After the Hamas attack on Israel which left around 1,160 victims on October 7, 2023, images of the massacre flooded social networks and media around the world.
But in this flood of testimonies of murders, looting, mutilations, a rumor has taken on extraordinary proportions: forty decapitated babies were allegedly found in the Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the most damaged Israeli localities. This story, and its variants, experienced unprecedented virality, even being mentioned at the White House. However, in the horror of this massacre, where thirty-eight minors including two infants were killed, there were never forty babies decapitated. Neither in Kfar Aza, nor in any other kibbutz, confirmed to World the Israeli government press office.
How does this was false information born? Can we compare it to the Kuwait incubators affair, a fabricated story of babies kidnapped and massacred, which had in part used to justify the first Gulf War? The investigation of World highlights a rumor born organically, from a mixture of emotion, confusion and macabre exaggeration. But Israel did nothing to fight against it, and more often tried to exploit it than to deny it, fueling accusations of media manipulation.
Three days after the Hamas attack, the army invited dozens of journalists and foreign correspondents, including that of Worldin Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where Hamas terrorists killed more than sixty civilians. Richard Hechtthe highest spokesperson for the Israeli army and co-organizer of this visit, wants “show the international press that what happened is unprecedented.”
The territory was only retaken by the army a few hours ago, and the corpses are still everywhere: Israeli victims wrapped in body bags, Hamas fighters lying where they fell, a smell of death, testify to a ten journalists, rescuers and soldiers interviewed by The world.
Testimony from our journalist
Samuel Forey, correspondent for Le Monde in Jerusalem and co-author of this article, participated in the October 10 press visit to Kfar Aza.
“We are not integrated into a military unit, it is a visit for the press, under good escort (…) As is often the case in conflict zones, tight control loosens after a while. We can talk to any soldier who wants to. We can enter houses already inspected by the army, because the others may be trapped.
The visit ends. It lasted one hour and thirty minutes. I am returning to Jerusalem. My manager at World call me. Have I seen decapitated babies? I told him that I saw the information on social networks, while I was on my way back, but that nothing seemed to confirm it. No soldier spoke to me about it – I spoke with half a dozen of them. As I sit at my desk, I see the media hype. I don’t think this story is possible. The soldiers had been present in the kibbutz since the day before, at least. Such an atrocious event would have been documented, and not confided by certain soldiers to certain journalists.
I contacted two first aid organizations deployed during the attack. None mentions decapitation – without saying that it did not exist. As of October 11, the publication date of my report, I cannot confirm any beheadings. So I don’t do it. But the strong image takes precedence over reality. It serves in particular to make Hamas the incarnation of absolute evil – which deserves a response of the same order. I do not want to minimize the abuses of this Palestinian Islamist movement. I want to document them, as precisely as possible.
The problem is that if the image of decapitated babies serves a certain amount of Israeli propaganda, it also serves its enemies to deny other abuses, for example the existence of sexual violence – proven – or the fact that victims were burned alive; or even to refute the entire massacre. This is the bottom from my message published on, the day after the visit to Kfar Aza. I noticed, some time later, that my post was no longer accessible in France and in some European countries. The story of the decapitated babies has since been proven to be false information. »
Itai Veruv, the general who led the counterattack, multiplies the parallels with the death camps. He mentions a provisional death toll of one hundred to one hundred and fifty deaths. Funeral ceremonies are sometimes carried out under the eye of cameras. Some reporters told the World a feeling of unease in the face of the dramatization of the site of the massacre.
Due to the risk of explosive booby traps, journalists can only enter a few houses. The only Israeli corpses they see are in body bags, all adult-sized. On site, according to journalists present, the general staff does not mention dead babies, but reporters are free to question the soldiers and first responders present, whose stories are more murky and disturbing.
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