The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have announced they have completely sealed the border with Gaza amid continued body recovery operations and assessment of damage. This as Israel has newly announced thatĀ over 1,000 Israelis have been killed.
The IDF and Israeli officials are also for the first time taking foreign journalists to the scenes where the armed raids out of Gaza took place on Sunday, including toĀ Kfar Azza, a kibbutz near the border where some 70 Jewish residents were killed. The IDF has denounced the “massacre” while giving foreign press a tour of the empties out settlement.
“Itās not a war, itās not a battlefield, itās a massacre,” IDF Major General Itai Veruv was quoted as saying. “You see the babies, their mothers and their fathers, in their bedrooms, and in their protected rooms, and how the terrorists killed them ā itās not a war.”
“Itās something that I never saw in my life,” he said. “We used to imagine our grandmothers and grandfathers during the pogroms in Europe. Itās not something that we have seen in recent history.”
Another one, Kibbutz Be’eri, was the gruesome scene of the recovery of at least 108 bodies, while the music festival in the desert where footage of the initial Hamas invasion was captured had at least 260 bodies.
Among the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the IDF said it had killed some 1,500 in Israeli territory, and these bodies are being collected too.
In Israel, at 1,008 people have died and over 2,600 others have been injured, but assessing total casualties and also identifying the deceased has been a long, difficult process – also under war conditions as missiles fly above. One top Netanyahu aide,Ā Yossi Shelley, is under fire for some controversial statements to the press:Ā
Responding to questions during an interview on Channel 12 about the governmentās reaction time, Shelley said that “the party made a not insubstantial contribution to the chaos,” adding “I’m not casting blame but sometimes there are cumulative conditions, this is a situation which no one planned.”
Shelley said the process of identifying the fatalities and the hostages was like “standing in line at the supermarket, it doesnāt matter how many shop assistants there are, sometimes itās impossible to deal with everyone.”
On Tuesday he tried to clarify the statements amid anger from victims’ families. Shelley said, “I never in any way intended to say that the partygoers contributed to the results of the tragic event. The youngsters who were celebrating, including my beloved cousin Lori who was murdered, celebrate like the people of Israel should do on their festivals.”
Warning – graphic content below:
First images from the #Hamas massacre in Kibbutz Alumim. Total number of murdered Israelis tops 900 and counting š¢ pic.twitter.com/VFJ32LdcVj
ā Elad Ratson š (@EladRadson) October 9, 2023
Video from the aftermath of an ambush by Hamas terrorists on an Israeli family’s vehicle in the area of Kibbutz Reim. Blood everywhere.
A baby seat full of blood, the Evil murderers did not spare the baby.
It is impossible to describe in words the dimensions of the massacre. pic.twitter.com/Wi7fpRO1ta
ā InDigit (@InDigit1) October 10, 2023
In Gaza, the death toll continues to mount amid constant Israeli airstrikes and shelling, with Al Jazeera reporting that the dead have reached 770.
While a horrific massacre by Islamic terrorists infiltrating southern Israel played out over the weekend, a massacre of mostly civilians by the overwhelming airpower of Israel’s air force is ongoing in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 200,000 Gazans have been displaced at this point…
Scenes of apocalyptic destruction in #Gaza.
Literally not a single building has remained untouched. pic.twitter.com/sBsQAQk6X5
ā Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) October 10, 2023
On social media, there are graphic scenes of death, violence, and suffering widely circulating.
Politico has decided to go after Elon Musk and X for lack of censorship related to some of these videos:
Videos and images of mass shootings, kidnapped civilians and soldiers and other violence linked with Hamas’ attack on Israel are being widely shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, in violation of the company’s own rules against inciting violence.
POLITICO’s review of Elon Musk’s social media platform in the wake of Hamas’ attacks, which began on October 7, discovered scores of videos that allegedly showed militants murdering civilians and Israeli soldiers; viral hashtags associated with the ongoing violence that praised Hamas’ activities; and social media posts that included graphic pictures of those killed and antisemitic hate speech.
However, platforms like X are in part helping people to track missing persons, or to identify the deceased, as well as in some cases their killers.Ā
Meanwhile, even though the situation in southern Israel is largely pacified under the IDF, Israel’s military still believes some terrorist infiltrators are present, but are hiding. A search operation by Israeli forces is still active after the majority of civilian residents from communities near Gaza have been evacuated:Ā
Hamas fighters are believed to be “still hiding” in some communities in southern Israel even after the Israeli military took back control, according to Israel Defense Forces spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman.
“We are in control of the communities, but we actually assume that there are Hamas terrorists that are still hiding in these areas, including in the road where we are now,” Spielman told ABC News during an interview Monday in Sderot, Israel. “In all these communities, we’ve seen terrorist come out of hiding. Just yesterday, they took over an ambulance.”
“We’re still being very, very careful,” he added. “This is a war zone with active terrorists that are operating here.”
Videos have emerged showing highway shootouts between Israeli forces and Hamas which happened Saturday into Sunday:
Footage has been released showing Israeli police engaging Hamas terrorists. pic.twitter.com/mv5fv803i0
ā Global: Military-Info (@Global_Mil_Info) October 9, 2023
There are also many videos documenting kidnappings which unfolded in real-time:
The moment Hamas terrorists capture Ilan Avraham, an Israeli who escaped the massacre of the Supernova festival and sought shelter in a kibbutz. The terrorists got him at the gate and abducted him into Gaza.#HamasisISIS
pic.twitter.com/zqjdBoeirlā SpringTime (@AvivitD) October 10, 2023
Hamas commandos, clearly well-armed and well prepared, filmed themselves breaching Israeli settlements and setting fire to the dwellings…
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+18āļøMateriaÅ wideo z kibucu Beeri, w ktĆ³rym bojownicy Hamasu zabili ponad 100 IzraelczykĆ³w. Na nagraniu widaÄ , jak bojownicy strzelajÄ do psa i podpalajÄ dom. pic.twitter.com/O5bwqkskkZ
ā WarNewsPL (@WarNewsPL1) October 9, 2023
Graphic: The below shows the killing of a man who tried to flee (just off-scene)…
WARNING: GRAPHIC
Dashcam footage shows Hamas terrorists executing people in a bomb shelter and shooting people who tried to run away. At the end, they threw a grenade to finish off those who were hiding. pic.twitter.com/kGQDj0DdhJā Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) October 10, 2023
IDF reinforcements have continued to muster at the border. While the ground invasion has yet to start, it is expected and likely imminent, givenĀ Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu toldĀ President BidenĀ on Sunday thatĀ “We have to go in,” in reference to a ground operation. He further conceded thisĀ will be a “long and difficult war.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/10/2023 – 09:05
