Executing a Pregnant Woman and her Fetus: Really?

October 7 Massacre in Israel, Part 6: Executing a Pregnant Woman and her Fetus: Really? 

December 18, 2023

additions 12/31

Again, an insert instead of a final post in what was started as a 4-part series. Part 6 now, and part 7 later, and likely that won't be final either. I don't mean to try and untangle every claim and identify every trick used to maximize Israel's propaganda case against Hamas, but I keep finding ones that seem worth the effort. 

6A) Witnesses to a Slaughter

New York post, Nov. 1: Eli Beer, the founder of the volunteer-based Israeli EMS organization United Hatzalah, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, relates terrible scenes he personally witnessed of men, women and children "murdered in a holocaust in Israel in 2023.” Eli Beer, President of United Hatzalah testimonials from October 7th, 2023, at the RJC (youtube.com)

"I saw with my own eyes a woman who was pregnant, 4 months pregnant - she was in a little village, a little kibbutz - they came into her house, in front of her kids, they opened up her stomach [slicing motion] - she was pregnant - they opened up her stomach, took out the baby, and stabbed the little tiny baby in front of her and then shot her in front of her family. Then they killed the rest of the kids." 

Beer says he saw that "with my own eyes" but the original (alleged) witness to this scene was apparently Yossi Landau, southern region head of operations for a competitor rescue group, ZAKA. To i24NEWS, on October 12, Landau claimed that he witnessed this in the hard-hit kibbutz of Be'eri. "In the first home he and his colleagues entered "we see 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 an 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." 

Here at a press conference, Landau (left) relates the scene, almost in tears: Zaka Testimonial from The Hamas Massacre (around the 20:30 mark). "Her stomach was butchered open," he says, and the still-connected baby had been stabbed. He says his team had a debate whether to use one body bag or two.

Landau relates his methodology for deciding what happened: "Now we go to the same imagination we're using. let's talk to the body. Let's see what happened. Did she see that, what was done to her baby?" His increasingly sad demeanor suggests yes, the mother had to see it all before she died. But he remains open-minded and optimistic. "Or maybe she didn't. Maybe she didn't have that suffering. We don't know." United Hatzalah's Mr. Beer - who apparently wasn't even there? - seemed to imagine what came first and later much more vividly and related it as fact - the mother and some other children were made to watch before they were all killed.

This interesting piece at The Grayzone notes how ZAKA and U.H. compete for donations and other funding, and that seems to drive them each to bear witness - truly or falsely - to the gravest imaginable atrocities against Jews. But even as they trip over each other to claim their "own eyes" saw all the worst crimes, they have a shared mission - to illustrate how Israel needs to avenge a special class of crime that transcends things like the rules of war and normal human decency. 

Beer noted simply "These are not regular enemies."  Landau was more philosophical: the killers are not human, despite their form, and not even animals, he says, struggling to put it in words: "they don't belong to our world." They're supernatural, like some kind of demons crossed over to plague us - temporarily, he hopes. 

Landau was hailed by the American Jewish Council as a hero who "brought light in our darkest hour." He knows this, and has little patience for anyone complicating his contributions to Israel's ambitious new project. As Max Blumenthal noted "Yossi Landau proclaimed in a December 3 interview that anyone who questions his stories “should be together with the Hamas terrorists, and he should be killed.” Scandal-stained Israeli ‘rescue’ group fuels October 7 fabrications - The Grayzone 

6B) "No Connection" to Be'eri ... or to Reality?

Ha'aretz reported on December 4 how "Hamas committed documented atrocities, but a few false stories feed the deniers," and this butchered woman claim was one of them. 

Article link: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-04/ty-article-magazine/.premium/hamas-committed-documented-atrocities-but-a-few-false-stories-feed-the-deniers/0000018c-34f3-da74-afce-b5fbe24f0000. I tried to register, but it didn't work. A Hebrew version was available here, and auto-translated for citation in this post, as "Ha'aretz 12/4." (It might also be covered in Libération's investigation, although this review doesn't mention it.) 

The Ha'aretz article cites an unnamed ZAKA worker who "repeatedly spoke about the body of a pregnant woman found at Kibbutz Be'eri whose abdomen had been cut open." This should probably be Yossi Landau, and it's not clear why he remains unnamed in the article. "He repeated his account to Haaretz," and even doubled-down on specific details, "adding that he saw this woman at House 426 on the kibbutz. “It was full of blood,” he said. “When we turned her over, we saw that the abdomen was open. A knife was next to her, and we saw the fetus attached by the umbilical cord, and she had been shot from behind.” He might be backing away from the stabbed fetus claim, or just didn't specify it this time.

He also "said that he found the woman next to the house's entrance, and that a 6- or 7-year-old boy was found shot in the safe room." But as Ha'aretz found, no boy anywhere near this age was reported killed in Be'eri. Furthermore, they reported, "House 426 is also a two-family house where elderly families lived; Rafi Mordo was murdered and his neighbor, Simcha Shani, was wounded. Shani and her husband did not mention a pregnant woman or a family with young children who were guests in their house."  

Note also that Pessi Cohen's #424 is just two houses over. This is where, as two surviving witnesses describe in detail, IDF tank shells killed 13 civilian hostages - including two children aged 12 - after Hamas had seemingly killed none of those hostages (see part 2). 

There was supposed video proof of this crime that circulated briefly, and was even touted by President Herzog's wife Michal. She said in a Newsweek Op-Ed that “a Hamas video from a kibbutz shows terrorists torturing a pregnant woman and removing her fetus.” (The Grayzone 12/6). Ha'aretz 12/4 noted "A clip was posted on social media describing the murder of a pregnant woman, but the website Fake Reporter and other sources say the video was not filmed in Israel." The supplied video was showed "a Mexican drug cartel torturing a prisoner to death" (The Grayzone 12/6). See also: Israeli Accounts Share Deceptive Video, Accusing Hamas of Killing a Pregnant Woman | Misbar Ignoring that it's appalling this happened anywhere for any reason, the site's finding: the victim is apparently a Mexican male, and it's his heart removed, not a fetus. But by the time we figured that out, the "proven" crime was touted in Newsweek and all over the place. (see 12/31 add below for more details)

Ha'retz also reported that, by some representative communication, "the kibbutz adds that “the story of the pregnant woman reported by Zaka is not relevant to Be'eri.” Furthermore, Ha'aretz reported "The police say the case is not known to them, and a pathology source at the Shura army base told Haaretz that he was unaware of the case." This source, the investigating police, and the kibbutz of Be'eri, among others ... all of them, according to Landau's December 3 comment, should be put "together with Hamas and killed." 

6C) The Match? A Pregnant Women Killed in a ROADSIDE Shelter

However much he chokes up on recalling the details, "Landau appears to have crafted this testimony" of the butchered woman - as Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone contends - "based on a rumor that an anonymous military source spread online two days prior." The cited post (Hallel Bitton Rosen on X), from October 10, says: "Yesterday at 18:36, while we were gathering dead bodies in Beeri, we entered a safe room in one of the houses and found a woman around 30 years old, lying on a blood soaked towel with a fetus connected to her by an umbilical cord." That does sound like the same scene. Maybe Landau just picked this up, or perhaps he was actually there among the witnesses?

Blumenthal questions the claim. "According to the source, the supposedly pregnant victim was 30 years old. This alone discredited Landau’s claim, because the only female victims [of similar age - ed] recorded in or around Beeri were 44-year-old Rinat Segev Even and 22-year-old Tair Bira — and neither were pregnant. In fact, no pregnant women were registered among those killed on October 7." 

But this is not correct. There may have been no women of reproductive age in the area (some others were killed, mostly older - one age 48 and I'm not sure on the rest). But there was at least one pregnant woman killed in the massacre, and another was wounded, losing her child.  

Recalling the victim's age as "around 30" and Eli Beer's specifying 4 months pregnant, they seem to be referring to Nitzan Rahoum, 28. This may be an all-new story, explaining why Blumenthal and others have missed it. The Times of Israel reported only on December 10: 

Lidor Levy, 28, and Nitzan Rahoum, 28, an engaged couple who lived together in the central moshav of Geulim, were murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival on October 7. Rahoum was four months pregnant when she was killed. ... Levy and Rahoum sought refuge in a roadside bomb shelter — separate from her uncle and cousins — which Hamas terrorists besieged and threw grenades inside. Levy sought to flee and was slain in a volley of gunfire, while Rahoum is believed to have been murdered by a grenade along with many others." Oct7map.com lists Nitzam Rahum, age 28. It's not clear how relevant the dot placement is, but her red dot is mapped south of the rave, along the road near Re'im, not even close to Be'eri. 

