Israel's President Isaac Herzog said Hamas terrorists are carrying "instruction guides" on how to torture and kidnap civilians, as he explained the kind of "extremely cruel and inhumane enemy" his country is fighting against.
During an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, he first described the horrors he witnessed while walking through Kibbutz Be'eri near the Gaza Strip, where ten percent of its members were murdered by Hamas terrorists.
"I saw the skull of a woman, in which house I visited, the house totally destroyed, totally destroyed, and they just cut her head off," Herzog said. "I saw a pool of blood in that house where the picture of the children is hanging, and the grandchildren are hanging on the wall with the knives and the hatchets which they went in. I saw the most horrific scenes possible."
This was just one example of Hamas's cruelty, he said, as this community had advocated for peace and sent financial help to their Palestinian neighbors in Gaza for years before they were attacked.
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Herzog also shared a torture and kidnapping manual allegedly found on the body of a terrorist.
"This was found on the body of one of the terrorists. This is a booklet. Okay?" he said while holding up a pamphlet emblazoned with the image of a Hamas terrorist.
"This booklet is an instruction guide how to go into a civilian premises, into a kibbutz, a city, a moshav, how to break in and first thing what do you do when you find the citizens? You torture them. This is the booklet. It says exactly how to torture them, how to abduct them and how to kidnap them," he explained.
"So therefore the story is not Israel versus Palestinians or Judaism versus Islam, God forbid, the story is about humanity. Are we with good or we with evil? That's where humanity should stand," he urged.
Herzog staunchly defended his country's right to protect itself, after Blitzer questioned Israel's planned ground operation and efforts to evacuate civilians from Northern Gaza.
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"My nation is bleeding. My nation is in pain. My nation is in sorrow," he said. "And we are faced with an extremely cruel, inhumane enemy, which we have to uproot with no mercy."
The Israeli leader said Hamas has used residential areas in Gaza to launch missiles at civilians ever since they withdrew from the strip in 2005, but this most recent attack was far worse.
"They shoot their missiles at our children from their homes, from their shops, from their mosques, from their hospitals. For years they’ve been trying to do it. For years and years and years, ever since we withdrew from Gaza in 2005," he explained.
He also said while Israel was taking efforts to keep Palestinian civilians safe, Hamas was preventing them from getting to safety.
"We are trying now to move the civilians so that they will not be hurt. We want to go in and uproot that infrastructure of terror. Get the mob out from the inner city," he added. "[W]e are trying to help Palestinians in Gaza to go to a safe zone while Hamas is trying to block them all the way through."
Ahead of its expected military ground operation, Israel dropped flyers over Gaza, warning Palestinians to evacuate the area.
At least 4,200 people have been killed in the war on both sides, including at least 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers and 30 Americans. Palestinian health authorities say at least 2,808 Palestinians have been killed and more than 10,950 wounded. Thirteen American citizens are unaccounted for, FOX News has reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to defeat Hamas and wipe them "off the face of the Earth" in response to the terror attack.
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