Ezra Levant highlights Avi Yemini’s harrowing firsthand coverage of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Kfar Azzah, where terrorists armed with vehicles, machine guns, and motorbikes slaughtered civilians—including decapitated babies—before armed locals and the IDF intervened. Yemini interviews a grieving father, a Miami-born military physician under fire, and police officer Evietal, who lost friends fighting Hamas invaders. Civilians endure sniper attacks while sheltering, with morale strained by delays in counteroffensives; Yemini condemns global support for Hamas, demanding cultural change in its strongholds. The episode underscores the war’s brutal reality: a military zone still littered with explosives, where Israel’s fight for justice remains unyielding despite international pressure. [Automatically generated summary]
It's been a couple of weeks, and Avi Amini has been on the ground covering the Israel-Hamas war more closely than almost any other reporter.
There is a professional war reporter from Fox News named Trey Yinst, who I think has literally gone 100 feet closer to the battle than Avi, but he's been right on the front line.
You saw him having to run into those bomb shelters when the rockets started.
So we want to show you the best of Avi's reportage, and that's the show today.
So make sure you get the video version of this.
You want to see it, not just hear it.
It's a feast for the eyes, not always in a good way.
There's some horrific things to see, but I think we have to bear witness.
So to get the video version of this podcast, go to RebelNewsPlus.com and click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
You'll get all these shows, video version, and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped keep us independent and strong.
Here's the best of Avi's coverage.
Tonight, the best of our coverage from the war between Israel and Hamas.
It's October 30th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Well, I'm recording this show before October 30th because, as I mentioned to you on Friday, I was invited by Jordan Peterson to attend his big conference designed to be a counterweight to the World Economic Forum.
Jordan Peterson, along with many others, has set up this ARC Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, and the conference has about 2,000 invitees.
I was delighted to be one of them.
I'll be there along with Avi Yamini of our team, and we're going to be participating and we'll bring you interviews with key people.
And I'll let you know how it goes because Lord knows we need a counterweight to the World Economic Forum.
And I think Jordan Peterson is as good as anyone to do it.
And there's other allies from the United States and the UK and Australia.
It looks like it's going to be a big deal.
So that's where I'm going to be this week.
And I will have reports to you from London.
But today I thought it would be appropriate to go over the best of Avi Yamini's coverage from the Hamas-Israel war.
He put himself in danger's way.
I'm glad we got those bulletproof outfits for him and his cameraman Benji.
So without further ado, here's the best of Avi in the war zone.
Many for rebel news in southern Israel on the way in a bulletproof van heading to Kfar Azzah, one of the kibbutzim where Hamas terrorists infiltrated on October 7.
going house to house, butchering and massacring, raping and kidnapping hundreds of Israeli civilians.
We're heading here today to speak to one of the first senior fighters on the ground that day.
We are in the settlement near to Gaza.
The settlement Qsal Azza have 800 civilians.
It was Shabbat Simchator, a holiday.
It's a beautiful day, and every family is together.
And you know what happened in six and a half in the morning?
And a brutal attack of Hamas had arrived in this settlement and all the settlements that you see here near to Gaza until the Rot, Netivot, Ofakim.
All the red spots that you see is the area, the Hamas attack.
The Hamas wasn't alone.
He came here with vehicles, with machine guns, with motorbicycles, but with a lot of civilian.
Aza is one kilometer from here.
They walk by feet.
They murder, torture, rape, and even took off the heads of babies and of our soldiers.
What stopped this attack?
All the civilians armed in this settlement.
The head of the settlement, like a really leader, go first.
After this, the army and the police arrived here and together with the civilian stop this horrible attack.
Yes, who is it?
It's a state of our country, which is a peace.
And you know, all the world is living in Israel.
We are together.
We are together.
Who is your son?
Who is your son?
The world does not know him.
Or people who say that it is not so bad.
What?
Who is this?
My son is 40 years old, as I promised.
I went to Miran.
I was surrounded by my heart.
Like all the children, like all the world.
My son.
This is my brother.
My son.
He loves the man.
He loves the life.
Every man in his own.
He is real.
The king of the country, with a great heart, love and a great honor.
And I was so happy.
We are in peace.
It's important to mention this.
But with anyone who wants peace.
Infiltration Alert00:02:58
Not with something that... ...areg, and shudder, and shudder, and shudder, and shudder.
More than 200 people.
There are many small children.
Bring them home.
