Snipers, drones, bulldozers: Gaza border guards recount Hamas attack
Israel long thought its hi-tech security barrier blockading the Gaza Strip was impenetrable, brimming with razor wire, cameras and sensors and fortified with a concrete base against tunnels and remote-controlled machine guns.
But in the aftermath of the surprise Hamas onslaught, soldiers who were on guard duty have recounted the shocking moments when the militants launched their complex operation to breach Israel's «Iron Wall» around the enclave in multiple locations.
The massive attack at dawn Saturday came under cover of a rocket barrage aimed at Israel and involved sniper fire, explosives dropped from drones, and bulldozers that ripped through the six-metre (almost 20-foot) tall double fence barrier.
More than 1,500 militants quickly swarmed through in pick-up trucks and on motorcycles, joined by others using gliders and speedboats at sea, to unleash gun attacks that claimed hundreds of lives in nearby communities.
«At 6:30 am (0330 GMT) the rockets started,» a lookout soldier who was stationed in Nahal Oz, across from Gaza City, said in a televised interview from her hospital bed.
«About 30» militants quickly occupied the army base and held it for seven hours, the soldier, identified only as Y., told Israel's Channel 12.
«I sprinted barefoot to the bomb shelter, and after an hour we started hearing voices in Arabic, and they started shooting at the entrance,» she recalled.
Until an elite Israeli army unit finally retook the base, «for all those hours, it became their (Hamas's) camp», the soldier said.
— Sniper attacks -
In the opening moments of the massive attack, snipers «fired at the observation posts» dotted along the 65-kilometre (40-mile) long barrier, an Israeli army spokesperson told AFP.
A soldier
