♪ >> this is "dw news" live from berlin. israel stepping up its bombardment of gaza. prime minister netanyahu warning of a difficult war ahead. the conflict since saturday has claimed more than 2000 lives. as violence escalates, there is -- are reports of violence at a could boats. babies, children said to be among those -- violence at a

kibbutz. babies, children said to be among those killed. a crisis too much for some to bear. brent: i'm brent goff. to our viewers around the world, welcome. four days after an unprecedented terror attack, israel stepped up its bombardment of gaza and has regained full control within its own borders. the conflict with than 2000 people on both sides and there is no sign of any let up in the fighting. prime minister netanyahu warning of a long and difficult war ahead. israel has called up 360,000 reservei -- reservists.

reporter: missile blasts echo throughout gaza, razing whole buildings to the ground in seconds. israel says its military offensive against the palestinian militants behind saturday's attack will continue. >> i know we want immediate results. it will take time, but i promise you, dear israeli citizens, at the end of this campaign, they will know it was a grave the state to attack israel. what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them throughout generations. reporter:israeli army says are o separate hamas command centers in gaza. on the ground, residents

gathering their belongings. and trying to escape. as the strikes continue, whole neighborhoods are quickly becoming uninhabitable. and as the number of injured increases, hospitals are struggling. >> before this israeli airstrike, the medical situation in gaza had been grim for 17 years. the hospitals have been hampered by the siege. we do not have access to supplies, drugs and equipment. reporter: israel announced a new siege of gaza cutting off food, fuel, electricity and water supplies. hamas is trying to increase the pressure on israel's leaders by threatening revenge for the

strikes on gaza. >> we announce that starting now, every targeting of our people without warning will regrettably be met with the execution of one of the enemy's civilian hostages. we will be compelled to broadcast it in both audio and video. reporter: but israel shows no sign of backing down. in an effort to maximize troop strength, the israeli air force is flying citizens back from europe to be mobilized as reserve -- reservist. brent: i spoke to a journalist in jerusalem and asked for an update on the ground near the gaza strip. sami: we are not talking about full control. we still have skirmishes and

incidents between the hamas fighters and israeli soldiers in different locations inside israel. hamas and those of the jihadist jihad are launching rockets. they said they will launch at a certain hour and did launch to ashkelon later on. another thing that happened today on the border, the israel took a group of foreign journalists to the kibbutz and showed them a place where, according to the accounts of soldiers and others who have been there, there was a massacre where those men, women, children were killed, brutally, according to eye accounts. we believe some of these images have reached president biden who said today in a speech that what

hamas is is similar to isis. these are the things we are hearing in israel today. brent: what has been the reaction in israel? did these accounts, images of this one massacre and 1 -- in one kibbutz, are coming to the fore. what has been the reaction in israel? sami: as i said, it is only foreign journalists who went in. it is clear this is the kind of message israel wants to bring to the outside world and especially to the americans. we heard it in the speech given by biden. israeli journalists did not go to this kibbutz. there are no images, no photographs that have been shown to the media. brent: why is that?

do you know why there were no israeli journalists? sami: i think israel at this stage is interested in getting sympathy from the international community, especially the americans. i think when it comes to the israeli public, they want to show the israeli public the army is strong, they want to keep morale high, they want the public to trust in the military, in preventing this attack, these killings. the soldiers that were along the border, they failed to do this and there was a failure of the military, a failure of the intelligence and i think israel wants to show the public it is

strong and this is what we usually see in the media, but with international press the angle is different. brent: we know that 360,000 reservists have been mobilized, a record in modern israel. what will their orders be? do you expect a ground incursion or invasion of gaza? is that imminent? sami: this is what everyone is talking about. a ground incursion. i think the question will be, the endgame, what is the and game of the israeli government? do they want to toughen the hamas regime? what do they want instead of the hamas regime? netanyahu was talking about

revenge and clearly we will see more strikes on gaza, more casualties in the gaza strip, we will see a ground offensive that might be limited to certain areas, but they want to surprise hamas and show that israel have -- has capabilities. brent: sami sockol with the latest from jerusalem. thank you. as he was saying, four days after the terrorist attack by hamas on israeli soil, one scene is revealing the extent of saturday's horror. we are not showing you all of these images out of respect for the people involved. these are images captured by cameras at one kibbutz as israeli defense forces cleared bodies away. there are many children among the victims here including

infants. disturbing images. a journalist in jerusalem told me more about these reported atrocities. reporter: you said earlier we cannot show photos out of respect for the victims. unfortunately, i had to watch these materials today and never in my career have i seen such horrific videos and images from anywhere in the world. we are talking about tens and tens of mutilated bodies, some burned. beheaded babies thrown in the community, whole families burnt to death in shelters. young mothers and children shot down while bound outside their houses. truly unimaginable things. immense amounts of blood in each and every house of the kibbutz. the terrorist went from house to house.

