I've seen the worst horrors of Ukraine, Bosnia, and ISIS. I never thought I'd see them come to Israel, my home.

• Itai Anghel is a veteran war correspondent with the Israeli current affairs show 'Uvda.'

• On Wednesday, he visited kibbutz Nir Oz, which was attacked by Hamas militants.

• He told Insider that the scenes he witnessed reminded him of his reporting on ISIS and Ukraine.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Itai Anghel, a war correspondent and documentary maker with the Israeli current affairs show 'Uvda' on Channel Keshet 12. It's been edited for length and clarity. 

In my time as a war correspondent, I've covered so many atrocities and genocides: Bosnia, Bucha in Ukraine, and ISIS.

I went to villages that were completely annihilated, where I saw and heard of people being beheaded, set on fire, women being raped, and entire communities being executed.

When I was there, it was as if I was inside a horror story, but I had comfort in knowing that I would get back to my life, my neighborhood, where nothing of the sort would ever be relevant.

But, now, here I am in Israel, my home, where everything from that list has become a reality.

Yesterday, I visited a kibbutz, Nir Oz. I was the first journalist to go there after the attacks.

The army is preventing passage into the kibbutz, but residents sort of smuggled me inside. They told me I had to document everything and to do it now before everything was cleaned up.

I saw dead dogs that had been shot on the street. I saw bodies, covered in sheets.

The smell of dead bodies, and dogs, was very difficult to describe, but it is burnt very deep in my memory.

And there was complete silence. It was once such a lively place, with scores of children and people making noise. 400 or so people.

Now, nearly everything is dead, even the animals, and the only sound you can hear is the occasional clanging of wind chimes hanging at the entrance of some of the houses.

Bloodstains and handprints cover the walls

Inside the houses, you can see the signs of people struggling as Hamas tried to break into their safe rooms.

You can see door handles, crooked and dislocated. Locks, broken and riddled with bullets.

You can just imagine, Hamas trying to pull open the doors, and people on the other sign holding the handles as hard as they could toward their side.

The old people didn't stand a chance. Some of them were Holocaust survivors, and I'm sure past memories came to mind.

In the house of one elderly woman, you can see the signs of a fight. Bloodstains and handprints cover the walls. She's now dead.

Around a quarter of the people of Nir Oz were assassinated, kidnapped, or injured in a very severe way. Those who survived have no place to come back to.

The only aim was to kill

My past experiences covering atrocities echoed in my mind throughout.

Kidnapping, handcuffing, burning people alive — all things I saw in Bucha and that I documented in the areas where ISIS was operating.

Like ISIS, the only aim was to kill, burn, and even have fun while doing it, or so the videos suggest.

I am a man of words but even I am speechless.

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