(JNS) The head of mission at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem toured the Israeli border area near the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, October 11, seeing first-hand the devastation wrought by Hamas‘s terror invasion over the weekend.

“We’ve come down here along the Gaza periphery to bear witness to the atrocities that were committed here on Saturday, and it’s really unbelievable,” Chargé d’Affaires Stephanie Hallet said as she choked up while filming a video message from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

“As a mother and just as a human being, to see and to know what happened here is really important. We’ve been here, we’ve seen it, and it is evil, and we stand with Israel, all of us, we stand with Israel,” she said.