Suspicions are being raised one after another that the Palestinian armed group Hamas, which made a surprise attack on Israel, committed a ‘war crime’ by brutally massacring at least 100 civilians, including about 40 infants. On the 10th (local time), the Israeli military disclosed the tragic situation, saying that the circumstances of the massacre of civilians were revealed at the ‘Kfar Aza’ collective farm (kibbutz), just 3 km away from the Gaza Strip, the base of Hamas.
Hamas told Al Jazeera on the 11th, “We do not target children (attacks). He denied it, saying, “You shouldn’t believe a story full of lies and slander,” but the controversy has not subsided.
According to an Israeli military official mobilized to collect the scene, at least 40 bodies of infants and children were discovered in this kibbutz alone on the 10th. Including these, at least 100 civilian bodies were discovered. It is also known that there is a high possibility of additional deaths.
There are even scary rumors going around that a baby’s head was found here. There are also claims that Hamas burned civilians who had taken refuge inside their houses to avoid their attacks by burning them to death to prevent them from coming out. In fact, several houses in the kibbutz were burned.
The New York Times (NYT) reporters who entered this kibbutz said that they directly witnessed corpses everywhere. During the Israeli military’s search, cases were discovered one after another of entire families, including babies, being shot and killed inside their homes. Blood-stained children’s clothes, strollers, and blood on the floor of the house show the terrible situation at the time. In one house, several bullets were found scattered on a bed mattress with clear blood stains.
Local media outlet The Times of Israel reported that the body of a woman with her clothes removed abandoned on the street was also identified. The BBC reported that the abandoned bodies were decomposing rapidly due to the hot Mediterranean sun, creating a foul odor throughout the area. It is reported that some of the bodies had not yet been recovered and were left lying barely covered with blankets.
Circumstances of Hamas’ massacre of civilians have also been discovered elsewhere. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and others previously reported that at least 108 civilian bodies were found in nearby Beeri Kibbutz on the 9th. An official from the local relief organization ‘Zaka’, which recovered the body here, also raised suspicions of war crimes, saying that the body of an infant was found.
At least 20 civilians were also killed in Sderot, about 1.6km from the Gaza Strip. Previously, at least 260 bodies were discovered around the music festival venue in Kibbutz Laim in the south.
Hamas infiltrated about 20 cities and villages, including these kibbutzim, on the 7th, the day of the invasion, but most of them have now been recaptured by the Israeli military. The Israeli military presented evidence of civilian massacres based on testimonies and videos of surviving residents, and security cameras in the area.
An official who helped recover the bodies in Kfar Aza told the NYT, “Look at how the babies and their parents were killed by terrorists in their bedrooms,” and condemned Hamas, saying, “This is not a war, but a ‘genocide.’” He complained that the situation was as cruel as the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and the pogrom in Czarist Russia that his grandparents’ generation experienced during World War II.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.