they did not just come to attack or conquer the kibbutz, they came to annihilate the computer -- community, decimate them. we have to realize the scale of this. it is one of several communities on the border. there were about 700 that -- 700 people living in this. at least 100 are dead. that means the kibbutz will no longer exist. the act done by hamas and the palestinian jihad in this community is no less than ethnic cleansing. president biden compared these acts of people to isis. i do not even recall images like this coming from iraq when isis did a journey of horrors there. one community after another, kfar aza being the first one we are getting testimonies out of. brent: when i consider how you are describing what you saw today and that there are 150

hostages held in gaza, most israelis, what do you predict it will mean for how the israeli state moves forward in an attempt to rescue these hostages? reporter: i think the state of israel intends to make an attempt to release these hostages. there were initial negotiations about a humanitarian corridor allowing women and children to come back to israel in exchange for palestinian prisoners from israel. now we realize even better that women and children are targets for hamas. any woman, child, infants, holocaust survivor, elderly people, might face the same fate as any other soldier captured by hamas. that means torture, possibly sexual assault and sexual violence against the many women and young girls held high hamas,

and even against girls with special needs. just today i spoke to a relative of one of them and he said the uncertainty drives them mad. all they want is for the state of israel before it goes to gaza, to war, to annihilate hamas, is to release these hostages. unfortunately, hamas realizes how sensitive this issue is in israel and they will ask a price that will be heavy for israeli society. it is unclear if it can pay that price. it is hard to predict how this will affect the rest of the situation in the gaza strip. brent: any reporting in israel about calls for certain members of the government, netanyahu's cabinet, calls for the military to move into gaza, to use full force, to destroy hamas, to accept the eventuality of these

hostages being killed as collateral damage? reporter: absolutely. the minister of finance said in a cabinet meeting two days ago that israel has to ignore the fact there are hostages within the gaza strip and destroy it completely, not considering their fate. he is not the only one thinking that. i have heard the same thing from different parts of the political range. people are eager for the israeli military to go inside gaza and take down hamas. there is a strong sense, stronger than that i have ever encountered in israel, for revenge. it may change how the rest of the operation looks like and could accept the fate of hostages. hamas said if israel continues not to notify them before they bomb targets in the gaza strip, something israel did out of humanitarian goals for years, it

will start to execute the hostages. and, on one hand it seems like something that will hurt hamas strategically because they will lose their bargaining card against israel. we understand they are very capable of doing that. not only of executing the hostages, but torturing, mutilating, humiliating their bodies and taking every bit of human respect out of these people. brent: the possibility of this war x -- escalating and expanding into a regional conflict, is that being talked about inside israel? reporter: definitely it is one of the hottest topics right now. if we are looking at the lebanon border we saw it escalating with events that any other day would make headlines all over the world. but with this war we are missing it. we are talking about rockets launched from lebanon into israel. the israeli military attacking

territories in southern lebanon. yet there is a big question if lebanon and hezbollah are willing to escalate this into a full-blown war. one said the resistance, the militias in syria and hezbollah, will not let hamas fall. he says if israel invades gaza on the ground it is a redline that will open all the different fronts. right now it seems there is no other option than israel invading gaza on the ground. it seems the escalation will get higher and higher. this definitely might escalate to an all-around war. brent: we appreciate your reporting and analysis. thank you. the united states confirmed at least 11 of its citizens were killed in the terror attack saturday. it believes americans are among the hostages being held by hamas.

families of the hostages find themselves thrust into an almost impossible place emotionally. take a listen. >> we are on the call with her as the terrorist barged into her home. we heard a bit of screaming. that was our last contact with her. there was no shooting on the call. the neighbors downstairs also did not hear any shooting. my mom used what she picked up working as a nurse in the hospital for 20 years to calm down the terrorists. it is our hope, which is a little ridiculous at this stage, to say the optimistic scenario is that she is held hostage in

gaza and not dead on the streets. brent: the account -- the account from one desperate father. now another. he manages the acts that were performing at the music festival saturday, festival where at least 260 people were killed. he witnessed the attack, the massacre as it unfolded. he spoke to my colleague earlier today. >> in t morning the attack started. hundreds of missiles flying everywhere. this is how it started for us, 6:30 in the morning. hundreds of missiles and mortars flying from everywhere. this is how it all started for us. >> it was a huge attack and so

