Reports that Israeli soldiers discovered babies that had been beheaded in the Kfar Aza kibbutz are circulating on social and traditional media outlets around the world.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) invited foreign journalists to see the aftermath of a massacre by Hamas militants at the kibbutz on Tuesday.
Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay was among those to go and see "stretcher-bearers bringing out a small child" and a basketball court with "bodies lined up in black body bags".
But in her TV reports, one journalist from the Tel Aviv-based news channel i24 said a soldier had told her they had "witnessed… bodies of babies with their heads cut off".
In a statement to Sky News, the IDF said: "We cannot confirm any numbers. What happened in Kibbutz Kfar Aza is a massacre in which women, children and toddlers and elderly were brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action.
The Kfar Aza kibbutz is one of several self-contained Israeli settlements close to the Gaza border.
Because of its proximity to Gaza and the unprecedented nature of last weekend's incursion, which saw Hamas militants breach the usually-heavily-guarded border on foot - it was one of the first sites they reached on Saturday.
Four days later, journalists got to see the destruction left behind.
Ramsay said the scene "can only be described as a massacre".
"The stories here are shocking - families being woken without warning to voices outside their houses, mums and dads hiding their children in cupboards, wine cellars and basements, husbands and wives becoming separated in the fight," he said.
He added it took 17 hours for help to arrive, as the IDF focused on urban areas first - leaving residents defenceless and numbers of dead high.
Why are there reports of 'babies being beheaded'?
Claims Hamas fighters beheaded babies have only been reported by one journalist - Nicole Zedek from i24 - and have not been verified by Sky News.
Ms Zedek was among the reporters invited to see what was left at the kibbutz on Tuesday.
In one live broadcast, which has since been viewed millions of times on X, formerly known as Twitter, she says: "Talking to some of the soldiers here, they say what they witnessed as they've been walking through these communities is bodies of babies with their heads cut off and families gunned down in their beds.
"We can see some of these soldiers right now, comforting each other."
She is also filmed speaking to the deputy commander of the IDF's unit 71, David Ben Zion, who describes Hamas fighters as "aggressive" and "very bad".
He says: "They cut off heads… of children, of women."
And in another live broadcast, Zedek describes "40 babies at least were taken out on gurneys" - which is where the widely shared 40 figure comes from.
In an interview with Sky's Mark Austin on Tuesday evening, Israeli economy minister Nir Barkat echoed a similar claim: "We've seen just now... we've heard of 40 young boys. Some of them were burned alive. Some were beheaded. Some were shot in the head."
CBS News in the US said on Wednesday that Yossi Landau, head of operations at Zaka, Israel's volunteer civilian emergency response organisation, confirmed to them he had "personally seen" adults, children and babies beheaded.
But when asked directly whether "40 babies were beheaded", an IDF spokesman said children were killed - but that reports of beheadings were "unconfirmed".
It was later reported by at least one major TV news network that the reports of babies being beheaded had been "confirmed" by a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister's office.
This was subsequently attributed to Tal Heinrich, a freelance news anchor who appears to have been drafted in by Benjamin Netanyahu's office on 8 October to assist with media relations in the wake of Hamas's attacks a day earlier.
The only available public statement on the matter from Ms Heinrich at the time of writing was an interview she conducted with LBC on Wednesday, in which she was asked about the claims.
Ms Heinrich, who was quoted by LBC as a spokesperson for Mr Netanyahu's office, said: "Toddlers, babies, I can tell you some of them... yes, heads were cut off. This is what we are hearing from... soldiers on the ground who dealt with the bodies."
Replying to a later post on X linking to a story citing her comments, she said on Wednesday evening: "Please note: We said that these reports are based on testimonies of soldiers."
’Important to separate facts from speculation'
Ramsay interviewed two IDF majors - one of whom was a spokesman.
Ramsay said: "At no point did either he, or the other major I spoke to, ever mention that Hamas had beheaded or killed 40 babies or children. I believe that if it were the case, they would have told me and others there.
"There is no doubt that a horrific attack took place at Kfar Aza, and it needed to be reported, and we did see the bodies of the dead from the community in their houses, in the back of a truck, and on the basketball court.
"But it's important to separate the facts from speculation in a situation like this.
"To reiterate - the IDF had every opportunity to inform the world's media of any story that had become apparent as the military continue to clear up the kibbutz. The murder and beheading of 40 children was never mentioned to me or my team."
And another journalist, Oren Ziv, who works for independent news outlet 972 mag, was also present and given the opportunity to speak to "hundreds of soldiers on site".
In a post on X, he said of the baby claims: "During the tour we didn't see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn't mention any such incidents."
Digital investigations journalist Victoria Elms, who works on Sky's Data and Forensics unit, adds: "Social media has been awash with misinformation about the situation in Israel and Gaza since the war broke out.
"Videos from the Syrian conflict, excerpts from video games and TikToks made months ago have all been widely shared, falsely claiming to show events from the past few days."
She says misinformation is often shared "unintentionally", but "there are some who post and share false material with the intent to deceive others".
In a historic, impassioned speech expressing unbridled U.S. support for Israel on Tuesday, President Joe Biden listed among the atrocities Hamas had committed that women “were raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.”
A White House spokesperson told the
Forward that this assertion was based on a phone call earlier that day in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told Biden that Israeli women had been “brutally raped and murdered.” Similar characterizations have been included in condemnations of Hamas by columnists, celebrities and editorial boards.
