One gnawing thought nonetheless clings to conflict reporter Trey Yingst in regards to the October 7, 2023, terror assault on Israel which he replays in his head time and again: It may have been me.
As the barbaric Hamas rampage of Israel — which left 1,200 useless and 240 taken as hostages — was going down, Fox News’ Yingst was hurtling towards the scene.
“One of the things that’s still with me is how close my team and I were to death on that fateful morning,” he writes in his new e-book “Black Saturday,” (FOX News Books), noting {that a} split-second resolution about stopping at an intersection in Israel’s battered south, could have meant the distinction between life and loss of life.
“If we’d stored going… we'd have discovered ourselves proper in the midst of the carnage, below assault by Hamas gunmen. Would I've tried to motive with the gunmen earlier than they killed me? Would I've defined in Arabic that I used to be a journalist?
“Would they have murdered me anyway?”
As Chief Foreign Correspondent for Fox, Yingst has burnished his fame in conflict zones all over the world for the final decade on the frontlines in Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine.
But nothing ready him for the previous yr, when he was woken up inside his Tel Aviv condo at 7am on what’s change into generally known as “Black Saturday,” the biggest slaughter of Jews because the Holocaust.
In his gripping firsthand account, Yingst, 31, talks to troopers, civilians, leaders in Israel and figures in Hamas that paint a devastating portrait of the price of conflict. He writes about coming into Gaza 5 separate instances on army embeds — a correspondent’s attachment to army items in armed battle — and witnessing tense firefights between Israel and Hamas.
As he tried to get a deal with on the scope of the assaults, in the midst of the confusion and shock on October 7, reporting from the scene would change into a fragile needle to string.
“Stick to the facts and avoid opinion or emotion-based analysis,” he instructed himself.
“I had prepared for this day for years, hoping it would never come,” he writes.
“I felt I was built for this moment.”
In the bloody yr that adopted, Yingst spent practically 200 days on the bottom protecting the assaults and its aftermath because the Israel-Hamas conflict has unfolded.
“October 7th was one of the most horrific things that I’ve witnessed. The aftermath of this massacre was gruesome. It was bloody, it was tangible. We felt it, we saw it, we smelled the bodies, we saw the people who were killed,” he instructed The Post whereas reporting from northern Israel, the place combating with Hezbollah has intensified, this week.
“I think about that day a lot because we were so close to dying,” he mentioned. “We saw the people who were killed. We saw the people who didn’t have the luck that we had because that’s really what it was – it was luck. There was no strategy to the fact that we survived that day.”
And terror practically hit very near residence on Black Saturday.
Yoav, the engineer in Yingst’s tight-knit crew, was agonizing over the destiny of his brother, Gil, who lived a couple of mile from the Gaza border in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
The remoted neighborhood was overrun when a whole bunch of terrorists methodically slaughtered or kidnapped about one quarter of its 400 residents – and Yoav was unable to attach with Gil and his spouse of 40 years, Michal.
Terrorists had entered their residence and set hearth to it because the bare couple barricaded themselves in their protected room and not using a lock.
The military rescued them alive some 11 hours later.
The early days in a post-October 7 actuality took their toll on the journalist, with triggers at each flip.
During a go to to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of many hardest-hit communities alongside the Gaza border, Yingst witnessed a funeral for one among at the least 62 residents who have been brutally murdered that day, with extra taken hostage.
Walking by way of the crime scene residence of the Kutz household, who spent years dwelling in Boston, with a New England Patriots hat nonetheless on show, left him “numb.”
The bed room was “a pool of dried blood,” Yingst writes – the mattress, flooring and partitions.
The household of 5 was found in mattress with dad, Aviv, “embracing his loved ones,” he writes.
The stench overwhelmed the usually stoic reporter, who darted off to apply respiration workout routines.
“I felt like I was going to vomit,” he writes.
The unflinching sights of carnage – of households murdered alive wholesale – proved to put on down Yingst in the early days.
“I had started to struggle, in silence, with what we’d seen in the first few days,” he writes. “We’re taught in journalism school how to report – not how to clean someone else’s blood off the bottom of your shoes, as I had to do again and again.”
The psychological toll even performed out in his unconscious – like when he’d get up panicked from a foul dream in which he’s tortured and tossed right into a mass grave.
Or his childhood house is below assault and he’s scrambling for security.
The unspeakable brutality and bloodshed on October 7 and its aftermath modified him.
“I think I am constantly becoming more empathetic as a war correspondent. I think the more war that I see, the more I want to advocate for peace because it truly is the most horrific thing,” he mentioned, including somberly, “There are no winners in war and this war is no different.”
His biggest message that he strives to drive residence, each in his reporting and on his social media pages, is to “remind people to stay human, to be empathetic,” he mentioned.
“Don’t lose your humanity.”
And he’s taking his personal recommendation – attempting to be type to himself in the wake of his PTSD from protecting the frontlines as a conflict correspondent.
He focuses on “dealing with what we see in the healthiest way possible,” he mentioned, turning to chilly showers, consuming clear and abstaining from alcohol.
“I think it’s really easy for people to slip into unhealthy habits when you experience these things and you have that strain on your mental health. I don’t want to be one of those people,” he mentioned.
“I’ve seen so many of the great war correspondents ruin their lives with drugs and alcohol,” he writes in the e-book, noting his empathy for his or her plight.
“I’ve also determined not to fall down that rabbit hole.”
After six years primarily based in the Middle East and protecting the conflict for the previous yr, reintegrating into civilian life comes with actual bumps.
“It’s a culture shock,” he mentioned of a quick return to New York which included attending a pal’s wedding ceremony.
“You have to go from being talking about missile and rocket attacks to talking about the weather and sports,” he lamented, including he finds it “a little challenging to reintegrate into society.”
Yingst determined to chop a visit again to New York quick when it turned clear Israeli forces have been to go into Lebanon this week, making the idea of a work-life steadiness largely off the desk.
“People will say it’s unhealthy and I don’t care,” he mentioned.
“This is what I’m passionate about – this is my identity, my calling .”
Still, he has no plans to commerce his a number of bulletproof vests for a desk job anytime quickly.
“I lived through the massacre, watching people die in front of us,” he mentioned.
“I feel even more driven to make sure that this story gets told.”
