Tel Aviv – Since this weekend, when Israeli special forces… mission to rescue four hostages – Andrey Kozlov, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir and Noa Argamani – dramatic video of the raid, shared by the Israeli army, has been seen around the world. What is less visible, however, is the aftermath of that operation and the Palestinian civilians who survived it.
The CBS News team in Gaza met eyewitness Abedelraof Meqdad, 60, who led us through his bullet-ridden home, across the street from where one of the Israeli military vehicles broke down under heavy Hamas gunfire.
The commandos stormed into his family apartment, he says, and blindfolded and tied the men’s hands before interrogating them.
“There were sound grenades. Women and children were shouting. I said to them, ‘Why are you shouting? You are scaring the children.’ He said, ‘Shut your mouth or I will shoot you and them.'”
CBS News
Meqdad told CBS News that Israeli forces then dragged him into the living room and demanded to know if there were any fighters or weapons in his home.
“I told them there are no fighters here and no weapons, I am just a merchant,” he said.
When it was all over, two of Meqdad’s grandsons had been shot dead.
CBS News found one of them, 16-year-old Moamen Mattar, as doctors reconstructed his mangled arm at a hospital.
He told us that his brother did not survive.
CBS News
“He was shot right next to me, in the stomach and leg,” Mattar said. “He was twelve.”
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says 274 people have been killed and many hundreds more injured in the rescue operation. Israel disputes that number, saying the casualties are the fault of Hamas for surrounding the hostages with civilians.
James Elder, the spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, is in Gaza this week and told CBS News that he saw the horrific scenes after the hospital raid firsthand.
“Walking in this hospital, full of people, little three-year-olds, seven-year-olds with these grotesque war wounds – head injuries and burns,” he said. “It’s the smell of burning flesh; it’s very hard to get out of your head.”
According to the most recently reported data, approximately 47% of Gaza’s total population is under the age of 18, which accounts for the high rate of child deaths reported in this conflict.
The prospect of a ceasefire the war meanwhile remains in limbo. A frustrated Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Hamas had “waited two weeks and proposed changes” to the current US-backed proposal on the table – which he said Israel had also accepted. “As a result, the war that Hamas started will continue.”