many lives lost. how did you manage to get away? >> i managed to get away when they started the bombardment. we dropped to the floor, covered our heads, tried to find shelter and there was none where we were. in five minutes we were in the car, driving as fast as we could outside of the venue. to safety, as fast as we can. luckily, we manage to go out one or two minutes before other people were shot at. >> what happened when you got out? >> luckily, i drove west and not toward tel aviv, where there were ambushes by the terrorists. we drove west and that saved us. me and another brazilian artist,

we went as fast as we could to another shelter, where there was another artist from france and mexico. we did not realize that is what saved us. getting to them because they were alone in the house. reporter: after escaping you still managed to help, how? >> after i managed to escape, as always, we need to be taking care. the army and government do all the work, but they need support as well. we are trying to get messages from people on site. we do not have a line of communication to the army that was busy fighting the terrorists, like they should. so they were calling us, the people they know, and other people were calling us, bringing

us messages from other people, the locations. that is what we are doing. many volunteers. we worked in groups. we are sending help and trying to find each and every person. reporter: are you still looking for people? do you still have friends were missing? >> yes, we have friends who died, who are missing. we do not know what happens. have not been sleeping for three nights, three days. just looking for any information. this is the importance of the community. all the community came together, many people came together. every day they are sitting around the clock looking for more information, and to get any info on each and every one of our friends that are still missing.

this is the important mission at the moment to save as many lives as we can. >> can you tell me more about security at the festival? >> it is not something i can tell you, i am not part of the production. it was a fully licensed event with police inside, full security detail. but it was full licensed, confirmed by the government and police and fire department. it had the full legal license. reporter: what is also interesting is that they changed the location of the festival at the last minute. >> this is also not something i can talk about. i am part of the production, and artist manager. this is not something i can talk about.

luckily, we managed to save each and every international artist including german artists. me and other bookers and artist agents, we got all of them out. and now they are out of the country without any harm. reporter: how many people would you say you managed to save or help save on that day? >> we managed to save a lot because our friends were there and forces on the field. they were listening to the locations and we managed to save this many people, sending their location that they sent us. in every way possible and we were sending our people and forces one by one by gps locations to rescue people and recover them. reporter: how are you doing?

how are you coping after what you saw unfolded and experienced in your escape? >> actually, there was no time to sit down and take in everything that happened. at the moment, we are still in this bad situation, war situation. for us, as people who know the people who are missing and part of the community, the importance now is to keep working and trying to find each and every person we can. we know about people who can survive two or three days without food on site. we still have hope we can find our friends. this is our mission and we have so many people around us working only for this.

brent: that was my colleague speaking. israel is at war with hamas and gaza. could this conflict more into a wider war? the fear tonight inside lebanon. reporter: monday morning in a beirut café. some friends are playing a game of backgammon. others are glued to the news. the escalation between israel and hamas being closely watched by people here, worried the conflict could spill over into lebanon. each have lived through wars between israel and lebanon, the last one in 2006. >> war is the last thing we meet -- we need. our economy is in shambles. >> i am worried about my children, my family. reporter: israel is strengthening positions.

in the afternoon fighting erupts. the israeli army says it killed armed infiltrators from lebanon and now has positions in southern lebanon. this is where he reigns, leader of the iranian-backed group, hezbollah. over the weekend his supporters rallied. their message, we are ready for combat. hezbollah is the strongest military force in lebanon. on monday they fired missiles and shells to israel, but denied the latest attacks. >> hezbollah is cautious. first, what will be the prize of an israeli military strike? reporter: a strike would be bad for business. last year is and lebanon governments signed a historic agreement on gas exploration in the mediterranean. even hezbollah excepted the deal. >> it is putting at risk the

maritime border deal with israel, upon which, both parties agreed to define their maritime border and split that revenue. reporter: money that heavily indebted lebanon depends on. that revenue would be on the line if a fresh war broke out with israel. brent: this is "dw news" and coverage of the continuing israeli war with hamas. stick around. we will be right back.

>> where live from paris, world news and analysis of from france before. these are the main world news headlines. the israeli military says over 100 bodies have been found in the attack by hamas. many women and children have been killed, including babies. the details are still emerging, the israeli armies are calling reporters on the scene, some five kilometers from the gaza border. israel have traded fire in the north. the post on the lebanon side was hit. the israeli coastal town