Horrified rescuers find 260 bodies at Israel music festival after Hamas terrorists ‘cut power and started opening fire’
HORRIFIED rescuers have found 260 bodies at a music festival in Israel after witnesses say Hamas terrorists cut the power and opened fire.
More than 1,100 people in Israel and Gaza have been killed since the Palestinian militant group stormed across the border on Saturday - sparking an unprecedented massacre of civilians.
Israel is now massing tanks and troops on the border with Gaza - in preparation for what could be a bloody ground offensive.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to reduce the area to “rubble” as he blitzes Hamas strongholds in revenge for the terror bloodbath dubbed "Israel’s 9/11".
Israel has brought in special forces and ramped up its bombing of the Gaza Strip as air strikes hit more than 500 targets belonging to Hamas terrorists overnight.
So far, at least 700 people have been killed in Israel while more than 400 are confirmed dead in Gaza - with the death toll set to soar on both sides.
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The US is moving aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford closer to Israel as Joe Biden pledged Washington's "rock solid" support to Tel Aviv.
US officials expect Israeli troops to launch a ground incursion into Gaza within the next 48 hours.
Israeli rescue service Zaka said its paramedics recovered about 260 bodies from the music festival in Sukkot, southern Israel.
Shocking footage showed terrified ravers fleeing the site - with many still missing, including Brit Jake Marlowe.
Reveller Ortel told local media: "They turned off the electricity.
"Suddenly out of nowhere militants come inside with gunfire, opening fire in every direction. Fifty terrorists arrived in vans, dressed in military uniforms.
"They fired bursts, and we reached a point where everyone stopped their vehicles and started running.
"I went into a tree, a bush like this, and they just started spraying people.
It comes as...
- More than 1,100 have been confirmed dead in Israel and Gaza and thousands more injured
- Hamas terrorists launched an all-out attack on Israel from land, air and sea with 5,000 rockets fired
- The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that 378 people had died in the violence that followed the surprise Hamas attack on Israel
- Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that Gaza will be "reduced to rubble"
- Reports emerged of kidnapped Israeli soldiers being paraded on military vehicles
- British citizen Jake Marlowe has been reported missing after attending a music festival in southern Israel
- Netanyahu mobilised the country’s army reserves following his declaration of war
- The attack has been dubbed "Israel's 9/11" after an "embarrassing intelligence failure"
More than 250 people were killed by rockets and gunmen on paragliders.
Around 750 were reported missing and are almost certainly being held in booby-trapped bunkers in Hamas’s Gaza base.
One woman, Noa Argamani, 25, was filmed screaming: “Don’t kill me! No, no, no,” as she was snatched by a gunman on a motorbike.
Pictures later appeared of her alive in custody.
In a brave TV interview, her father said: "Gaza also has casualties, mothers who cry.
"Let's use this emotion. We are two nations from one father - let's make peace, real peace."
Over 100 Israeli hostages including women and children could have been taken into Gaza by Hamas - hugely complicating any bid to free them.
It comes as the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that 413 people have died in Israeli air-strikes following the surprise Hamas attack.
The vast majority were in the Gaza Strip, where 2,200 were also wounded.
Footage seen by The Sun appears to show small children among the dead in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza.
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Pals of a Brit still missing after the terror onslaught at the festival fear he may have sacrificed his life to save others.
Jake Marlowe, 26, was working as a security guard at a desert rave when militants launched a devastating rocket attack followed by a ground assault.
Another Brit, photographer Dan Darlington, who was visiting from his home in Berlin, Germany, is also missing, according to his father David, as reported by the BBC.
Friends of Arsenal fan Jake said his first instinct would have been to make sure everyone else was safe before he thought of himself.
Family and friends are waiting by phones desperate for good news as it emerged that a Brit soldier serving in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was among as many as 700 killed.
Nathanel Young, 20, from London, was serving as a corporal in the IDF.
His family said on Facebook: “We’re heartbroken to share that our little brother was tragically killed on the Gaza Border yesterday.”
Meanwhile German tattoo artist Shani Louk, 30, was seized from a peace music festival and murdered.
Harrowing footage showed Hamas terrorists parading her body through the streets.
Netanyahu vowed to destroy Gaza in revenge - cutting off the area's 600,000 inhabitants from food, electricity and water.
Israel also launched tank and drone strikes into Lebanon amid fears of invasion from Hezbollah enemies who fired mortars from the north.
Netanyahu said: "All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble.
"I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere."
There is currently no way for people in Gaza to leave the city, which has been under an Israeli blockade for over a decade.
Air strikes have displaced 123,000 Palestinians with nearly 74,000 now taking shelter in schools, the UN said.
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The US is moving its aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, closer to Israel as Biden pledged Washington's "rock solid" support to Tel Aviv.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the attacks may have been aimed at disrupting US-brokered talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia to establish normal diplomatic relations.