Returning to Hell: Families who survived Hamas massacre at Be'eri have refused to go back... I don't blame them. I have now seen, heard and even smelled the horror of what is left behind in their homes

The acrid stench of months-old ash remains embedded within the burnt-out structure that was once home to a long-dead family in Kibbutz Be’eri, the site of one of the deadliest massacres committed by Hamas against Israel on October 7.

I was given just a few minutes to look around the home inside the kibbutz, one of dozens of Israeli communities near the border with Gaza that were attacked by terrorists in the early hours of the morning of Black Saturday.

More than a tenth of the men, women and children who lived in the kibbutz, once one of the wealthiest in the whole country, were murdered as they slept in their homes.

Now, those who are still alive have refused to go back to Be’eri, famed for its collectively-owned enterprises including, orange farms, avocado farms and a printing company, instead choosing to stay in temporary accommodation in nearby kibbutzim out of fear of further Hamas attacks, and anxiety borne out of the constant reminder of war.

It’s hard to blame them. Months on from the attack, in which Hamas terrorists killed around 1,200 people, almost all of whom were civilians, the community still faces the near-constant reminder of Israel’s bombardment campaign against the Gaza Strip which lies less than four miles to the west.

The interior of one of the Be’eri homes is seen on Wednesday. The walls are blackened from smoke, while rubble and other debris can be seen scattered across the floor

Perkin was given just a few minutes to look around the home inside the kibbutz attacked by Hamas terrorists

The kitchen inside one of the homes in kibbutz Be’eri is seen on Wednesday. Hamas gunmen are documented setting homes on first as residents took shelter inside

One of the bedrooms inside an abandoned house in kibbutz Be’eri is seen through a doorway. Mattresses are seen on the ground or propped up against a wall

MailOnline reporter Perkin Amalaraj is seen in Kibbutz Be’eri on Wednesday

According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, Israel’s offensive has so far killed nearly 27,000 civilians, at least half believed to be women and children.

Though it has been four months since Hamas’ deadly incursion against Israel, and weeks since fighting between IDF soldiers and Hamas in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, Israeli units were launching bombs and missiles from an area nearby.

My walk across Be’eri was sporadically punctuated with the bone-rattling sound of artillery landing on an unnervingly close target.

As a result, most of the group felt the need to put on flak jackets and helmets to at least feel like they were safe from the ongoing ‘orchestra of war’, as one IDF soldier, who wished to remain unnamed, described it.

But all the IDF soldiers who accompanied us on our trip were unfazed.

A young draftee, 19-year-old Ella, shared the harrowing story of how several members of her family were slaughtered by Hamas in the early hours of the morning of October 7, after swathes of the terror group’s fighters managed to sneak in.

Shortly before sunrise on Black Saturday, Hamas terrorists crept up to the gates of the kibbutz, the same that tourists can today enter through, and smashed a window of the empty guardpost, before climbing in.

They hid until a young man, 22-year-old Benayahu Bitton, approached the bright-yellow gate with two of his friends, all of whom had partied at the nearby Nova Festival, the site of another massacre which they barely managed to escape.

Pulling up to the kibbutz, a Hamas gunman hidden in a nearby tree raised his weapon and unloaded several rounds into the dark grey saloon car, killing Bitton and his two friends in an instant.

On Black Saturday, the kibbutz, a symbolically significant community set up in 1946 as part of a strategic plan to help the state withstand a then-feared invasion from Egypt, was only defended by a group of civilians trained in defence for times of emergency.

Another house in Kibbutz Be’eri is seen on Wednesday, its roof blackened and garden overgrown. The houses have been abandoned, with residents either killed in the Hamas attack or sheltering elsewhere in Israel further away from the border with Gaza

A scorched building in Kibbutz Be’eri is seen on Wednesday

A young draftee, 19-year-old Ella, shared the harrowing story of how several members of her family were slaughtered by Hamas in the early hours of the morning of October 7, after swathes of the terror group’s fighters managed to sneak in

The group was quickly overwhelmed, with the head of the emergency squad being killed within seconds of Hamas’ infiltration.

The emergency squad, with their leader dead, was unable to unlock the community gunroom where their arms were stored, which left many of those charged with defending the tight-knit community defenceless.

And so, over several hours, dozens of civilians were killed by Hamas, unable to leave their homes. The high fences that once protected them from the outside world instead trapped them in a slaughterhouse.

Outside the home of one family, on the large red-tiled porch, were a pair of dirtied Adidas trainers left by the door which will never be worn again.

The floor of the living room was still scarred with scorch marks, left by Hamas gunmen who were documented using fire as a weapon of war against civilians, most of whom were still asleep in their beds in the early hours of the morning when they attacked.

It still showed signs of lives once lived, with several unwatered plants still filling up dusty plant pots on the windowsills that overlooked an unkempt garden littered with roof tiles.

Between the two windows hung a fried television, which now rests on an uneasy forward slant, waiting for a too-curious journalist to come close enough to drop.

A view of one of the houses in kibbutz Be’eri. Debris from the roof is seen scattered around its garden

Another house in kibbutz Be’eri, rendered uninhabitable in the October 7 attack, is seen on Wednesday. The walls are blackened, and the roof has been seriously damaged

But any life that once blossomed, relaxed, or laid its head to rest here is gone forever. The likelihood of the property being used as a home again shrinks each day.

The kitchen didn’t fare any better, with the cabinets blown out and fragments of appliances embedded in the wall.

I counted at least 13 bullet holes in the metal door leading to the furthest room on the left of the house, a small space that was meant to be the designated safe room for the home. On my way, I nearly slipped on a pile of what appeared to be an ash whose origin I dare not think about.

I lost count of the number of grape-sized holes that pocked the once-cream walls of the ‘safe room.’

Immediately next to the safe room lay a smaller, less protected space that has just as many bullet-inflicted scars inside as the last.

Here, a chair and a wardrobe were clearly visible. I couldn’t tell if they would fit the frame and clothing collection of a child, and I struggled to get the thought out of my mind.

Cars destroyed in the October 7 attack are seen piled up near kibbutz Be’eri on Wednesday

I walked to the final room I was allowed to go to, a small room to the right that was almost definitely used by a child.

It’s hard to describe the primal feeling of nausea that overcame me upon seeing the blackened and charred toys and childrens’ clothes that lay wall to wall across the floor of the final room.

Eager to get back outside, I stumbled out of the home in a walk that I hoped at least had the veneer of collectedness, pushing past several people to remove myself from what remained of the home, which sits near the western edge of the kibbutz, the one closest to the Gaza Strip.

There, the IDF dropped yet another bomb, startling everyone but the army’s own troops.