Now.
Goodbye.
Thank you.
Now.
Just over there, we're getting, it's a different siren than we're used to hearing.
There's usually a red alert, which is about rockets.
This one's saying, I'm listening closely, and when you're hearing that siren, it's saying a group of terrorists.
I've seen reports of infiltrations over the border, and I believe that it must be happening over there.
We've been seeing a lot of flares and activity in that area, and now there's that alert of infiltration.
I guess that's 500 meters from where we are now.
We're probably gonna do you want to move out?
Yeah, I think at least fall back near the car.
Yep.
What was the red alert saying?
Sorry?
It was saying, from what I could hear, which means a group of terrorists.
Group of terrorists.
But I'm hearing it from a distance.
Yeah, say are we as it's hard to picture, but it's something along the lines of group of terrorists, which to me says that that's the warning for an infiltration.
Yeah, warning for infiltration.
Well, people are telling me here that people are telling me there's been an infiltration.
There has, there has.
I've seen it, yeah.
Especially with the amount of flares popping up.
No, no, they're looking for people.
Yeah.
That doesn't sound like flare, that sounds like shooting.
Like, not, that's a maybe a peak gun, could be a sniper.
They could pop out of the middle.
Yeah, I know.
We've got like 20 meters of visibility here.
To be honest, we should probably just fuck off.
Drive around?
Yeah.
Look, let's drive around.
It's not worth it. I call the besedepoachshavose. No, you know, it's not worth it.
What the fuck's going on?
So let's call on you.
So they reckon, the cops reckon, um, that it's, it's the infiltrations in Zikim.
Infiltration Alert00:02:26
Right.
Which is what the reports were earlier today where they'd come through the sea.
but now there must be another one or yeah we're definitely looking for people Oh, no, no, they said there's an infiltration, but he said that it's all right up there, but I don't know how...
I reckon we'd give it a bit because...
Give it a bit before we go back there.
Because I don't know.
Those flares were a few hundred meters from us.
We have to know how the comms is between.
No, no, I'm with you.
Listen, the biggest infiltration happened not two weeks ago.
So I'm gonna let's just follow the reports and hang back a little bit just before we put ourselves right at the top of that hill.
You're right in the worst amount of risk fucking position.
But yeah, I was hearing the right warning, that's for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that warning wasn't far away.
Families, everyone in the hospital has some relation from the very close circle or for you know just their friends that has some something to do with one of the families that were murdered or injured in that event.
In the 20 years have you seen anything similar to this?
I don't think that anybody in the world has seen such thing.
And I mean those colors, those smells, the amount and the time, the time that all of those events happened.
It was very short for the hospital to get so much, so much injured.
Is this the main hospital closest to?
This is the main hospital for the south of Israel.
There is another hospital in Ashkelon which is much more close to Azer Strip, but it doesn't have all the capacity or abilities of our hospital.
So yes, the first wounded were sent to that hospital in Ashkelon and most of the main bulk of the wounded camped here.
Especially women and children, but children and babies.
Did you have many of them coming through?
No.
No babies?
No.
What's that?
Many Injured Arrive00:02:40
It's alarm.
It's alarm.
We are completely safe.
So we're hearing now the rocket.
Yeah, I heard that before the alarm outside Israel because it's immediate to the cell phone.
So now on Beersheva, we hope that the Iron Dome will work.
And people weren't worried.
They just thought it's rockets like they're used to.
And they thought there's nothing we can do.
We're in open land, so we can't even get cover.
The worst case scenario, one will drop.
At this point, people didn't understand that that was just the beginning.
Then he suddenly got a phone call from his friend who told him they're starting to fire, get to the car.
And he gets straight to the car.
And he sees a terrorist shooting.
The Mazda told her, don't go right, go left, because they're shooting from the right.
So he turns and he gives a full acceleration.
He's in a turbo car and he's got his foot pedal to the metal.
And he arrives at a street to the main road.
Turns left.
He sees a white high mug with a machine gun on the top and it's just shooting everyone and you're just seeing people drop.
The miracle he says for him is it wasn't pointed in his direction.
He spun around.
And then one in front of him, 100 meters, 120 meters directly at him.
And he's getting a lot of his cars taking hits.
And his car stopped working.
It broke down in the moment.
Shots Ring Out00:15:42
He said I took cover from the bottom of the edge.
Rimonim. Rimonim.
What is it?
Dad, do you have this one here?
