showed about a dozen body bags lined up outside a building, though it was not immediately clear who had been killed.
Reporting was contributed by Riley Mellen, Emma Bubola, Malachy Browne, Haley Willis, Axel Boada, Arijeta Lajka, Dmitriy Khavin, Aaron Boxerman, Elena Shao, Patrick Kingsley, Isabel Kershner, Alexander Cardia and Alan Yuhas.
