On the ground in Israel: “I am truly sick of this war - my kids are absolutely terrified..."

Chris Hughes, reporting from Israel, speaks to a local mother desperate for the conflict to end and a young man preparing to serve his country

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Oshrat, 40, a local woman from the town of Sderot, plays with her children in a local park near to her home

Fanatical Hamas militants in Gaza were still opening fire on Israeli towns this week as troops prepared for a last bloody push into the stricken southern city of Rafah.

Astonishingly in Sderot, the closest Israeli community to Gaza’s battered north, alarms sounded out as several Hamas missiles were blasted out of the sky.

One rocket got through, smashing into the ground somewhere within Israel’s most exposed community, just a mile from Gaza’s north, which is now a hellscape.

Over six months ago we stood on Sderot Hill, a famous spot within sight of Gaza’s Beit Hanoun community as Israeli troops attacked the diehard terrorists from the north.

At the same spot this week we could see fighting still rages there and we saw a lone Israeli tank through the haze, ominously pointing its barrel towards the Gaza Strip, searching for a new target.

Yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defying Western warnings about attacking the south where a million Palestinians are sheltering, is pressing on with the push on Rafah.

Even as his troops appear to be battling still to quell the militants in the north.

Buildings in Gaza lie in ruins after shelling from Israel

This week, this blood-stained corner of the Middle East has endured 200 days of bitter fighting as Israel wages war on Hamas.

And even now, with more than 34,000 Palestinians killed and 75,000 wounded according to local officials, Hamas is still fighting amongst Gaza’s ruins in the north.

Deep booms and the crunch of fighter jet-launched bombs are near-constant, with white smoke billowing from the latest smashed-up building in the north.

It seems the military is no longer hitting buildings, simply just moving rubble around.

The acrid smell of the explosions wafts across the scrubland over which thousands of Hamas fighters marauded into southern Israel on October 7 last year.

They murdered 1,200 outside Gaza, kidnapping 250 and dragging them back into the Strip. Some 100 perhaps still remain, although a further 30 have died in captivity.

The fear here in Israel is that many more are no longer living.

Chris Hughes stands on a hill in the town of Sderot in Israel close to the boarder, overlooking Gaza

It is breathtaking that anyone is still living in this part of Gaza, whose apartment blocks are now shards of blackened concrete pointing accusingly at the sky, or partially levelled into the dirt.

And yet Hamas are still living and they are firing rockets into Israel sometimes several times a week, setting off alarms and sending terrified Israelis into shelters.

Local mother Oshrat, 40, was looking after her children in a Sderot park and she told us: “I am truly sick of this war - my kids are absolutely terrified but we cannot stay at home all the time.

“One of my daughters will not stray from the nearest air-raid shelter she is so scared of the rockets and the bombs. The constant noise of fighting in Gaza is terrible.”