But the source of the rape allegation remains murky. While sexual assault is a common feature of violent conflict worldwide, the Israel Defense Forces told the
Forward Tuesday night that it does not yet have any evidence of rape having occurred during Saturday’s attack or its aftermath. And most mainstream media outlets have avoided mention of rape, with the Los Angeles Times and NBC News specifically stating they have been unable to verify the claims.
A White House official said Wednesday morning that Biden had based his comments off both his phone call with Netanyahu and an article in The Times of Israel that referenced videos circulating on social media that “have raised concerns of sexual assault against women.” The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted that the president had described the rape allegations as “stomach-turning reports,” not verified facts.
Others have not been as careful.
“These are people, as you’ve been reporting and others have seen, that deliberately targeted teenage girls, women and children, the elderly, not just for rape and murder but then dumping their bodies off on the streets of Gaza,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, said Monday on CNN. “Just horrifying things.”
In an editorial,
The Denver Post on Tuesday condemned a local politician for failing to speak out against “the murder, rape and torture of innocent civilians.”
Meanwhile, the
Los Angeles Times removed references to rape from a column published Monday, adding a note that said “such reports have not been substantiated.” And when NBC News posted a video of Netanyahu stating that women had been raped, it superimposed a disclaimer stating that it had not confirmed his assertion.
The author of the Times column, Jonah Goldberg, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. A spokesperson for the newspaper, Hillary Manning, said, “We don’t wish to comment beyond what is stated in the correction.”
Asked about the rape allegations following Netanyahu’s remarks, an IDF spokesperson said, “We can’t officially confirm any of that yet.”
Origin story?The reports of sexual assault appear to have several roots amid the scattered media accounts of the violent chaos in southern Israel after Hamas militants breached the border fence in a surprise attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.
Liel Leibovitz, a right-wing columnist for the online Jewish magazine Tablet, published an article Sunday based on interviews with unnamed survivors of the Hamas massacre at the desert music festival near the Gaza border. Emergency responders estimated that more than 200 young people were killed there and an untold number kidnapped.
“Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends’ bodies, dead bodies,” Leibovitz quoted one attendee saying. The person did not say they had witnessed these incidents, and at one point was recounting videos they had seen on social media.
“Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed,” Leibovitz wrote, without citing a specific source. “Others were taken to Gaza. In photographs released online, you can see several paraded through the city’s streets, blood gushing from between their legs.”
The
Tablet article did not, however, include specific photos. Two videos circulating online over the weekend were also being used as evidence of sexual assault, although neither precisely matched Leibovitz’s description.
The first shows an Israeli woman being removed from the back of a Jeep with her hands bound behind her back. She has blood on her arm, dirt stains on her legs and a large, dark stain across the seat of her pants.
A high-ranking Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that video was the only evidence of rape or sexual assault of which he was aware.
Honest Reporting, a pro-Israel advocacy group, said in a post Wednesday that a Netanyahu spokesperson had offered an account similar to the one in Tablet, stating that “women were raped next to the bodies of fellow festivalgoers” in the desert.
The Israeli Government Press Office did not respond to questions about whether it had evidence of sexual assault or rape during the attack.
The second video shows a woman who has been identified by her family as Shani Louk, 22, lying face down in the back of a pickup truck in her underwear as men spit on her.
The
Times of Israel article apparently referenced by Biden described both videos.
Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at Hebrew University, told the newspaper that it was “too soon to know” if there was “a pattern of sexual assault, noting that combat operations are ongoing and testimonies are yet to be taken.”
At least two other articles include secondhand accounts of rape during and after Saturday’s attack.
Shani Hadar, a 35-year-old survivor of the attack on the desert party, told the Israeli outlet Ynet News: “I know they kidnapped girls. That they raped women even after killing them.”
Appearing to describe footage she saw of the attacks, Hadar added: “They called the parents of a woman who was kidnapped, and said, ‘Your daughter is alive, we’re going to rape her.’”
On Tuesday night, PBS News Hour published an account from Raz Cohen, who survived the festival massacre: “The terrorists, people from Gaza, raped girls. And after they raped them, they killed them, murdered them with knives, or the opposite, killed — and after they raped, they — they did that.”
The
Hindustan Times<an Indian newspaper, quoted an Israeli woman Wednesday who only provided her first name, Moran, identified as a 40-year-old mother from Ramat Gan, a city in central Israel. “A girl, a friend of my friend, was raped in the streets of Gaza as everyone cheered,” Moran said. “Using her personal phone, the men sent a video of the crime to her family.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published the account of a festival survivor named Gad Liebersohn who said he heard women being assaulted from his hiding place near the concert grounds.
Unverified videosThere are also three videos circulating on social media that purport to show Hamas fighters discussing rape that appear to have racked up well over 1 million views combined. Their origin is unclear.
A spokesperson for the IDF could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the video Wednesday.
Broniatowski, the George Washington professor, said that it sometimes can make sense to share unverified claims. In the case of a hurricane or wildfire, for example, it might be better to err on the side of encouraging people to evacuate.
“On the other hand, if the consequence is that people end up really misinformed in a way that possibly stokes further violence — then there could be a negative consequence to share it,” he said. “Context really matters.”
A combination of fog of war a deliberate misinformation meant to incite happens in every war. Social media compounds this problem a lot. Horror reports that are questionable or untrue discredit the credibility of accurate horror reports. While there is no evidence of rape or baby beheadings were a deliberate Hamas tactic the videos posted by Hamas are horrific war crimes. It would be a shame if because of information later proved to be false a significant part of the population ends up believing that bad things happened but this event was another example of deliberate overhype.
Same is true of massive civilian casualties in Gaza as discussed in an earlier posting. I plan in discussing that further later on.
11 Oct 2023, 10:51 pm
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.