There is daschcam video of Hamas fighters/terrorists tossing a grenade into such a shelter, when a man runs out very fast, passing the attackers, but is shot down a few meters out. That may be the same scene, or it might have happened twice. This is said to be the scene where off-duty IDF soldier Aner Shapira tossed some grenades back out before he was finally killed. The video shows at least 2 grenades tossed in beside rifle fire and one RPG shell shot in. (Video w/notes on X) 

Whether Ms. Rahoum was killed in the above video or another scene, it's possible the killers stepped into the shelter and butchered her in the described way - not that anyone describes such a thing happening in a roadside shelter. But grenades can do terrible things to the human body, and to bodies within bodies, without any deliberate surgical cruelty like Landau and Beer imagined. The closest Hamas got to doing that might be seen above, or it might have looked the same. And the post quoted above might be accurate enough in describing the aftermath, aside from "a safe room in one of the houses." Having it in a house in Be'eri, and a specific one, seeing the knife and signs of deliberate slaughter, and divining the family made to watch before their own murder ... that all seems like imagination straying miles from the reality of events.

Add 12/31: There's an interview video where Landau explains how, on his way to Be'eri, he stopped at a roadside shelter and saw some 20 people "burned alive," not killed by grenades. But he didn't mention seeing any pregnant woman killed there. He recalls seeing that later on.

6D) The Match? A Fetus is Removed and Dies

Ha'aretz 12/4 seems to miss this likely match, because it wasn't reported yet, and/or because they were focused on Be'eri, as Landau had specified. The closest match they found there was a case where a pregnant woman's unborn child was removed and died from injuries ... but this happened in a hospital, and the mother wound up alive in a bed there, not dead in a pool of blood in house 426.

"In another incident, on the morning of October 7, a heavily pregnant Bedouin woman was on her way to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva because her contractions had begun. Terrorists shot her in the stomach. Later hospital staff delivered the baby girl, who died a few hours later." That woman came from Be'eri. The same article says at another point: "Ten-month-old Mila Cohen was murdered in the massacre, along with the baby still in the womb of her mother who died after her mother was shot on the way to hospital." Mila Cohen and her father Ohad were killed in Be'eri.

Ha'aretz heard that woman was shot in the belly by terrorists on the way to the hospital, because the baby chose then to start coming out ("her contractions had begun"). But a detailed account of how the Cohens suffered three generations wiped out by Hamas in Kibbutz Be'eri - JNS.org (where "wiped out" means "lost at least one member") tells a much different story. This refers to "Sandra and Ohad Cohen together with their three children, ages 9, 3 and 10 months." The family hid in their shelter even after Hamas men shot through the door, killing baby Mila. The attackers then started a fire to smoke the family out. Ohad led an escape attempt through the window and was shot dead. The pregnant Sandra and her surviving children came out and were taken captive.   

"The terrorists took the mother, the two remaining kids, along with an elderly woman in a wheelchair and her Filipino caretaker Gracie, and started to walk them to the kibbutz gate, she said. Suddenly, Israeli security forces appeared and the old woman shouted “soldiers, soldiers!” In the ensuing shootout Sandra Cohen was hit four times in the lung and once each in the arm and leg, but called on her two kids to escape together to a neighboring house." 

Sandra was also reportedly shot in the belly and the unborn child, and that may be what started birthing contractions prematurely. But she somehow wound up outside Hamas captivity and in the hospital after this, as if they let her go to and get emergency care, after whoever exactly had shot her in that exchange of fire. That's not exactly slicing out the baby and stabbing it to death before her eyes. But is it even supposed to be the same story?

Side-note: Was Mila Cohen beheaded? As part 5 explained, IDF search and rescue chief Col. Golan Vach presumably describes Mila - the only one of 9 "babies" he saw that he described as actually very young (maybe 1-2 years), and Mila was the only baby near that age reportedly killed in Be'eri or anywhere. But this baby had been beheaded somehow, in the foiled protection of, we would assume, her deceased mother. But they were found outside, the woman shot in the back, not the head, and she wasn't noted as pregnant or slaughtered. The above story says "the family huddled together in their safe room as terrorists shot at the door, killing their 10-month-old daughter, Mila." It sounds like they had to leave her body behind, and of course Sandra survived. So what baby, if any, did Vach see?

6E) ZAKA "Might have Misinterpreted..."

Ha'aretz 12/4: "As for the pregnant woman, Zaka said that due to the condition of the bodies when they were found, the volunteers might have misinterpreted what they saw." Yossi Landau, with his 30+ years of experience, might have made one of three mistakes here, and he might even have done it honestly: 

1) Did he see the 4-month pregnant woman killed by grenades in a roadside shelter and remember seeing it at house 426, amid signs of slaughter instead of an obvious grenade attack? 

2) Did he hear of the woman surviving crossfire and a stillbirth at the hospital, and remember it as finding her and the fetus slaughtered in home 426? 

3) Did he actual see at house 426 its killed occupant, Raffi Mordo, and remember it wrongly? Mordo was aged 84, a bit overweight by the photo, and not the hardest man to mistake for a woman (Mapping the Massacres (oct7map.com)) In the vicinity of Hamas fighters and also battles including IDF tanks, he might have somehow become disemboweled neear the entrance, and Mr. Landau might have just imagined a fetus in that mess, maybe "talked to the body" for a while, and the rest just followed.

Eli Beer with his professional eye could have made a similar mistake in re-telling the story. But both of them might re-combine the evidence deliberately to fabricate new crimes. they can wheel freely interpreting things like just what happened and even where, but sticking loosely to actual details (4 months pregnant, etc.) in case it comes up - "the whole thing was a traumatized blur, all our critics are antisemitic, etc." Long-term story survival or the historical record were never the issue. They just needed to be "confused" enough to say this stuff once, get it in print and echoing around, get the donations coming in and the hearts hardened as the bombs start falling. Then their main job is done. The mumbled excuses and perhaps even consequences - some resignations or early retirements ... that can come later.

Add 12/31: The Video

The Misbar analysis cited above featured the supposed video posted by Brooke Goldstein, "Exec Dir @LawfareProject . Civil Rights Lawyer. Author of #EndJewHatred: A Manual for Mobilization - Activists in the #EndJewHatred movement." Post deleted - explanation: "I posted a horrific video of a pregnant woman being cut open. Before I posted this video it was confirmed. Now I am double, and triple checking it’s confirmed. And if it remains confirmed I will post it again." Later, getting less sure "It is absolutely verified by the Israelis that a pregnant woman was cut open and was left for dead. We are still verifying if this is the footage of that incident." It doesn't seem she ever came back to clarify. (Even Instagram called her out, blocking her access to EndJewHatred over their rules on "fraud and deception")

More recently, some troll accounts have been re-posting an edit of the supposed video. "Kelly Green" "Kelly Green (@KellyGr73198939) / X (twitter.com) - a "semi retired Obgyn" from Montana, who Joined November 2022, mainly to post Israeli propaganda about October 7, and especially about alleged sexual violence against women.  "She" posted (now deleted for rules violation - it showed a huge video frame unblurred, with no warning) "Well there’s this. Hamas filmed the slaughter of a pregnant woman, sliced off her breast, cut open her belly, ripped her baby out and beheaded it. You can watch it live right here. https://thisishamas.com." From an OBGYN, that should be an informed opinion, but of course it's not.

The breast-slicing and fetus beheading are new details. I don't know if the site is safe and there's no value to going there. But I had to go and see the video excerpt. It's sickening, even to me. Optional description: A living man is held down by several others a main butcher flays the skin off his chest and belly, then slices it open from the bottom. Someone slaps the man in the face a few times, as if to keep him awake and watching. At one point, his flexing causes a sort of pale balloon of flesh to emerges on its own from a slit in his belly muscle. It's similar to a baby's head, but it's probably his intestines. The butcher ignores this, not pulling out the "baby" for any type of killing, as he starts splitting the man's sternum to get at his heart. The video cuts there, as it was straying from the script.

Video matches (comparing stills at the Misbar analysis): the victim's mouth is taped shut, as noted, so "she would not scream." His head is laid on the belly of a heavyset man in denim shorts. Something tells me that's the victim's father. He was reportedly killed afterwards, by beheading, though I haven't seen that segment. Anyway, the two men were shown before, the man in shorts and the other, with his mouth already taped shut. That's plain as day. Also note the crime is filmed outdoors in bright sunlight, not inside an Israeli woman's house.

The website hedges it bets, noting "This video has not yet been verified as part of the murder committed by the Palestinians on October 7. But, as of now, we can confirm that the police have a photographic record of the pregnant body showing the same result as what was done in the unverified video (We might be able to publish it soon), a confession of the murderers who were captured and interrogated, and testimonies of the body collectors (“Zaka”) and medical teams in the field. Press HERE to see testimonies from a few hours after what he saw." 