Yes.
He's going to show me, I'm not...
My Hebrew is not that perfect, so I'm not understanding exactly where they took cover.
1%.
This is the photo of where they...
Five hours.
This is where they took cover.
Did you get there?
We got there for five or six hours.
They sat there under that tree, hiding, and you can hear the gunshots for five to six hours.
How long was that, Yeri?
For four and a half, five hours.
For...
Four and a half to five of the hours it was just gunshots the entire time.
Do you know that the border is 800 meters away, right?
So the city sits 800 meters from the border.
The minute they destroyed the border and our first line of defense was gone and they walked in 6 a.m. in the morning or 5 a.m. in the morning or something like this, of course they were on the streets because it was a holiday.
Some people already left the city to travel.
Some people were on their way thinking about going to the synagogues to pray.
However, the sirens went off.
When the sirens are go off, people go into the bomb shelters.
So no one was on the street and they just had a clean shot.
Now usually our first line of defense is our army.
They weren't here, they were caught off guard.
How though?
That's what so many people around the world are asking.
So you can see all what the experts are saying and right now they're trying to figure out what happened.
But I have to tell you, this is not the focus right now.
For us, this is not the focus.
This is old news.
And this was for Saturday.
In order for us to continue, if you look at what's happening right now, we're not in the same situation we were on Saturday.
Right now we're the hunters and they better run.
Right now, the IDF is back and we're back big time and it has been for a few days.
They are running around being chased by people.
People are not hiding from them.
It's the other way around.
Our soldiers are in the streets and strong.
And we are right now in the middle of an attack, you know, with all these rockets.
And we will go in and out of these bomb shelters if it buys time for the IDF to go and demolish them.
The Hamas has to go.
I have to tell you, we have been warning governments and organizations that have been giving money to the Hamas for years.
And we've been saying, if you're going to teach a five-year-old how to stab a Jew, and if this is the ceremony, ending ceremony of kindergarten, how to stab a Jew, what do you think is going to happen in 20 years?
Do you think he's going to be a rocket scientist or is he going to be a terrorist?
What are you going to raise if a mother or the women that I've seen from Gaza are celebrating their son's success by killing and raping women when they do that?
Do you think I have someone to talk to?
I am a mother.
I will never celebrate something like this.
Who the hell do they think they are?
The culture has to change.
They have to shift.
Hamas has to go and they have to decide: are they for good or are they for evil?
Are they for peace or are they for war?
They need to make a decision.
It's not on us anymore.
Slightly shaken from the explosion, we waited a few moments until it seemed like the threat had passed and continued our interview when suddenly shooting began.
Gunfire, gunfire, gunfire, gunfire.
It's an active launching gunfire.
As we were trying to figure out what was happening ahead, I noticed a drone above and bolted for the bomb shelter nearby.
That's a drone.
Oh, man.
Oh, my brother.
Don't try to shoot it.
There's someone's back.
Look at him.
Look at him.
I got it.
I got it.
Why did you not shoot?
Why?
We're here.
Come.
There's a drone.
There's a drone.
There's a drone right now that's running over us.
They're aiming...
They're coming back around.
They come back around.
There we go.
They're starting to shoot it.
It seems like they managed to shoot it down.
That's the first time we've been close enough from a shelter to actually get in there in time.
Tell us what the Assam is.
It's a special police unit and actually we react to different terroristic events that happens and that's our job.
So did you react to the attacks on October 7?
Correctly.
On 6.30 in the morning we got a message that we need to go quick as much as we can to Zerat because we got information about the invasion of many terrorists over there.
And actually when we started to drive to Zdirat next to Yadmur de Chai, we got shot two times by RPG and thanks God they missed us.
After some fire that we were conducting over there, we started to move to Zerod because we got information by the radio that the different policemen are asking for help because they tried to invade inside the police station.
And actually we arrived over here.
There were like around 20 terrorists running over this road and we started to conduct fire with them.
It was really hard.
I saw one of them, he tried to shoot RPG on me and I shot him, I killed him.
After that we saw that two terrorists are moving across the road to the train station and we actually started to run after them and they entered the bushes and who know how to fight it's very complicated place to fight.
We started to search for these terrorists and after we searched for 20-40 seconds they surprised us from five meters.
They started to shoot us.
We were four.
Two of my guys were shot and it was only me and my commander and after like 30-40 seconds we managed to kill them and one of them he was playing dead and he threw a grenade over us.
