War reporter Trey Yingst still has one nagging thought about the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel that he plays over and over again in his head: It could have been me.

As the barbaric Hamas disaster in Israel – which left 1,200 dead and 240 hostages – was unfolding, Fox News’ Yingst rushed to the scene.

“One of the things that still resonates with me is how close my team and I came to death on that fateful morning,” he writes in his new book “Black Saturday” (Harper Collins), noting that a decision by a a split second of stopping at an intersection in Israel’s battered south could have meant the difference between life and death.

“If we had continued… we would have ended up in the middle of the carnage, attacked by armed Hamas men. Would I have tried to talk to the gunmen before they killed me? Would I have explained in Arabic that I was a journalist?

“Would they have killed me anyway?”

As Chief Foreign Correspondent for Fox, Yingst has spent the past decade burnishing his reputation in war zones around the world on the front lines of Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine.

But nothing prepared him for last year, when he woke up at 7 a.m. in his Tel Aviv apartment on what has become known as “Black Saturday,” the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

In his harrowing firsthand account, Yingst, 31, speaks with soldiers, civilians, leaders in Israel and figures within Hamas who paint a devastating portrait of the costs of war. He writes about five different times he entered Gaza through military bases – a correspondent’s attachment to military units in armed conflict – and witnessed tense firefights between Israel and Hamas.

As he tried to come to grips with the scale of the attacks, amid the confusion and shock of October 7, reporting from the scene would become a delicate thread.

“Stick to the facts and avoid analysis based on opinions or emotions,” he told himself.

“I had been preparing for this day for years, hoping it would never come,” he writes.

“I felt I was built for this moment.”

In the bloody year that followed, Yingst spent nearly 200 days on the ground reporting on the attacks and their aftermath as the war between Israel and Hamas unfolded.

“October 7 was one of the most horrific things I have seen. The aftermath of this massacre was horrific. It was bloody, it was tangible. We felt it, we saw it, we smelled the bodies, we saw the people being killed,” he told The Post while reporting from northern Israel, where fighting with Hezbollah has intensified this week.

“I think about that day a lot because we were so close to death,” he said. “We saw the people who died. We saw the people who didn’t have the luck we had, because that’s what it really was – it was luck. There was no strategy to ensure we survived that day.”

And on Black Saturday, terror struck almost very close to home.

Yoav, the engineer on Yingst’s close-knit team, was concerned about the fate of his brother Gil, who lived about a mile from the Gaza border on Kibbutz Nir Oz.

The isolated community was overrun as hundreds of terrorists methodically slaughtered or kidnapped about a quarter of its 400 residents – and Yoav was unable to contact Gil and his wife of 40 years, Michal.

Terrorists had entered their home and set it on fire as the naked couple barricaded themselves in their safe room without a lock.

The army rescued them alive about 11 hours later.

The early days of post-October 7 reality took their toll on the journalist, with triggers at every corner.

While visiting Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the hardest-hit communities along the Gaza border, Yingst witnessed a funeral for one of at least 62 residents who were brutally murdered that day, with more taken hostage.

As he walked through the home of the Kutz family, who had lived in Boston for years, with a New England Patriots hat still on display, he became “numb.”

The bedroom was “a puddle of dried blood,” Yingst writes – the bed, the floor and the walls.

The family of five was discovered in bed with father Aviv, “embracing his loved ones,” he wrote.

The stench overwhelmed the normally stoic reporter, who rushed away to do breathing exercises.

“I felt like I was going to throw up,” he writes.

The unwavering sight of a massacre – of families being murdered alive on a large scale – proved to tire Yingst in the early days.

“I began to silently grapple with what we had seen in the first few days,” he writes. “In journalism school we learn how to report – not how to wipe someone else’s blood from the bottom of your shoes, as I had to do time and time again.”

The psychological toll even played out in his subconscious – such as when he woke up in panic from a bad dream in which he was tortured and thrown into a mass grave.

Or his parental home is attacked and he tries to get to safety.

The unspeakable brutality and bloodshed of October 7 and its aftermath changed him.

“I think that as a war correspondent I am becoming more and more empathetic. I think the more war I see, the more I want to advocate for peace because it is truly the most horrific thing,” he said, adding somberly: “There are no winners in war and this war is no different. ”

His biggest message that he tries to convey, both in his reporting and on his social media pages, is to “remind people to stay human and be empathetic,” he said.

“Don’t lose your humanity.”

And he follows his own advice: He tries to be kind to himself in the aftermath of his PTSD, having been on the front lines as a war correspondent.

He’s focusing on “dealing with what we see in the healthiest way possible,” he said, turning to cold showers, clean eating and abstaining from alcohol.

“I think it’s very easy for people to fall into unhealthy habits when you’re experiencing these things and your mental health is under strain. “I don’t want to be one of those people,” he said.

“I have seen so many of the great war correspondents destroy their lives with drugs and alcohol,” he writes in the book, noting his empathy for their plight.

“I also decided not to fall down that rabbit hole.”

After living in the Middle East for six years and covering the war last year, reintegration into civilian life comes with real bumps.

“It’s a culture shock,” he said of a brief return to New York, where he attended a friend’s wedding, among other things.

“You have to go from talking about missiles and rocket attacks to talking about the weather and sports,” he lamented, adding that he finds it “a bit challenging to reintegrate into society.”

Yingst decided to cut short a trip back to New York when it became clear that Israeli troops would enter Lebanon this week, putting the concept of work-life balance largely off the table.

“People will say it’s unhealthy and I don’t care,” he said.

“This is what I’m passionate about – this is my identity, my calling.”

Still, he has no plans to trade in his multiple body armor for a desk job anytime soon.

“I witnessed the carnage and saw people dying before our eyes,” he said.

“I feel even more driven to ensure this story is told.”