I predict they will never show these photos of "the same result" because they do not match this scene, or the related stories. Most likely, they show the single pregnant woman killed under very different circumstances (see below). 

Col. Golan Vach, Tank Fire, and "8 Babies" Killed at Kibbutz Be'eri

October 7 Massacre in Israel, Part 5: Col. Golan Vach, Tank Fire, and "8 Babies" Killed at Kibbutz Be'eri

December 11, 2023

(rough, incomplete) updates 12/13, 1/5/24

Before I get to wrapping up my 5-part overview of the October 7 massacre in Israel, at least one related set of claims required some special attention. I suppose it could become the new part 5 and push off a (final?) part 6. Sure. Let's do it. 

Col. Vach Admits Killing Israelis?

"Pelham" on X (Twitter) got 1.2 million views with this claim: https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1733008513163784237

"Israeli Army Commander admits they handcuffed 2 couples inside a house then used tanks to destroy the building." Presumably in Gaza, just now, since it's the first we've heard about it? There's a supporting video attached, but the screen says it's in Kibbutz Holit, Israel, one of the settlements invaded by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Was Pelham saying the IDF handcuffed Israelis before killing them with tank fire on October 7? And they admitted this on a video no one noticed until now? That's fairly absurd.

A Community note pinned to the post says: "The video is edited in the middle (0:18) to make it seem like the Israeli officer “admitted” that an Israeli tank killed Israeli hostages. In reality, he is saying that these were the actions of Hamas." 

In this clip, Vach says he found "2 couples - 2 men, 2 women, handcuffed" on the lawn in front of the house. Elsewhere he specifies they had been killed. "Inside this house were another 15 burnt people, among them 8 babies. They were concentrated them, and they killed them, and they burned them." Other videos of this presentation are clear "they" are Hamas terrorists, not any of Israel's people. 

Then there's a cut before Vach resumes, seeming to answer a question about massive damage to the house: "Our tanks attacked." A reporter asks: "Fired on them?" Vach replies: "Yeah," with a gesture of regretful acknowledgment (shown below). "Because they were blocked in these houses, and we need to conquer back the whole settlement. And it couldn't be happen without the tanks."

The commander is Col. Golan Vach, presumably uninvolved in the military attack. He's a search and rescue guy, known for leading a rescue effort in Florida after a tower collapse in Surfside a few years back. He's helped with disasters in Brazil and Turkey, at least, besides within Israel and places where it wages war. He also sings and plays guitar, as I gather from a quick search. 

Vach had risen by 2023 to be the overall commander of the IDF's search and rescue unit. In that position, he candidly admits the IDF failed to prevent the 10/7 attack, and vowed to do the right thing now and deliver the "perfection" the people need. He bore witness to numerous Hamas crimes, illustrating the enemy's inhumanity and explaining why the "people of light" need to eliminate them entirely from the region (Gaza) if Israelis ever want peace and security.  See here. 

But at least some of the crimes he reported apparently never happened.

He was an original beheaded baby witness: In Kibbutz Be'eri, he says he found a woman killed and set ablaze, still burning when he arrived. She'd been shot in the back, and was hunched over, as he found, protecting a "baby" - a young child he estimated at 1-2 years old. But the baby was somehow decapitated, despite the protection. He's not clear if he found the body, the head, or both, but he suggests they were deliberately separated by Hamas terrorists using blades. (I24 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9w21N5oYa4)

Add 12/13: "People ask me how come you did not take a picture. I said: ‘I’m sorry, I have children. I have limitations. I have limits. I do not take a picture of a decapitated baby," Vach said. (France 24) "Then, unprompted, he took out his phone and started showing me photographs he did take, one corpse after another. “Wait,” he said, swiping. “You will see the pile. They brought gasoline with them. Their intention was to burn.” (The New Yorker)

There's been visual evidence presented of one charred baby's head with no body, and to me it seems the head was mangled as it was torn off its body in a powerful blast. It doesn't appear to me severed with a blade, although that's possible. It was photographed next to a charred knife, but that obviously proves nothing (see part 4). 

It's not clear if this is what Vach refers to, or if he alleges a second "beheaded baby" here. Per the widely-cited Ha'aretz list of Israel's dead, just one baby is clearly listed as killed in the entire massacre. That could be an oversight or exclude some confirmations due to privacy concerns, for example. But Ha'aretz recently affirmed "According to sources including Israel's National Insurance Institute, kibbutz leaders and the police, on October 7 one baby was murdered, 10-month-old Mila Cohen. She was killed with her father, Ohad, in Kibbutz Be'eri. .... The police have no evidence showing that other babies were killed." (Ha'aretz - MSN)

And still, I urge caution that the list - even the released police info - might be somehow incomplete. We've been shown visuals for at least 2 or maybe 3 babies killed (#1 "shot" in the head - #2 charred head, no body - #3 a charred lump, maybe the body to #2?), and there might be more. I was thinking it was just 2-3 or maybe about five babies killed in the whole attack on over a dozen settlements. Even that leaves little room for a second "beheaded baby" and so he probably refers to that ambiguous case.

Anyway, back to the part where tank fire was mentioned. Community notes pinned to Pelham's post cited another video from UK tabloid The Sun, posted October 15. This includes Col. "Vac" saying much of the same, but in a different edit. As in all related footage, he stands in front of a certain window into this damaged home. There's no mention of tanks here, but a view of one shell's likely impact point is seen nearby to the right. 

This video includes other useful views from the left, with Vach in front of his window ...

The damaged section sticks out relative to that window. In a later view we'll discuss below, this damaged section has been removed by early December. 

The Sun video includes two views inside the damaged home - one looking in through Vach's window - the burned baby pile he pointed to is roughly at center here ...

Another view of another room (I'm not clear just how it connects):

Vach speaks here about a Hamas practice of "concentrating people to one place to kill them and to burn them. What exactly is the reason I do not know. But after a few days I knew that I should follow the fires." At each site, he would find people gathered and burned by Hamas, and at least in this case,  coincidental damage from IDF tank fire. Maybe Hamas did this to pre-absolve the IDF of any deaths? 

The tank fire was clearly mentioned by Vach at the same presentation filmed by many others. Yet no reports that I've seen, aside from the one in question, includes anything about this detail. It wasn't in the Sun report. It's not in a report from Christian Broadcast News, October 14, hearing from Col. Golan "Zach." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI-bb0tfCgs

Here, he found "a family" outside "exactly where we are standing now" at the same window. "They were laying here, 2 couples, handcuffed and murdered. 2 women, 2 men. But this was only the beginning of what we saw inside. In this corner of this living room [pointing to a spot with elevated smoke stains], we find a concentration of 8 babies burned, among 15 other people, all in the same whole - in this living room and the next one." Again, there's no mention of IDF tanks in this report.

A report at PJMedia cites this presentation: "Standing before a burned and ravaged house, Col. Vach explained to a journalist, “I found here two couples, two men and women, and inside we… found eight babies, burned, in this corner, among [other] people burned in the house, a total of 19 people.” That was just one house, and there were 19 people burned to death by Palestinian terrorists. Vach replied. One can only imagine how awful — and how horribly painful it was for the babies and adults to die that way, decapitated or burned to death." They pray for Israel's victory. Again, there's no mention of IDF tanks in this report.

Another interview at the same event, this one in Hebrew with no captioning available MIGHT discuss the tank attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQfLijnYqYI

I also found the same exact footage posted by "Pelham," complete with the same titles and the same edit, posted just then - December 7 - by Turkish Anadolu Agency. These are supposed to be professional journalists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQqxQXu0uQM This was related above, at the same location and about the same time, but delivered a bit differently as in the other videos - same delivery here, in a video from the Daily Mail, but in a different edit. 

Video description: "Anadolu obtained footage of Lt. Col. Golan Vach's statement on Oct. 14 to members of the foreign press in the kibbutz, where clashes occurred between the army and Hamas." Which Kibbutz? The description gives "the agricultural community of Kibbutz Kfar Aza" to the north, but onscreen it says Holit Kibbutz, to the south. Everyone else says it's Be'eri, in the middle. I'm with the crowd on this point. Continuing ...

"The commander of an Israeli search and rescue team stoked controversy last month while discussing the army's role in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, saying that Israeli civilians were killed when army tanks fired at houses to reclaim the agricultural community of Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian group."

They don't have the IDF handcuffing the victims, but still, this is some shoddy reading. Even here with the edit, he says "our tanks attacked" to kill the barricaded terrorists, but "they" had already "concentrated" and burned people in the same spot. Anadolu clip cons: confused location, confusing edit, confused/misleading interpretation - pros: the only one mentioning the supposedly coincidental tank fire - evident enough from the imagery.

