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Israeli o*cial says

government cannot confirm
babies were beheaded in
Hamas attack
By Matthew Chance, Richard Allen Greene and
Joshua Berlinger, CNN
Updated 12:55 PM EDT, Thu October 12, 2023

Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

Israeli forces extract dead bodies of residents from a

destroyed house in the Kfar Aza community

Jerusalem (CNN) — The Israeli government

has not confirmed the specific claim that
Hamas attackers cut oV the heads of babies
during their shock attack on Saturday, an
Israeli oXcial told CNN, contradicting a
previous public statement by the Prime
Minister’s oXce.

“There have been cases of Hamas militants

carrying out beheadings and other ISIS-style
atrocities. However, we cannot confirm if the
victims were men or women, soldiers or
civilians, adults or children,” the oXcial said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated

that people had been beheaded by Hamas in
an appearance beside Secretary of State
Antony Blinken on Thursday, but did not
specify if they were children.

His oXce later released what it described as

“horrifying photos of babies murdered and
burned by the Hamas monsters.”

The three photos showed two babies whose

bodies had been burned beyond recognition
and a third infant’s bloodstained body.

The post said that Netanyahu showed Blinken

the photos, as well as others.

The explosive allegations that children had

been decapitated at the kibbutz of Kfar Aza
emerged Tuesday in Israeli media. Israel
Defense Forces later described the scene as a
“massacre” in a statement to CNN. Women,
children toddlers and the elderly were
“brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action,”
the IDF said.

Tal Heinrich, a spokeswoman for Netanyahu,

said on Wednesday that babies and toddlers
had been found with their “heads
decapitated” in Kfar Aza.

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US President Joe Biden appeared to confirm

that information. In a roundtable with Jewish
community leaders on Wednesday, he said: “I
have been doing this a long time, I never really
thought that I would see… have confirmed
pictures of terrorist beheading children.”

A US administration oXcial later clarified

Biden’s remarks, telling CNN that neither
Biden nor his aides had seen pictures or had
received confirmed reports of children or
infants having been beheaded by Hamas. The
oXcial clarified that Biden was referring to
public comments from media outlets and
Israeli oXcials.

An IDF spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, later

in the day said terrorists had likely carried out
decapitations of babies in the Be’eri kibbutz.

“We got very very disturbing reports that

came from the ground that there were babies
that had been beheaded… I think we can now
say with relative confidence that unfortunately
this is what happened in Be’eri,” he said.

Israeli oXcials initially avoided discussing the

specifics of how its citizens were killed. They
instead likened Hamas’ brutality to that of
ISIS, the Sunni terror group that beheaded
captives and burned prisoners alive.

/AP Ibrahim Hams/AFP/Getty Images

Smoke plumes billow during Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on A P

October 12 in G

Hamas on Wednesday denied the allegations.

Izzat al-Risheq, a senior oXcial and
spokesperson for the Islamist militant group,
said that the international media had “spread
lies about our Palestinian people and the
resistance claiming that members of the
Palestinian resistance beheaded children and
attacked women with no evidence to support
such claims and lies.”

Al-Risheq’s claim that Hamas did not attack

women is demonstrably false. Women,
children and the elderly at kibbutzim like Kfar
Aza and Be’eri and were killed during the
surprise attack. Videos posted online verified
by CNN show women who were attending the
music festival targeted by the group’s
gunmen being kidnapped.

'It wasn't a war, it was a slaughter': Israeli festiva…

07:06 - Source: CNN

'It wasn't a war, it was a slaughter': Israeli festival survivor

describes horrors

CNN has pored through hundreds of hours of

media posted online attempting to
corroborate accounts of atrocities committed
by Hamas. In one video, which CNN
determined to be authentic but has not been
able to geolocate, an assailant attacks an
injured man with a garden tool in an attempt
to behead him. But CNN has not seen
anything that would appear to confirm the
claims of decapitated children.

CNN also visited the ransacked ruins of Kfar

Aza on Tuesday and saw no evidence of
beheaded youths. Israeli oXcials have not
released any photographs of the incident
either.

CNN’s Nic Robertson contributed to this

report

View on CNN

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