View from Israel: Veteran broadcaster on covering unimaginable Hamas atrocities, what Israelis think of Biden

EXCLUSIVE – Asaf Pozailov has seen a lot while working for Israel's public broadcaster for 14 years, but nothing like what he's seen in the past 13 days.

In fact, the veteran reporter at the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation says at one point after Hamas first launched its terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, he couldn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth on the air.

"I don't think any human can understand the atrocity and the war crimes and the extreme horrors that have been going on," he told Fox News Digital. "People keep asking me how I feel, and I keep saying that's a tough question, because first of all, you can never grasp these atrocities, and second of all, I know that once I let myself sink into it, I won't be able to function." 

On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists breached the Israel border and went on a rampage, shooting, burning and killing Israeli civilians while taking hundreds of hostages. Entire families were slaughtered, music festival attendees were cut down with bullets and villages were burned. It's been called the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and Israel is now at war.

Asaf Pozailov is a longtime reporter with Israel's Public Broadcasting Corporation.

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Pozailov and fellow Israeli journalists have been tasked with covering the most calamitous attack on the Jewish state since its founding in 1948. Pozailov mainly works as a field correspondent, although since the war began he's also broadcast from the IPBC's national news radio station.

He texted with Israelis, who later died, who informed him there were terrorists inside their house. He spoke with someone in charge of taking care of the victims' bodies who recounted how three generations of an Israeli family was found tied up and executed. He interviewed an attendee of the music festival where 260 people alone were killed by Hamas fighters with guns, rockets and grenades. Two photographer colleagues of his were among those killed in the wider assault.

Israeli authorities showed foreign correspondents a montage of the carnage this week as Palestinians try to sway world opinion against Israel in a typical pattern of the conflict; the Palestinians attack, Israel responds militarily, and Israel inevitably comes under fire for not sufficiently avoiding civilian deaths.

The Associated Press, which recently suspended a correspondent in Gaza from duty while investigating his past social media activity attacking Israel, reported on the "grisly" montage this week.

"The militants were well prepared," the AP wrote. "The videos showed some dressed in army fatigues to look like Israeli soldiers. Others were dressed like police officers. They carried zip ties to tie victim’s hands before they killed them and to bind hostages in the backs of trucks. They coordinated with one another on radios. Dozens of militants in trucks whooped and celebrated on Israeli roads as bodies and cars burned around them."

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Pozailov said Hamas' actions put it on par with some of the world's most notorious terrorist organizations.

"The level of cruelty, you don't even see in ISIS, you don't even see in al-Qaeda," Pozailov said.'

As a journalist, he's kept an eye on the international coverage of the conflict. Some corners of the U.S. media in particular have come under fire for quickly running with the Hamas version of events blaming Israel for the explosion Tuesday at a Gaza hospital, or at least parroting the claim. Since then, several major outlets have walked back reports that appeared to initially hold Israel responsible for the bombing. 

President Biden has said Israel wasn't responsible, and the culprit was likely an errant Islamic Jihad rocket. There has not yet been independent verification of who was responsible for the explosion, but the blaming of Israel – still parroted by far-left American figures like Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. – appears for the moment to be premature.

"It can be hurtful for the victims and they say we feel like we've been terrorized again, when they see such an extreme anti-Israel coverage [that it] borders on antisemitism," Pozailov said, adding, "The blood hasn't been dried, and hundreds of the victims weren't even buried, and you immediately take the side and the narrative and the version of those animals."

Irking some fellow Democrats like Tlaib and even anonymous members of his administration, Biden has made statements of strong support for Israel and condemnation of its terrorist enemies. Pozailov said Biden's remarks have been a "ray of light" for Israelis.

President Joe Biden listens as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participate in an expanded bilateral meeting with Israeli and U.S. government officials, on Wednesday, Oct. 18, in Tel Aviv.  (AP/Evan Vucci)

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"They feel like a rush of hope and a ray of light, because this is the darkest hour for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and two of the survivors that I was speaking to, they were saying it's like an angel coming to help us, especially when they hear the way that the worldwide media is covering it," he said. "People keep saying how thankful they are for him and what he's been doing."

In the meantime, though, Pozailov shared that the attack has united Israelis in helping their countrymen, donating clothes and offering up their homes to those who've been left with nothing.

The country is forever changed by the attack, but it's not knocked out.

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