After the explosion one of our guys who was already shot he got the grenade on him and the bushes started to burn and he started to scream that he is burning.
So I ran into the fire and I took him back to us and we took our injured guys to the ambulance.
We gave him the first aid and we continued to fight.
My daughter Romi Gunen was kidnapped and in Gaza now.
She's 23.
Have you heard anything from nothing?
The last time we talked was at 10.58 at that same Saturday and I heard the terrorists coming into the car shouting trying to start the car and that's it.
You heard them on the phone with your daughter?
When I was with my daughter she was shot.
She was calling me when she was shot.
She was shot.
All the kids in the car were shot.
The two at the front were killed immediately, were murdered immediately and she and another boy that sat next to her was shot.
They were bleeding.
She thought she's going to die.
I don't know exactly what is their condition.
Again I heard the shooting all around the car and I heard them shouting around the car and then starting to start the car trying to start the car and that's it.
They closed the phone and nothing.
He's my friend.
And what happened?
We were in the LMS.
We were in the bunker.
So the Hamas attacked us We were 17 people there.
10 of our friends were there, died.
And four of our injured and they kidnapped him.
This man, his name is Bipin Zosi.
And two of us, our friends are back to Nepal.
Out of 17 died, four of us are injured.
And we are having treatment, including me.
And he's been kidnapped by Hamas.
I have one sword here, one bullet here, one here on my chest, and one in my right shoulder.
The whole world.
I saw from Australia the video that Hamas put out of Mia trying to show that they're humanely treating her.
What was your reaction to that video?
You have to consider that we saw the video after about 10 days.
The first eight days, we know nothing.
We were looking for her in mourns.
We gave DNA samples of Mia, her toothbrush, and we were waiting to see if there's a match with these 1,400 bodies.
Some of them were in such bad condition that they couldn't take DNA.
This process is still going on.
Not everyone knows what the situation of their beloved one.
So imagine that.
And each phone we are afraid that there is a match.
Can you tell us from the front line?
What's the morale like at the moment?
So as somebody who did three years, made Aliyah from a different country, somebody who's married, I have a whole lot of stuff going on in my life, a lot of different priorities.
The guys who are in Miluim, guys who have families, guys who have been here, been there, want to go to a don't want to go to war.
Civilians who were called up.
People have a lot of stuff to live for, a lot of things on their mind.
This is a war.
This is an initiative that has just united everybody in a way that I've never seen.
Never seen, not in the Jewish people in the land of Israel, not in the military, nowhere.
So you want to ask about morale.
There's nothing people want more than to just go in there and not kill, not avenge, not bloodthirsty, to just get some justice done, to really just erase this threat, bring peace to southern Israel, which has been for so long.
It's about time.
People could live in peace and they could play basketball on their front lawn and they can play with their kids on a Saturday afternoon and not worry about people coming in and slaughtering 50% of their community.
That's something that really unites everybody.
And even though it's been three weeks and we've been pushed off, we've had plans that have been cancelled and rescheduled again and again and again.
And I'm sure there still will be.
People are with a smile, even if it's an internal smile sometimes, ready to go in and just completely charge them everybody together.
You know, me personally, I try to lift up the Avira, like the vibes, you know, because it is hard times, but it doesn't mean, you know, Ramisla, you know, we have to always be strong and keep going.
Now, obviously, there's many around the world that have gotten over the massacre and are now looking at people like you, and you're now the devil.
How does that make you feel?
I try not to think about it too much because it does make my blood boil seeing everything that's going on in America.
Like, because that's where I'm from, from Miami.
And so, I don't know, it's really easy to get it twisted.
Are you the devil?
No, definitely not.
Do you want to kill?
No.
That's the last thing I want to do.
I don't want to go to war.
Me, especially out of all people.
I haven't waited for this.
I don't want to do it.
But it's something that you have to do.
Why?
You have to protect your people.
And until Hamas is erased, it's just going to keep happening.
There's always going to be people that hate us, and we just have to always come on top.
So I saw you when you went to Dany Danone there.
What did you say to him?
I said to him that we are the soldiers, the spirit of our lives, and what we want is that it's not that there will be a short process here that will speak for three or four years.
We want to bring all of Aza, to protect all of Hamas, all of our enemies, to protect it from sin.
We need to fight with them, to bring all of the people, to fight with them, to move to where we need, and Hamas to protect from sin.