But of course understanding what Vach factually said doesn't require us to accept what he said as fact. And as I'll show below, what he said here is pointedly NOT factual.

Alleged "Baby" and Children Tallies

Another video from the Daily Mail seems to record the same delivery as the Anadolu one, but edited to exclude the tank mention. This one adds "we knew where it was. I pointed out the house." I first read that as he pointed this damaged house out to the tank crew who then fired. But this apparently refers to another house with the decapitated baby. He's then asked if he saw the baby, he says he did, and confirms it was beheaded. 

Again, that makes for at least nine "babies" he saw killed in Be'eri. Again, per the widely-cited Ha'aretz list of Israel's dead, just one baby is clearly listed, and again "The police have no evidence showing that other babies were killed." Even if there were actually two or more, and both/all were killed at Be'eri, it's still hard to see how Vach could possibly see 9+ murdered babies there. Harder yet if there was just one.

Add 12/13: "two infants" were included on a list including those "killed by thousands of invading terrorists and by some of the thousands of rockets fired that day at Israeli cities" One may be from a rocket attack. So the direct massacre death toll of infants would be 1 or 2, and probably no higher. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/14-kids-under-10-25-people-over-80-up-to-date-breakdown-of-oct-7-victims-we-know-about/ar-AA1kZG3M

The problem also ranged wider: A ZAKA rescuer reported some 20 children's bodies, bound and burned, in 2 piles at Be'eri - seemingly additional to the 9 Vach found, but maybe including those, relocated - and one boy aged 6 or 7 was reportedly shot dead in a safe room (while no kids that age were confirmed killed), for a suggested total of about 21-30 murdered children vs. the nine now confirmed. 

But just sticking to Vach's portion, Ha'aretz reported December 4 how "a few false stories feed the deniers" (Ha'aretz - MSN): 

"As for Col. Vach’s remarks on the bodies of eight burned babies, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said he “described difficult sights that he saw during his various missions evacuating bodies at the start of the war. The review was conducted in English, and the officer used the word 'babies' to describe a number of children’s bodies that were found. The error was made in good faith and does not mitigate the severity of the atrocities committed." 

So Vach just affectionately called them all "babies," because they were all someone's babies, and not for any propaganda-related reason. Officially. 

And it was a "number" of killed children. The same Ha'aretz report says a total of "Nine minors were murdered at Be'eri." That wasn't connected to this claim, but I'll connect it here. I dug around to find the ages of these nine minors. The only agreed infant is one: Mila Cohen (10m). The others are the twins Yanai and Leil Hetzroni (12) - sisters Noya Sharabi (16) and Yahel Sharabi (13) - brothers Alon Even (16) and Ido Even (14) - plus Lior Tarshansky (16) and Tahel Bira (15). There were quite possibly a few more, including babies, that just aren't publicly listed, but Ha'aretz seems to think nine is the exact and final total. 

Overall death toll side-notes: Ha'aretz 12/4 reported 87 kibbutz residents were killed, and one (Yehudit Weiss) died as a captive in Gaza - their comprehensive list had 99 then 98 names from/killed in Be'eri last I checked - Oct. 7 map has 83 names of those killed including Weiss + 29 killed "on duty" = 111 in the attack - but others say 130 were killed (Oct. 7 map, Be'eri massacre pane: "the ruthless murder of over 130 community members" - Yossi Landau tally of 280 bodies, vs. estimates of 150 terrorists killed = ~130 civilians, and 80% of all (some terrorists included) bore signs of "torture" and/or unacknowledged IDF tank fire) (Sky News) - foreign workers, rave attendees who fled to Be'eri might be what adds up to 130 or even more. But there may or may not be additional children, including babies.  

The 12-year-old Hetzroni twins Yanai (brother) and Liel (sister) are the only kids I know the clear story of (see below) - killed in a house otherwise filled with adults, and none of the 6 other kids they were allegedly piled with. I doubt the other six were ever gathered in a single place either, so we probably have the 8 older children spread between at least 3 locales, not the one Vach describes.

Liel Hetzroni was identified from fragmentary remains over a month later. on November 13, and was publicly declared missing and perhaps kidnapped until then. But Vach's information might have included her death as confirmed, for 9 killed children to work with even then. 

If the Ha'aretz list is complete, then Vach presumably describes Mila Cohen (the only "baby" he described as actually very young) as beheaded in the foiled protection of, we would assume, her deceased mother. However: Ohad Cohen, 43 "was brutally murdered by ruthless terrorists. ... along with his infant  daughter, Mila, just 10 months old. His wife, Sandra, was gravely injured but survived." (Mapping the Massacres (oct7map.com)) Ha'aretz 12/4: "Ten-month-old Mila Cohen was murdered in the massacre, along with the baby still in the womb of her mother who died after her mother was shot on the way to hospital." 

That might be the same and only very pregnant woman described - by ZAKA head Yossi Landau - as found brutally executed with the fetus removed and stabbed to death. Ha'aretz reported on 12/4 how "Be'eri,” the police, and "a pathology source at the Shura army base" had no real information on such a killing, however much Landau tears up on recalling it.

Either way, she wasn't dead, on fire, and wrapped around a decapitated Mila. Was anyone? Or was this a different baby? If so, was it a different one that actually existed, or one Col. Vach simply made up?

And he claims he found the other 8 children - if that list is complete, including the "missing" Liel - all in that single pile, as if for sheer convenience of story-telling. Of course, they were all murdered, mutilated and burned before the IDF ever arrived. Now pause to consider ... Did he really see the bodies of three 16-year-olds, others aged 15, 14, 13, and two aged 12, piled and burned in this spot? Maybe the pile extended a ways from that wall, and wasn't too disturbed by the later and unrelated tank shelling? 

To be fair, their bodies would compress some with damage. Liel at least was in such small pieces others wouldn't see them for weeks. But it seems Vach made out her remains just fine, or he simply knew she was dead - after all, it was the sudden end to her screaming that clarified their tank shells worked - and so he included her for a total of "eight babies." 

Or did he make another "honest mistake" about the piling? The honesty part might be arguable, but his story makes little sense and furthermore, survivors from the actual events at this house describe a much different story, which many of us already know. 

Col. Vach vs. the Survivors 

Thanks to another timely video release and a tip from Qoppa, I can say this tank-damaged house in Be'eri that Col. Vach spoke at is the same house described by survivors Yasmin Porat and Hadas Dagan (see below or for more detail, see part 2). And they were clear IDF tank fire - not Hamas - killed everyone there. 

Just now, December 10, Uncaptured News passed on details from a new Israeli media report featuring more from Hadas Dagan. Fresh testimony reveals how Israel killed captives in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 (uncaptured.media) - Uncaptured News on X. The video including repeated footage of a single house - presumably the one where the described events unfolded. The interior shown in this video is the same one Vach pointed into. Below I compare a view from 2 combined frames (top) compared to the interior seen in the Sun video. Several exterior views also clarify it's the same house, albeit with a damaged section torn away since October (see above). 

Porat and Dagan describe 13 civilians killed here, not 19, and that included just 2 children - the Hetzroni twins - along with some 40 Hamas fighters, all killed when the IDF fired 2 tank shells into the house. I gave a detailed relation of their narrative in part 2, Who was Behind the Kibbutz Massacres? (The new Dagan account from uncaptured.media isn't included.)

Israeli official accounts announced “All that remains of 12 year old Liel Hetzroni is ash and bone fragments." (Israel on X) after she was murdered "in her home by Hamas monsters.” (Former PM Naftali Bennett on X). Now adding: Col Vach says she was one of "8 babies" found burned in this corner of, as it turns out, Pessi Cohen's home. He agrees Hamas did it and the tank shelling of the same house had no part. 

But Hadas Dagan confirmed to Porat that it was the IDF's tank shells and ensuing fire that turned Liel into charred pieces: “‘The girl did not stop screaming for all those hours … [but] when those two shells hit, [Liel] stopped screaming. There was silence then.” 

There were people on the lawn in that story, but no couples we know of. The 2 survivors' husbands both died there, along with 1-2 other people, after Hadas was blown aside but spared - perhaps both of the others were women, allowing the impression of 2 couples. There were then just 8 or 9 civilians inside, including the twins. All 13 fatalities named via uncaptured.media: Pessi Cohen, Hanna Cohen, Yitzhak ‘Zizi’ Siton, Tal Siton, Hava Ben Ami, twins Liel and Yanai Hetzroni, Ayala ‘Aylus’ Hetzroni (the twins' great-aunt), Zehava Hacker, Ze’ev Hacker, Suheib Abu Amer, Tal Katz (Yasmin Porat's husband or partner), and Adi Dagan (Hadas Dagan’s husband). Most were older people, and no source has claimed any minors present aside from the Hetzroni twins. 

