A more precise picture of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel has emerged from social security data, confirming the unprecedented scale of the violence but also challenging some initial testimonies. According to Israeli data, the final death toll from the Oct 7 attack by Palestinian militants is 695 Israeli civilians, including around 36 children, the rest of the approximately 1400 were security forces, which was then lowered to 1,200 (AFP 2023).
This is an important number to remember as investigations into the events that unfolded on that horrific day seem to suggest that the Israeli forces (IDF) had implemented the Hannibal Directive (“During an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers/hostages from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers/hostages. Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them. If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers. In any event, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape.”) (Haaretz 2023). Now we have established what the Hannibal directive is, let us look again at the civilian death toll of 695 and deduct some numbers, although this will be an approximate number from material and sources and reports and interviews, the number does change.
Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram said he had ordered a tank commander to fire on the home of Kibbutz Be’eri resident Pesi Cohen, in which around 15 Israeli civilians and many terrorists were holed up, “even at the cost of civilian casualties.” Yasmin Porat was held in the house and was released by Hamas operatives, Porat has described in many interviews, including with Haaretz, that after she was taken outside by one of the terrorists, who surrendered, she stayed in the area for hours and witnessed the tank hitting the house (Channel 12 2023). Hadas Dagan is the only other survivor of the Kibbutz Be’eri bombing and relayed Porat’s testimony in an interview with Channel 12’s Friday news program “Ulpan Shishi” a few weeks later. She told the New York Times that shrapnel from the tank’s second shell killed her husband, Adi (Channel 12 2023). That takes the death toll down to 680 Israeli Citizens killed by Hamas.
At the Nova festival in Reim around 364 Israeli civilians died, while Hamas did kill many at the festival, we need to find out how many were killed when the Hannibal directive was activated. An Israeli police investigation into the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival near the Gaza border on 7 October revealed that an Israeli attack helicopter killed some of the attendees, Haaretz reported on 18 November. the incident showed that an Israeli combat helicopter that arrived at the scene from the Ramat David base fired at Hamas fighters and other Palestinians who crossed through the border fence from Gaza into Israel, but also fired on some of the Israelis attending the music festival. According to the police, 364 people were killed there. If we deduct the targets we can estimate how many were killed by the IDF, (The Cradle 2023) Let us say Israel targeted cars as many hostages who have been released have testified to, a car can carry around 5 to 8 people, considering perhaps 2 Hamas operatives in a car and 3 to 5 Israeli citizens, The IDF targeted 70 vehicles according to an Israeli investigative journalist Jim Hollander, that potentially means around 280 hostages killed before reaching the border, plus around say 50 Israeli citizens shot by sniper fire as they crossed borders with Hamas, so around 330 killed at nova by IDF.
A similar instance occurred in Sderot, where Hamas fighters had taken over the local police station. Both the Hamas fighters and prisoners and hostages were killed when the Israeli army fired tank shells at the police station, killing everyone. Israeli forces then bulldozed the station, bringing the Civilian death toll down to 40 killed by Hamas and around 324 killed by IDF at Nova, with Hamas taking around 250 hostages into Gaza. {these figures are for civilians only not combatants}. Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun, two journalists with extensive sources inside Israel’s military and intelligence establishment stated “some 70 vehicles” driven by Palestinian fighters returning to Gaza were blown up by Israeli helicopter gunships, drones, or tanks. “Many if not most of the Israeli civilians killed that day were killed by Israel itself, not Palestinian fighters” (https://w.ynet.co.il/yediot/7-days/time-of-darkness 2024).
Other Kibbutz and their victims according to Bituah Leumi: the social security agency of Israel.: Its website lists 695 people killed during the attack, with names and the circumstances of their deaths, among them are 36 children, including 20 under 15 years old, and 10 killed by rockets.
The youngest victim was 10-month-old Mila Cohen, shot and killed at Kibbutz Beeri while in the arms of her mother during cross-fire between Hamas and IDF.
An entire family, including three children aged between two and six, were killed in their home at Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Elsewhere, two brothers aged five and eight were shot dead in their car with their parents.
A five-year-old boy was killed in the street by a rocket.
NOTE: these are all the victims listed who were killed on Oct 7th according to Israels own social security agency, it is IMPORTANT because of other allegations and false claims made by Israelis on that day. In particular, a claim made on October 10 on the government’s official X (formerly Twitter) account spoke of “40 babies murdered” at Kfar Aza kibbutz, based on a report by i24NEWS channel, According to Bituah Leumi, 46 civilians were killed in Kfar Aza, the youngest 14 years old.
NOTE: Another testimony called into question was that on October 27 by Colonel Golan Vach, head of the army’s search and rescue unit, who told a group of journalists, including one from AFP, that he “personally” transported “a decapitated baby” found in the arms of his mother in the Beeri kibbutz. According to Bituah Leumi, only one baby was killed in Beeri: the 10-month-old Mila Cohen, whose mother survived (Bituah Leumi 2023).
NOTE: One Zaka volunteer had, for example, spoken on October 11 of 20 children with their “hands tied in the back, shot and burned” in Kibbutz Beeri, but ultimately only nine children died there and none had their hands tied either separately or in a group setting.
NOTE: Fact-checkers from French news agency AFP debunked videos of the initial Hamas attack, which turned out to be clips taken from the military simulation game Arma 3, clips from a concert in Tel Aviv, footage from Mexico and footage of paragliders in Egypt. “Propaganda is a part of war, propaganda has always been used to paint the enemy in the worst possible light … the difference is that now there’s a lot more uncertainty about who’s doing it because of the anonymity of the accounts.” (O’Neil 2024).
SUMMARY:
Numbers matter although any and all deaths from this 7th Oct 2023 event and any other is not acceptable, the number of victims who died as a result of their own government is just as important if not more than the number of deaths caused by any terrorist or resistance group. How the victims died is also very important as we have seen with this Israeli propaganda thus far, the more gruesome, bloody, and violent you make it with false allegations and lies the more support you will gather from the global community and acceptance of genocide is KEY to Israel’s agenda.
So, of some 695 civilian deaths, we need to detract those caused by Hamas and those caused by Israel according to interviews, reports, and investigations from eyewitnesses investigative journalists, and government official records. In Israel’s chaotic and indiscriminate response to the Hamas attack, aircrews and drone operators could not distinguish between Palestinian fighters and Israeli civilians or soldiers.
Out of the 364 killed at Nova around 320 were killed by IDF and 44 were killed by Hamas. Out of the 331 killed in the Kibbutz, we know 15 killed in one house were from IDF in Kibbutz Be’eri, we also know that in Kibbutz Nir Oz 8 victims were killed by IDF rocket fire, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza 46 were killed, the majority from a helicopter, ground firefights and tank fire. So, roughly we could assume around 69 were killed by IDF and some 262 were killed by Hamas. TOTAL ESTIMATES: Hamas killed 306 and the IDF killed 389.
Hamas objective on that day was to kill soldiers and combatants and take hostages back to Gaza, as many as possible, its directive was clear capture civilians, kill soldiers.
Israeli objective on that day was to kill all Hamas actors even at the cost of Israeli civilians’ lives using the Hannibal Directive.
No 40 babies were beheaded as only 1 baby was even in the death count that day, little Mila Cohen (10 months old) from Kibbutz Be’eri. The two next youngest were a 2yo and 6yo killed in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
No pregnant women was killed and had her baby cut from her abdomen, the only pregnant woman listed in the 7th Oct attack that was a lady who was shot in her car by Hamas, she survived and recovered in hospital but sadly her unborn child died in her womb.
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