That's what we want.
Is that something you're getting a lot of at the moment?
All over.
All over.
The people of Israel telling us, finish the job.
We are willing to pay the price, be in the shelters, do all the things we are doing, but finish the job.
We don't want to be here in another five years or three years, another cycle.
It's enough.
We have seen the atrocities, we have seen the brutality of our enemy.
So the people of Israel expect that the Prime Minister will lead the nation for a victory for the defeat of Hamas.
We are not going to do half of the job now.
And we've spoken to a number of soldiers who keep talking about these delays.
And people around the world are thinking maybe Israel's got cold feet or the international pressure is too much.
Is that possible?
Is Israel going to back out or is the land invasion just a matter of time?
Well, I think that it's a matter of time.
It doesn't matter when we'll do it.
The question is what we do.
And we have to complete the mission.
Not to stop in the middle.
We should ignore the international pressure.
We should do what's good for Israel now.
So you agree with the soldiers?
Absolutely.
The aftermath of five neutralised terrorists who took a couple, a civilian couple hostage and the professionalism of Israeli Special Forces Police as they entered both upstairs and downstairs at the same time, saving both.
So this is a city that 50 people were slaughtered by the Hamas terrorists.
But these two here were saved.
I'm Evietal.
I want to say that I'm a police officer.
I'm doing this interview just to make sure that everyone around the world will know the truth.
I know what happened to us.
And my story.
I called to my mom at 6:30 in the morning when we heard the alert and I told her to go to the safe place.
She told me that she hears shots.
I thought that she was kidding.
I told her it's only the bombs were really regular today.
She said, Tommy, no, Evie, there's someone shooting at us.
And it's hanging.
She hanged the phone.
I came from my girlfriend's house.
She lives one kilometer from here.
I came here and I saw a lot of police officers and a lot of bodies all around the world, people that I work with.
As I said, I am a police officer and there's a friend of mine that got killed, got murdered by those terrorists.
Parents' House Under Fire00:04:13
I came and I joined the force that was fighting for my parents' house and fighting for their lives.
And people got killed to save my parents and everyone around here.
I got neighbors and friends that got murdered.
And I was shocked at the moment and I realized that this is my parents' house and I'm gonna enter the house and I'm gonna see bodies, bodies of them.
I stay focused and I try to stay calm because I know that I need to help my friend and my friend needs me.
I'm another soldier in this battle, so we need to be focused and go to do our job.
I was home in Miami and it was the last day of the Chag.
And as being a military physician, as well as a physician and more so a Jew, it's difficult for me to sit at home and watch what was going on without doing something.
So in Middle Chag, I literally pulled all my equipment and monitors and trauma bags and everything that I use going into conflict and literally went to the airport, jumped on a plane and came here in order to volunteer my services as a physician on the front lines.
My area of concentration has been since I've been here primarily on the front lines working along with the advanced tactical units, their military personnel, in order to treat, stabilize, and save lives with the personnel that are affected by this conflict, of course.
So can you tell us from when you arrived here, what did you witness for yourself?
Initially, when I got here, I headed straight down into the south and was right at the entrance of Kvaraza.
And there was a certain group of IDF soldiers that I aligned myself with.
And we were generally under fire most of the time.
So it was AK fire, some 62 rounds coming in, mortar barrage, rocket attacks, of course.
And for the most time, there were injuries that I needed to help and assist with, with their medical personnel, of course.
And it took a little bit of time in order for them to go in and start clearing Kvaraza.
And finally, after about the third wave or so, I believe, we finally went in and did the best that we could with whatever we saw in order to help and support.
And at that point, it was mostly emotional support.
And even though we were still under fire while we're there, there were still pockets of resistance.
You know, the terrorists had embedded themselves in different locations and trying to ambush.
And nevertheless, it never stopped us from having to do what we needed to do.
Whether it was going home to home, doing searches for survivors, remains.
That was over the course of the next little bit.
The plane is operating in the sense that it is a security force and they just started to move in.
And the pictures that we saw that people want is from there?
Yes, from all directions.
They just tried to move from here as much as possible.
Were you here in the beginning?
Is it going to look different now?
The whole forest didn't exist, yes?
But the forest has remained in a lot of ways.
Two weeks later, this area is a closed military zone still.
Military Zone Still Under Attack00:01:45
You can see the devastation in front of you, but the bodies taken away, The explosives removed, but a military zone that's still constantly under attack.