Ha'aretz 12/4: "One case that sounds similar to the description by the Zaka member [of 20 dead children in Kfar Aza or Be'eri, depending on the version] occurred not on Kfar Azza but behind the dining hall at Be'eri, where dozens of Hamas terrorists held 15 Israelis in and around the house of Pessi Cohen and House 424 in the Ashelim neighborhood. Thirteen of the hostages were murdered, including the twins Yanai and Liel Hetzroni, 12." But this was already claimed as the site of Col. Vach's 8 burned babies, and it turns out that "murder" of 13 civilians was committed by the IDF.

But Vach had 19 civilians killed here, adding six to the established 13. He also has 6 children too many (8 vs. 2), besides calling them all babies. Is that exactly what he added? The other six minors he didn't already find beheaded? In fact, Liel's remains were here or nearby, alongside her brother Yanai. But it remains odd how Vach knew to count her, even though no one else could supposedly make out those charred fragments. 

But he clearly went beyond fact to have all the others piled here with them, as if to simplify the narrative. He went another step beyond in calling these teenagers all "babies." And did he honestly think Hamas killed those people, rather than  the IDF's tank assault? That seems possible but unlikely. He probably realized he was covering up the truth with more hateful anti-Palestinian propaganda about murdered Israeli "babies."

He might as well break out the guitar and strum us some mood music to go with his works of tragedy fiction. 

Add 1/5/24: I don't want to re-write the stuff above, but there were two further child death in Be'eri I had missed, and one was known at the time: Carmel Bachar, age 15. Considering that, Vach probably included him in that pile and had Liel just as missing as everybody else. So his pile of 8 "babies" would be aged 16, 16, 16, 15, 15, 14, 13, and just one aged 12. 

There was also a younger boy aged around 5, initially unidentified, "found inside a house set on fire by the terrorists after he tried to hide from them in an attic." (Mako 10/18). But he was only discovered 4 days after Vach's interview, so the "terrorists" didn't know to include that boy in the pile. I'm not sure if the boy was ever identified and included in later tallies. Something to find out.

A fuller edit of the Anadolu footage emerged, posted on X by Max Blumenthal the other day, starting some new discussion. 

Israeli Lt. Col. Golan Vach suggests his tanks killed at least 19 Israelis, including 8 children, in one strike on 10/7

During this presser on 10/14 in front of a destroyed kibbutz home (resembling the Pessi Cohen home in Kibbutz Beeri), Vach said, "This destruction is due to the attack by our tanks. Since these houses were seized by Hamas, we had to reclaim the entire settlement. It wouldn't have been possible without tanks... No one survived in this house."

The quote is paraphrased but close enough. Several readers challenged the "suggestion" that IDF tanks had killed the 19 civilians here. That's fair enough, so I felt compelled to step in and correct things for several people, as I did above, and clarify he blames Hamas, but he's wrong. It is exactly Pessi Cohen's house he spoke at, or the one shown on video as if it were hers, so we can directly compare his story with that of the two survivors. Aside from the 6-7 added "babies," he gives the right death toll of adults (11), even down to the 4 on the grass. Note how he denies there were any survivors. Oops for him. They exist and pretty well disprove his silly story.

The 43-Minute Atrocity Video

October 7 Massacre in Israel, part 4: The 43-Minute Atrocity Video 

December 4, 2023

update 12/5

This was meant to be the final installment in a 4-part series, until I got extra curious what was and wasn't included in the widely-seen and widely-cited 43-minute compilation of videos documenting Hamas atrocities on October 7. This review expanded to where it needs its own post now. Next will be a part 5 with some leftover visuals vs. claims and some review yet to decide.

4A) "Bearing Witness"

Israel has been clear since October 7 that Hamas is the same as ISIS or even worse, same as the Nazis or even worse. The most extreme accusations are all true and attest to savagery that, along with the widespread support it receives in Gaza, defies Humanity and moots related concepts like Human Rights as considerations in Israel's response to eradicate Hamas entirely at any cost. Let's start with some of the more shocking horrors we were told Hamas visited on innocent Israeli citizens (this is optional reading for the faint of heart):

... "a terrorist who admitted that he had clear orders to kill women and children and even rape the bodies of the dead" - "order to behead people and play football with the severed heads" - a hiding witness "saw a woman being raped by several Hamas terrorists, pulling her hair as they raped her and took turns. One of them cut her breasts off - the others played with them like a toy. The last terrorist to rape her shot her in the head and continued to rape her until her finished. Eyewitness also says some terrorists were carrying heads in their hands (beheaded) as trophies, saying there wasn’t a thing they didn’t do to the heads. She also saw a Hamas terrorist carrying a naked girl over his shoulder." 

Witness saw a lot! Some, including myself, are skeptical of such claims, that Hamas fighters on a likely suicide mission to kill and/or kidnap as many as possible would have the time for such elaborate cruelty, even if they had the inclination. 

Israeli officials claimed from the start that they have serious video evidence you would expect for crimes on the scale they allege, and just can't show it openly out of respect for the victims and their families, and/or because it's part of an investigation, and/or out of concern for the public's mental health. So by October 23 the IDF press office pulled together a 43-minute assemblage of video proof for the naysayers, antisemitic and otherwise. It's rarely mentioned, but apparently, the film has a title: Bearing Witness (2023 film) - Wikipedia). 

Purpose: to argue against a humanitarian ceasefire and to explain and justify Israel's relentless efforts to eradicate Hamas, even as that has come to involve a genocidal war on the people of Gaza. Or: "Major General Mickey Edelstein, who spoke to the assembled journalists, said they wanted to present an argument against the idea that there is any equivalence between the Hamas attack and Israel’s response."

Wood explained: “What he said they wanted to show was that this is what Hamas is doing. They are hunting down children. They are burning children. They’re shooting babies. They’re tying people up and burning them alive. The IDF, whatever their faults, they’re not doing that. There are babies the IDF has killed but you will not find footage of hunting those babies down in order to kill them. You’ll find them blowing up a building that has a baby in it. From that perspective of that particular officer this is a very different situation, and by seeing the raw video do you realize exactly how different it is.”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/i-hope-that-i-am-not-permanently-changed-the-atlantics-graeme-wood-describes-witnessing-footage-of-hamas-atrocities/

Of course an estimated 6,000 innocent children have been killed in very many buildings, but point taken - the cruelty isn't as immediate or clearly purposeful as what Hamas allegedly did to probably about 40-50 children total. But again ... the truth of even those allegations should not be taken as an article of faith. 

To doubt these claims is to engage in "Holocaust-denial like" activity, as Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesperson, put it. (Guardian) Israeli journalist Jotam Confino agrees the evidence for the gravest crimes of Hamas is overwhelming, and to deny that truth, "you may as well deny the Holocaust." Sharon Brous, a rabbi in Los Angeles, lamented “It should be enough that there are eyewitness accounts and there are funerals and there are shivas and there are bereaved families,” - people died, so obviously Hamas slaughtered them all in the cruelest ways. But sadly, the facts of death were not enough. "So there has to be a historical record that’s established, and these videos are part of establishing that record.” (Guardian)

Even now, Bearing Witness is only shown by invitation in private screenings that strictly bar any recording, out of respect for the families. But as Owen Jones noted "a significant amount [of the footage] is in the public domain." Indeed. Out of respect for the families, Israeli sources, some of them official, have been pushing some half of this material in our faces from the start. 

Some of the presentation is video of witnesses lodging the exact claims quoted above - basically "trust me, the movie." But there's also real meat - video proof of some genuine Hamas war crimes. That's the main point. Many influential people have been brought in for a private viewing, and they often walk out in tears or worse, and describe it as worse than anything they could have imagined. But a few have noticed it's not quite as horrible as the things they had already heard about, imagined as true, and been promised evidence for. 

A few noticed this bait-and-switch effect. Owen Jones, to his credit, gave a balanced account of the film's content. Serious war crimes are depicted, but "some high profile claims are not substantiated by the footage." As he saw it, there were no beheadings of living people, and no children are seen being killed (or not clearly - opinions differ on one possible case). "If there was torture too, there's no evidence given for it on camera," and "if there was rape and sexual violence, we don't see this in the footage either." He also notes the video selection wasn't random but probably culled from the worst they have, having gone through a lot of footage. The starting claims and their like are still "Trust me."  (note on Jones' overall presentation: including the watermelon shirt, it's kind of "poser" but authentic or not ... it's a good pose. Seeing all this suffering should make one want to end this cycle of violence, not to escalate it.)

Maybe not at the screening Jones attended, but in some cases, the presenters were pretty up-front about their failure to present the hard stuff: Matt Gutman, ABC News, 10/16 "You won't see rape, there's no rape in this video... We won't show you beheaded babies," a senior Israeli officer said to a small group of journalists, saying such images existed but would not be shown." This might be reasonable or even necessary. A viewer could be seriously traumatized seeing such things occurring in immersive video with audio - not to mention the victim's family, spirit or memory.

