Horrible reports from Kfar Asa
This is what we know about the “beheaded babies”
By Roland Peters
October 12, 2023, 7:38 p.m
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On Saturday, Hamas attacked the Israeli border settlement of Kfar Asa. It quickly becomes certain that something terrible is happening there. But what about the viral report about 40 babies supposedly decapitated?
At a meeting with Jewish representatives in the White House, US President Joe Biden gives insight into his thoughts. “I never thought I would see pictures of terrorists beheading children,” he told his guests on Wednesday. He describes Hamas’ attack on Israel as the “deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also mentions beheaded people. His spokesman Tal Heinrich says that in the settlement of Kfar Asa, a kibbutz, decapitated babies and small children were found. Reports of 40 such discoveries there are going viral. Some newspapers have the report on the title page. Kfar Asa, located just a few hundred meters from the Gaza Strip, was attacked by Hamas militants and rockets on Saturday.
But there are inconsistencies. The White House later denied that Biden had seen such images, but had instead referred to media reports. Heinrich makes it clear that his statement is based on statements from soldiers on site. Netanyahu shows US Secretary of State Antony Blinken took photos of burned baby bodies during his visit on Thursday. And what about the “40 decapitated babies”? ntv’s verification team cannot confirm this report at the time of checking on Thursday afternoon.
According to several journalists who inspected the destroyed kibbutz on Tuesday, none of the soldiers or officers they interviewed mentioned anything of the sort. A reporter from the Israeli TV station “i24 News” reported but on the day of her visit to “at least 40 dead babies” who had been brought from houses on stretchers. One of the Israeli officers on site stated this to her. On X she writes that “some” were beheaded.
Israeli government cautious
On Thursday, the Jerusalem Post reported that it had been able to use photos to verify that babies had been burned and beheaded in the Hamas attack on Kfar Asa. “May her memory become a blessing,” the newspaper adds. Doubts remain, particularly about the number. Some fact-checkers suspect that the number 40 mentioned by the i24 reporter was mixed in with the report about beheaded babies.
Israel’s government is cautious when it comes to media inquiries. “There have been cases in which Hamas fighters committed beheadings and other ISIS-style atrocities,” a government spokesman told CNN on Thursday. “However, we cannot confirm whether the victims were men or women, soldiers or civilians , adults or children.”
The information about beheaded babies in Kfar Asa is neither officially nor independently confirmed; nor is the fact that there were 40 such cases, which would suggest a systematic approach. But two Israeli media outlets agree that such baby bodies were found. The cruelest violence was used against the civilian population in the settlement near the border safe anyway.