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STORY: It was one of the areas hardest hit when Hamas militants attacked Israel.

This Kibbutz, or collective farm, in Kfar Azar was flooded by fighters.

As they broke through the southern Israeli border from the Gaza Strip.

Reuters and foreign media were given a tour by the Israeli Defence Forces as the counting of losses began.

Four days on from the onslaught, the sights and sounds of a live battle still present.

And the stench of bodies heavy in the air.

Major General Itai Veruv describes what they found once they had control.

‘’You see the babies, the mother, the fathers, in their bedrooms, in their protection roofs and how the terrorist kills them, it's not a war, it's not a battle field. It's a massacre, it's a terror activity. So you can look on yourself, it is something that I never saw in my life.’’

Bodies of villagers and gunmen lie scattered throughout the neighborhood, with houses and vehicles destroyed.

Troops were going house to house to retrieve civilian bodies in body bags.

Unable to do so before as they were still fighting gunmen and working through booby-traps.

Soldier Ayer Avriel told Reuters the average age of the community was 18 to 25.

‘’This neighborhood was brutally attacked and (people) slaughtered. RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) were shot. They burned everything and made sure that no one got out of here alive, and you can see the brutality. See for yourself."

The signs of the rampage were also evident inside other kibbutz’s, like Be’rei.

Yossi Landau, a Zaka Commander for 33 years, told Reuters 100 bodies had been found there - about 10 percent of the area’s population.

"We saw.. it was unbelievable the casualties that we saw and then we thought that everything, we saw everything but then it came to yesterday when we went into Kibbutz Be'eri and we saw the ... what was done to the families, to the children,’’

An Israeli military spokesperson said the death toll from the Hamas attacks dwarfs the scale of any by Islamists apart from 9/11.

"It isn't over yet. We don't know, not sure that we have cleared all the area and we expect and prepare ourselves for the next battle.''

Hundreds of Gazans have since been killed in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza officials, while whole districts have been flattened.