But there are ways they could have conveyed this supposed proof in less direct ways - drop the soundtrack, use still shots and blurring, etc. For example, a blurred rape scene with key site details might be matched to selected frames from the attacker's body camera placing him there with the victim, and maybe see him switching it off for then-obvious reasons. A baby beheading video could show the moment the blade is set to cut and end with the blurred results, all from the same body camera view. If they have any serious amount of evidence, something like this should be possible. Instead, all we get is possibly fabricated verbal accounts and poorly interpreted after-the-fact images (see below) to suggest such things happened. 

Reducing this to black humor should be in poor taste and off the mark. This little animation by Propaganda & Co. is just that - but JUST BARELY. This is about how it is. Real footage of relevant and criminal activity is shown, but the truly bestial stuff that really set Israelis ablaze and primed them for a prolonged genocide ... it's still secret and/or it doesn't exist. 

Oh, and they use editing. Per Shiv Aroor's "complete description" they show "a completely charred infant, the head of either an infant or a toddler, more charred infants and a dog shot dead in a living room ... an ISIS flag on the floor ... a woman shot dead in a baby playroom and another slumped with gunshot wounds in a laundry room" followed immediately with audio of a fighter calling his parents, bragging he killed 10 Jews, and his parents cheer in response. Several people find this the most "chilling" moment in the whole film. They're HAPPY about whatever the editors just showed me! Maybe flattening all of Gaza is a good idea if they're this messed up. 

But this ignores that those killed could be all or mainly soldiers, at least as far as the parents know (even the woman whose phone he calls with). It ignores that the parents are partly happy because their son is still alive. In fact one viewer, Aroor, noted the fighter's mother "comes to the phone apparently in tears, asking her son to come back with god’s help. He says there is no return, and that this is the way he has chosen for martyrdom. His weeping mother pleads with him to come home." Chilling stuff. It's also possible the call is fake, but to me, it fits perfectly between the mid-level brutality we see Hamas engaged in and the frayed connections to normal Humanity that would trail such a fighter into that dead end.

No one mentions a musical score or its absence, so I would guess it's there but subtle, and quietly purposeful. 

In this post, I'll consider all the widely-cited video scenes described by viewers. Some seem to describe already-public images that can be checked. Some that's public, or private but credible, does document serious abuses (or seems to), but as Jones noted they fail to support the more extreme claims. This is apparently the worst that Israel could find in thousands of hours of footage from: found cell phone videos, public and private security cameras, dash cams, and Hamas body cameras, worn by perhaps all of the estimated 1,000 fighters IDF killed between October 7 and 9 - the footage from many of these would be available unedited.

Sources for scene descriptions, mainly cited below by last name: 

Matt Gutman 10/16 https://abcnews.go.com/International/horror-israeli-authorities-show-footage-hamas-atrocities-reporters-notebook/story?id=104015431

Jotam Confino 10/23: Jotam Confino on X: "I just saw indescribable, raw footage...   

Gómez Armas 10/23 https://efe.com/en/latest-news/2023-10-24/live-carnage-and-bodies-in-ashes-israel-releases-footage-of-hamas-massacre/ 

Graeme Wood 10/23 Why Israeli Officials Screened Footage of the Hamas Attack - The Atlantic

Ronny Reyes, 10/23: https://nypost.com/2023/10/23/news/idf-shares-harrowing-videos-photos-of-hamas-attack/

Carrie Keller-Lynn 10/23 IDF shows foreign press Hamas bodycam videos, photos of murder, torture, decapitation | The Times of Israel

Shiv Aroor 10/26 - "A complete description" - https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/exclusive-complete-description-of-43-minute-footage-showing-oct-7-hamas-horror-2453663-2023-10-25

Charles Lane 11/1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/01/hamas-attack-videos-described/

Joe Kelley 11/1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54ebCq0iQ18

Evan Dyer 11/2 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/israel-hamas-gaza-palestinian-1.7016989

Lee Kern 11/18 https://twitter.com/leekern13/status/1725791167902523403

Ruth Mark Eglash 11/25: 'I will be haunted forever’: Israel’s horrific video of Hamas atrocities leaves viewers shocked and sickened (foxnews.com)

Owen Jones 11/27: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc5iG3DX7ho

Rabbi Shmuley: 11/29 https://twitter.com/RabbiShmuley/status/1729931042847351033

Rachel Johnson 11/30 https://ca.style.yahoo.com/opinion-rape-murder-mutilation-industrial-153245198.html

Public image sources: most are available at both Hamas-massacre.net and Hamas.com (Israeli fake, w/malware reported - visit only with caution), and variously in other places. Sometimes it gets deleted then re-posted, and I haven't kept track. You might find any missing images with your own search.

4B) Nine scenes depicting crimes as they're committed

4B1) Father Killed Shielding his Sons

Public (AFAIK): No. Several people agree this was the most troubling scene - Armas: "One of the most difficult scenes to watch, and one that caused a strong reaction among the reporters in the room" - including several camera views assembled to tell a complex story - a father and his 2 sons,  just roused from bed and still in their underwear, rush to hide "in the bunker in the courtyard" (Armas). Keller-Lynn: "Moments after they enter presumed safety, a hand appears onscreen, tossing a grenade in after the family. The father dies, and the boys exit, covered in his blood." (Aroor recalled shooting into the "courtyard of sorts," but everyone else saw a grenade used). The father managed to take the main blast and was killed, while his boys survived, covered in his blood. They cry and try to process the reality (one asks "Why am I still alive?") as the terrorist grabs himself a drink from their fridge (and/or "offers [the boys] water and coke from their own refrigerator" - Armas). Some noticed that the terrorist does not murder the children when he could have. 

The boys were apparently injured, one perhaps losing an eye to the shrapnel. One boy asks the other if he can see from his injured eye, and he says he cannot. No one specifies which eye it is - the video is apparently vague on the point. Armas: "Later, the mother can be seen arriving with two kibbutz security guards to find the father’s grenade-torn body at the door of the shelter." She breaks down sobbing, but with Hamas around, the guards have to rush her away, leaving the boys behind. You would assume the boys would be kidnapped back to Gaza, but it seems the fighters made an exception here and left them alone. Dyer noted "After a lapse of time, with no more gunmen present, the two boys appear to escape the property. Israeli officials were unable to say if they ultimately survived." Joe Kelley says he asked the embassy, who said they don't know the boys' fate. 

This can hardly be some recycled video from any other event. It hasn't been made public to check, but I have no doubt this terrible incident happened about as described (with recall varying). However, a DW report seems to refer to this scene, with Israeli military sources adding extra claims not reflected in or contradicted by the video: 

"Some recordings broke off abruptly, as if relatives could only allow so much to be seen. The rest of the footage remains under lock and key as part of an ongoing investigation, according to Olga Poliakov, military attache at the Berlin embassy. After the screening, she confirmed that Hamas terrorists at the Be'eri kibbutz had in fact stabbed out the young boy's eye. She said it remains unclear whether the mother and her two sons survived." 

No one noticed the fighter STABBING that boy in the eye. Most agree he lobbed in a grenade from a distance, and the boys emerge on their own. But he stabbed the boy's eye as well, then offered them a drink and left them alone as if in apology? And if they don't know what happened to the boys or their mother afterwards, how was it confirmed that an unseen stabbing took out his eye? They should have nothing to go on but that video. I wouldn't be surprised if they initially found that Hamas tore the father apart with a crowbar as his imagined family was made to watch, until they saw the video with the grenade, and the boys speaking of eye injuries.

Possibilities for what happened to this family: the boys wandered until other fighters who already had their mother took them captive, and they all headed for Gaza across backroads and fields, were blasted by an IDF helicopter, and left as charcoal in a field, perhaps identified later. They could have gotten pinned down in a house later flattened by IDF tank fire. They might have been safely taken to Gaza, and then: still held there, returned home, or killed there, perhaps in IDF strikes. Or of course they could have been murdered by Hamas back at the Kibbutz, as the IDF would prefer to argue. But it seems they couldn't find any video of that.

4B2) Attempted beheading with a hoe

Public: Yes. Hamas-Massacre.net: "Hamas terrorists arguing who gets to butcher an innocent Thai worker" Confino: "Hamas terrorist screaming [Allah Akhbar] as he frantically tries to behead a dead man with a shovel." - Shmuley: "a Thai worker who was beheaded with a pick-axe" - Reyes: "brutally beheaded using a shovel" - Eglash: "he relentlessly hacks the head off a Thai laborer with a hatchet" - Jones: "an unsuccessful effort to behead a dying Thai worker with a garden implement." Aroor: "a construction hoe." Aroor: "The attack does not decapitate the man, though it is clearly enough to kill him." Armas: "another one shows them crushing a dying man’s head with a hoe while shouting “Allahu Akbar”" Is "Thai worker" a guess, or does someone have these details? 

