Israeli reports say Hamas beheaded babies and killed children in small village

UPDATE, 10/16/23: On X, the Prime Minister of Israel’s account released photos on October 12 stating that they had been shown to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. WARNING: The photos show the deceased bodies of children, some of whom were burned. The first photo below is with the blacked out content warning; the second shows the photos.

UPDATE, 10/12/23: The Israeli government is now saying that it “cannot confirm” that infants were beheaded in the Hamas attacks on a village — however, there are multiple eyewitnesses. CNN reports:

The Israeli government has not confirmed the specific claim that Hamas attackers cut off the heads of babies during their shock attack on Saturday, an Israeli official told CNN, contradicting a previous public statement by the Prime Minister’s office.

“There have been cases of Hamas militants carrying out beheadings and other ISIS-style atrocities. However, we cannot confirm if the victims were men or women, soldiers or civilians, adults or children,” the official said.

Yet, testimony from eyewitnesses, including both a civilian response volunteer and foreign journalists on the scene, supports the reports of beheaded infants and children. A French journalist tweeted: “For those asking for the source. They are multiple: Israeli army, internal intelligence service and atrocious images which reached me and which I was able to cross-check. But the best source remains this: courageous journalists from the foreign press who were able to see/agreed to see with their own eyes the bodies in Kfar Aza.”

i24 News reported more of Landau’s remarks to the press about what he witnessed. He told media that in one home he and other workers entered, they saw “a pregnant lady lying on the floor, and then we turn her around and see that the stomach is cut open, wide open. The unborn baby, still connected with a umbilical cord, was stabbed with a knife. And the mother was shot in the head. And you use your imagination, trying to figure out what came first.”

He added, “I saw a dead mother holding her dead baby, both killed with a single bullet that went through them. I saw 20 children shot and burned and piled together in two piles.” Overall, he claims he saw the bodies of 670 individuals.

10/10/23: According to media reports, the village of Kfar Aza, Israel, which is located close to the Gaza border, has been ‘decimated’ by Hamas terrorists, who are reported to have murdered entire families in their beds, killing and even beheading children and infants.

i24News reporter Nicole Zedek explained that an Israeli commander on the scene informed her they had found women and “babies with their heads cut off” and claimed he had “never seen acts of brutality” like this before. At least 40 babies and children were killed and entire families were reportedly burned alive in their homes and shot as Hamas overtook the village for two days.

“No one could expect it to be like this – the horrors I’m hearing from these soldiers,” said Zedek. “About 40 babies at least were taken out on gurneys. They are going house to house still taking out dead bodies.”

The Sun reported that Israeli Defense Force’s Major General Itai Veruv told reporters, “You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms and how the terrorists kills them. It’s not a war. It’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre. It’s something I’ve never seen in my life. It’s something we used to imagine from our grandfathers, grandmothers in the pogrom in Europe and other places.”

A soldier also told ITV News: “It reminds me of the pogroms and of the Nazis.”

Zedek reported that along the streets were “signs of daily life” such as children’s bicycles, but alongside them were the bodies of those killed.

At least 150 people have also been kidnapped by Hamas since it launched its attack on Israel.

In all, thousands of people have been reportedly killed in both Israel and Gaza since the attacks began.

“All people are made in the image of God, and it’s never right to harm an innocent person,” said Live Action President Lila Rose in an email mourning the loss of life. “Every human being possesses human rights, the first being life.”

Rose added, “Even in times of war and conflict, there are still moral rules by which we must abide. Human life is always sacred and human beings have human rights, in war and outside of war. To kidnap children, to rape women, and to murder innocent human beings is always wrong — no matter who carries out the act.”