The video is bizarre. The victim is laying down, already injured, yellow shirt with apparent Hebrew lettering soaked with blood. He's moving his arms in weak defense as he's beaten until a moment after a kick to the head as the attacker asks for a knife. The victim then stops moving, as if playing dead. One assailant declares he will behead this Jew, and swings a larger sized hoe down into the man's neck, causing his body to jerk, with arms up awkwardly. He drops the hoe, and the other assailant takes over, misses the victim's neck a few times, hitting the concrete floor. Then he connects a few times, unclear if with the neck, chin, or what - causing the victim to jerk weakly each time. His head never comes off, and if any blood comes out at all, it's not visible at this angle. 

Do they crush his head or try to cut it off? Not clear. There's no good reason to call this an attempted beheading, unless you happened to be scraping around for evidence of beheadings, because you were already spreading stories about it.

The video is described as showing "Palestinian civilians" - not Hamas fighters. The one seen better is in civilian clothing. The video's authenticity is unclear, but presumably it is part of the day's events, when many Palestinian civilians also crossed over and engaged in looting, at least. The attacker's face is seen. Someone knows who that is. 

So anyway - some apparent Hamas civilian followers are seen on video perhaps trying to behead one man. This is the closest Israel could find for Hamas actually seen beheading anyone (that's still alive), child or adult, civilian or military, Israeli or foreign. Zero actual examples are shown, perhaps because none exist.

4B3) Shooting into a roomful of bodies

Public: Yes. This scene is not clearly mentioned by most, but it's included. Aroor: "The next clip is mobile footage taken by a Hamas terrorist inside a house. Chanting 'Allahu Akbar', he opens a room door revealing blood spattered on the floor and four bodies piled up." Gutman might describe it: "In another house, a gunman sticks the muzzle of his rifle into a room inhabited by a family. " That probably describes a scene I wondered about. Hamas-Massacre.net just had a still (at right - from a livestream with scrolling text and emojis seeming to approve). It's just now updated with 2 videos. Bloody dead people in a room, at least 6, possibly Thai workers or the like, partly from the cot in the dorm-like room. All are apparently young adult males, presumably shot to death, but with a likely blade wound above one's elbow, and maybe a sliced throat - but that victim (center) is alive, moves his left arm, and is then shot several times. In the other video, he's dead, rolled over.

The videos' authenticity is uncertain and the details unclear, but I'll assume this is what it seems - a mass killing of some men by Hamas terrorists on October 7. In other cases, this mainly happens with people who try to hide instead of surrender, and grenades are often involved. But here we don't see much sign of shrapnel, and some possible blade injuries instead. Again, the worst brutality against civilians that we can see, by Hamas and/or Palestinian civilians, is apparently against foreign workers and not Israelis. This may have been a special policy with political reasons. But in the end, several foreign workers were abducted instead of killed, so it wasn't a universal kill order. 

4B4) Hiding person shot

Public (AFAIK): No. Confino: "Hamas terrorists enter a house, where a small girl is seen hiding under the table. After some talking back and forth they shoot and kill her as she hides under the table. Hard to say how old she is but looks like 7-9 years old." Armas: "one video shows them murdering a young woman who is hiding under a table and begging not to be killed," Aroor: "One of the home’s occupants is clearly under the table, though it isn’t clear if he/she is alive or shot earlier. The terrorists chant Allahu Akbar and fire into the table. One of the terrorists is holding an American M4A1 carbine." Kern mentions how the room is dark and flashlights are used, but he thinks it's a woman hiding under a table and she's been shot already before they shoot her again.

 

Jones: someone claims they saw "footage of Hamas terrorist screaming at a young girl of around 10 years old, she was hiding under a cupboard or perhaps a table and they shot her." Jones didn't recall this, and asked 2 others who didn't recall it either, and they were assured they wouldn't see any children being killed. But Jones did see a noisy, chaotic scene where "someone hides ... and is found and it's not clear how old they were or whether they died." Well, clearly that's the scene they meant. But clearly, the victim's age, gender, and living status before and after are all unclear.

4B5) Unarmed female soldiers killed

Public: No, or perhaps - I'm not sure if this is the same scene described and shown here, from the Hamas point of view: Hamas gunmen shoot dead female Israeli soldiers hiding under table in sickening clip (msn.com). Unarmed soldiers are supposed to be taken prisoner, not executed, according to the rules of war. Aroor: "The next clip is mobile footage filmed by a group of women IDF soldiers inside a room. The sound of rifle fire can be heard nearby as the women speak to each other in panicked whimpers. They huddle together. The screen cuts to black." Gutman: "Then, at one point, the girl shooting the selfie video sees an armed man on the far side of the shelter. She asks, "Who is that man?" He's a Hamas fighter, calmly standing there. Then the video ends." Jones and others relate the video showing the man opening fire, but those 2 have the scene ending before that. Maybe different edits have been used. Hamas did execute soldiers, besides taking many captive. These probably went the same. There's no mention of the women being raped. Just killed.

4B6) Hiding partygoers hit with a grenade 

Public: No, or perhaps. in a "container" or a shelter: I've seen similar scenes, perhaps the same one, as seen from inside shelters and inside a trash bin, and from outside shelters on Hamas bodycam. They fire in and hurl grenades. People inside have missing limbs and terrified. I have no doubt this horrible scene really occurred a few times over. I can't vouch for all of the details Matt Gutman relates from the grenade detonation forward, apparently involving edits between different views and maybe different incidents, but I'll pass them on: 

"The camera shows a flash of limbs, some dismembered, some still attached to writhing, screaming bodies. A selfie camera shows a young man weeping, while someone croaks hoarsely in the background, "help, help." Hamas then drags survivors out, some by their hair, to trucks, and then batters them some more in the backs of the pickups on the way to Gaza."

4B7) Beheaded soldier, already dead 

Public: Unclear. There's a photo at Hamas.com but not Hamas-Massacre.net of a "beheaded soldier" - injured around the corner, dragged here, executed with a gunshot to the back of the head, gaping exit wound visible on his still-attached forehead (here, just in case), likely the same head wound seen up-close in another image right above that. But it's likely they refer to a different scene where the actual cutting is seen. Shmuley: "a soldier that was beheaded in front of our eyes" - Jones too spoke as if he saw enough of the cutting that he had to look away. If so, that's body mutilation on top of executing a captive soldier. That's not legal. But it's also not the same as cutting the head off of a living man, let alone infant or toddler.

Add 12/5: they referred to a different soldier, but one just off-frame from this one. And it was postmortem body mutilation, not an execution. Val on X has the before view and some after views, and he might have the beheading video in between but it probably wouldn't be allowed and I don't need to see it. I've seen it before on dead and living people and know it's terrible.

4B8, 9) Dead soldier body stomped on, a very friendly but not too bright dog shot dead 

Public: Yes to both. As with the above, no contest. I've seen the footage around. People in Gaza hate Israeli soldiers, and one of the Hamas terrorists just didn't care and shot that poor dog.

4C) Some After-the-Fact Images

Other footage included in Bearing Witness relates various attacks on homes, arrests, celebrations (FWIW from people planning to die themselves), and some of the aftermath. This is where viewers were allowed to see indications of rape and children that had been killed, maybe even beheaded. The actions aren't seen, but imagination is encouraged. 

Aroor: "The next picture is a still image. It’s a picture of an infant in diapers with three gunshot wounds, including one in the head. It’s an unblurred version of the same image that the Israeli Foreign Ministry released days after the October 7 attack in the wake of the ‘beheaded babies’ report from Kibbutz Kfar Aza." Blurred version at Hamas-Massacre. No included video shows a Hamas fighter shooting the baby. The injuries could be from crossfire for all we know. 3 bullets in the same baby's head must be very small caliber, likely overkill, and maybe just shrapnel. No wounds to the rest of the body are visible, but the blood pattern suggests there may be more wounds to the invisible back side, and the head wounds seem to be more on the back. It could from an IDF tank shell, for all we know, but even more likely from a grenade Hamas tossed into someone's shelter, or from a door they blasted open trying to get at more people to kidnap. A brutish operation like this is bound to kill people including babies, even if they weren't specifically gunning for them.

Aroor, continued: "a completely charred infant, the head of either an infant or a toddler, more charred infants..." These views may all be public, or anyway similar ones are. Homes were set ablaze by Hamas to smoke people out of their shelters, and other houses collapsed and burned around terrorists and hostages alike following IDF rifle and tank fire. The charred head is specific enough to say I've probably seen it, at Families Murdered in Their Homes | Hamas Massacre (hamas-massacre.net) There's a short video of "An Israeli baby that was beheaded and burned." A small head with no body is shown, lightly charred and apparently mangled, likely suffering from decay as well. A charred knife is leadingly set next to the head, but it was probably blown off in a blast that mangled it and also destroyed the child's whole upper body. 

Another "beheaded and burned" example is set next to that at the website (but not included in the film that I can tell). This one is an adult in bad decay (just too gross to show here), with head and body both present, but with most of the shoulders and neck blasted away. The head is still connected by some skin in the front. That's not a beheading, but more like an RPG hit between the upper shoulder blades. 

Just a hack opinion, you say? "On Oct. 20, 2023, forensic experts told reporters they had seen evidence of beheaded babies but could not confirm if knives or rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) caused the decapitations." This study was done at the Israeli government's request, to bolster its case for war. Perhaps these experts could say what caused these deaths, but chose not to, out of deference to Israel and its important propaganda effort. Beheading with blades could be left at "possible," another Hamas-grade weapon at "possible," and any IDF-specific weapon at "not even considered." https://themedialine.org/top-stories/evidence-on-display-at-israels-forensic-pathology-center-confirms-hamas-atrocities/

Rape Suggested: No Panties

Several accounts mention a scene of a woman's partly charred and mutilated body being inspected, dress pulled up, no panties, legs spread, presumably raped. Keller-Lynn: "In another clip, from after the assault, an Israeli woman is seen trying to work out if a partially burned woman’s corpse, with a mutilated head, is that of a family member. The dead woman’s dress is pulled up to her waist and her underpants have been removed." Owen Jones describes it the same, but notes while it counts as evidence for rape, it's not conclusive proof of it. Andrew Neil responded, incredulous: "That just because we see a young woman's burnt corpse with no underwear and a pool of blood, it doesn't mean she was raped?" No, it doesn't. It seriously does not. 

No one mentions how her right arm is frozen up in the air as if in defense from an attacker. It might have been appealing, but they might have realized that makes no sense. As related in part 3, this woman is not a rape victim burned alive, as advertised. She was only posed that way many hours after death from a head injury, likely from an Israeli Apache helicopter. Having examined the video shared at Hamas-Massacre.net, I argued that a 30mm exploding shell grazed her leg before hitting the ground, detonating there and blasting off the back of her head. 

That may not be the case, but either way, she died from the visible head wound, fell face-down with right elbow up and palm on the ground. Her body stayed that way for at least 8 hours for full rigor mortis to form. Only then did someone roll her body over into the position we see. It was only then she was posed as if raped and likely had her panties removed, by some sick person - presumably Israeli - who then partly burned her upper body to suggest "burning alive" as well. I propose this evidence actually shows some depraved war propaganda played out on the bodies of those killed, in part, by the IDF's own response.  

Rape Suggested: Panties Half-On

If Jotam Confino describes the above scene at all, it's mixed into this recall of two apparently raped women he saw in the film: "Two dead women lying on the grass at musical festival - both with no pants on. One has her panties taken half off. The other doesn’t appear to have any on at all." It sounds like that's all in a single image, but no such image is mentioned by anyone else.   

The one above is not visibly on grass, and in fact in the dirt on the side of the road, only seen in nighttime views, with no second body visible. No one else I've seen mentions the other woman Confino saw, but Rabbi Shmuley recalls: "women raped, legs open, bodies mutilated" (features of one case, but attached to plural "women"). Rachel Johnson likewise recalled seeing "the women with no underwear, with splayed legs and livid bruises to their necks and faces set in rictuses" seemed to her like "conclusive evidence of rape." FWIW, Aroor's "complete" description somehow omits both scenes.

Confino is likely mixing 2 scenes, one - shown at right - with grass and 2 bodies visible in bright daylight, just one body disrobed as described, and both outfits seeming kind of military in color. This was once posted the Nova party page at Hamas-Massacre.net which - according to Blumenthal - is run by Israeli foreign ministry (he links there and says "The Israeli Foreign Ministry has published the fake photo here"). At right is a cropped screenshot as it appeared. Confino likely saw this same image and confused the other scene as showing the second body on the grass here, but seen closer in a nighttime view. 

This was presented as a Nova party attendee "raped and killed" by Hamas, but was quickly exposed by Max Blumenthal on X as an irrelevant, recycled image. Months earlier, in May, 2023 a Japanese website showed this image as "beautiful Kurdish soldiers killed on the battlefield," likely by ISIS, probably in Syria. I didn't try to dig further. Another, now-deleted post that Blumenthal found showed the same image back in March, 2022. 

It was not from Israel in October 2023, but it got included among images of the day. How does a mix-up like that happen? Does it suggest a shortage of genuine visual evidence for Hamas rape? 

The image was thereafter deleted from the Hamas-Massacre site, allowing people to imagine it was never there and that Max created that screenshot. But this can be checked, and anyway there's Mr. Confino apparently describing the same image as included in Israel's official documentary film "Bearing Witness," as shown to hundreds of influencers. Owen Jones and others mentioned the above case, but no second example. Jones and others saw the film after this fake image was exposed and then deleted from Hamas-Massacre.net. Was it deleted from the film as well by this time?

Confino added to his recall of the two rape victims: "And for those wondering why police aren’t releasing graphic video and photo documentation to the entire world; out of respect for the victims. It’s an ongoing investigation. Releasing evidence in cases like this to the public is not custom anyhow." But per the description, it seems that someone did release both images to shock the public with. One was fake, and the other one, as explained above, suggests an even sicker manipulation.

Rape Suggested: Bloody Pants 

Public: Yes, around since about day 2. Lee Kern noted the scene of a barefoot girl, blood on her pants, pulled from the back of an SUV and moved to the back seat. Aroor: "Next is a clip that Hamas had posted on social media soon after the attack, showing terrorists dragging a woman (her hands bound, face bloodied) out of the boot of a jeep and pushing her into the back seat. This appears to be in Gaza. A small crowd forms chanting 'Allahu Akbar', while two men stand with their middle fingers raised akimbo."

I notice injuries to her ankle and elbow, at least. I'd say she was shackled at the ankle to something, then somehow suspended from that, or perhaps fell out of the truck and was dragged for a bit, tearing up her elbow as well - the internal bleeding might be somehow related to that, or from a previous or subsequent rape, or some other injury like a gunshot during her capture, or in a wreck caused by IDF fire on her captors, or perhaps just menstrual blood after her tampon fell out (I'm no expert - maybe that cannot explain it). It takes some imagination to assume this proves rape any better than the other images.

4D) Review: Bearing Witness to mixed evils 

Review of select recorded crimes and after-the-fact images: 

Bearing Witness seems to clearly document Hamas fighters executing unarmed or captive Israeli soldiers and killing civilians in cars and homes (especially but not exclusively if they tried to hide or flee). By Hamas or Palestinian civilians who crossed behind them, extra brutality was visited on foreign workers. They cruel kidnapping terrified civilians including children, and engaged in looting, wanton vandalism, and whatever else that went unseen. And some undesirable aspects of Palestinian society were also displayed or suggested along the way (taking joy in mutilating corpses, etc.), and were made costars alongside dead women and babies and the ISIS flag.

As Jones noted, no firm evidence has been provided for beheading of living people, execution of children, rape, or torture. The implicit suggestion - not a certainty - is that these things never happened, and the corollary of that is the stories of such crimes were invented. In fact ... An unrelated image from another country in another year was seemingly recycled to illustrate rape, and some presented video suggests a woman's body was manipulated by some Israeli(s) to suggest rape and "burning alive." After Israel showed video of a grenade injuring a boy's eye, as if that wasn't criminal enough, they added that while they have no further info on the boy's fate, they do know Hamas actually stabbed the boy's eye out. Even when they have video, the unsupported horror story needs to prevail. 

And under the surface of all this lies the massive ambiguity about who really killed whom. The staged rape victim might well have been killed by IDF helicopter. A "beheaded baby" and charred pieces of others are probably not caused by Hamas using any weapon, when some 200 of their fighters were in the same charred bits right next to them, in homes blasted by Israeli tanks and in cars apparently hit by their helicopter fire. 

 

Bearing Witness has become a key part of Israel's war propaganda, designed to replace the Human reality of events with a narrative of pure good vs. pure evil. It seems intent on instilling such a hatred of Hamas it bleeds over to all Palestinians and can fuel what may be a pre-planned genocide for the sake of "Greater Israel." If the full truth behind all the images was really known, it's likely that the film would implicate the IDF even deeper than Hamas for grave war crimes on October 7-9. The full truth is not known, so we can only say the film documents mixed evils resulting from a deeply toxic climate, and that it helps to deepen that toxicity.