By Ali Karbalaei

Did Israelis kill Israelis on October 7? 

November 10, 2023 - 22:40
For settlers, the truth is the biggest casualty of the war

TEHRAN- In the immediate aftermath of the al-Aqsa Storm operation carried out by Hamas on October 7, when the Zionist regime was still in a state of shock from a massive military and intelligence failure, Israeli media offered interesting insight. 

In the days after October 7, the regime failed in its PR campaign, which it later revised and fabricated further by releasing selective information to justify its bombardment of Gaza. 

Many Israeli political and military leaders gave a disturbing account of alleged atrocities committed by the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam brigade. 

But in the days after Hamas' retaliatory operation, senior Israeli military officers gave Western media a tour of some settlements where they made unsubstantiated allegations.

In one instance, an Israeli military officer gave a TV interview standing in front of a destroyed concrete home at an Israeli settlement near the Gaza Strip. 

He says, in broken English, that Hamas fighters burned homes and burned babies inside those homes. 

"Inside, we found eight babies, burned in this corner, among other people burned in the house," he added in what is a very graphic statement. 

The concrete wall behind the officer can be seen reduced to rubble. 

As activists have pointed out, fires burn wood and other flammable items, and why would Hamas take the time, in a quick operation, to set a house (made of concrete) on fire? 

A fire does not collapse concrete structures as published in various videos by Israeli military officers, showing the alleged aftermath of Hamas' attacks. 

Concrete does not burn – it cannot be set on fire, and it does not emit any toxic fumes when affected by fire. Concrete is proven to have a high degree of fire resistance and, in the majority of applications, can be described as virtually fireproof.

Another Israeli military officer, in a separate TV interview, again standing in front of a concrete housing unit, also speaking in broken English, claims, "Children in the same room.. someone comes and kills them all. 15 girls and teenagers, they put in the same room. Three-hand grenades and this over. This is a massacre." 

The Hamas fighters that entered the settlements were armed with machine guns and grenade launchers. 

That doesn't cause the level of damage that Israeli officials claim. 

So, how did they destroy concrete homes? 

The simple answer is that Hamas did not burn anyone, nor did their fighters leave concrete buildings flattened with babies inside. 

The Israeli military did. 

The initial testimonies of eyewitnesses and Israeli sources contradict the Israeli account of the events that unfolded on October 7. 

Apache helicopter pilots have admitted to firing continuously without intelligence on targets, while tank crews were ordered to shell homes, regardless of whether there were Israelis inside or not. 

The regime's media interviewed Israeli soldiers who responded to Hamas' operation. And Israeli media themselves learned some shocking news. 

Israeli news outlets, which can be viewed online, pointed out that the Israeli military "was struggling to handle the Hamas fighters."

Tuval Escapa, an Israeli military coordinator at the Kibbutz Be’eri settlement, set up a hotline between settlers and the army. 

Escapa told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that "as desperation began to set in" commanders in the field made "difficult decisions" including "shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the (Hamas fighters) along with the hostages".

This was confirmed by Yasmin Porat, an Israeli settler, who survived a hostage standoff in the Be’eri settlement.

She said that, during intense clashes, Israeli Special Forces "undoubtedly" killed all those inside the house, including her husband, along with two Hamas fighters, (who were surrendering), using tank shells and frenzied gunfire.

In an interview Porat gave with Israeli media on October 7, she is asked: "So our forces may have shot them (Israelis)?"

"Undoubtedly"?, she answers.

Asked again, "When they tried to eliminate the abductors, Hamas?"

"They (Israeli forces) eliminated everyone, including the (Israeli) hostages, because there was very heavy cross fire ... 2 tank shells were shot at the house, you saw it on the news," she replied. 

"And your partner was killed too?"

"Yes" she says, "everyone was killed there. Just horrible."

Porat recalled how the Hamas fighters had treated hostages "very humanely", aiming only to take them back to Gaza. 

Whether Hamas wanted to take back Israeli settlers to Gaza or had the time to identify between Israeli settlers and Israeli combatants is up for debate. 

The Hamas fighters were, after all, sheltering from the Israeli military's indiscriminate attacks inside the settlements near the Gaza Strip. 

Another Israeli survivor of the al-Aqsa Storm?, Danielle Rachiel, described nearly being killed after escaping the Hamas operation after her car was shot at directly by the regime's forces. 

Israeli troops opened fire on fleeing Israeli settlers whom they mistook for Hamas gunmen.

These reports indicate that orders came down from the military's high command to attack setter homes and other areas inside Israeli settlements "even at the cost of many Israeli lives."

According to Haaretz, "the army was only able to restore control over Be’eri (settlement) after admittedly shelling the homes of Israelis who had been taken captive."

An untold number of Israeli settlers were killed by the regime's own tanks. Much of the shelling in the area was carried out by Israeli tank crews. 

During a visit to Be’eri, a reporter for the Israeli foreign ministry-sponsored i24 News said:

"Small and quaint homes bombarded or destroyed, children's toys lying around, well-maintained lines of grass ripped up by the tracks of an armored vehicle, perhaps a tank."

"Perhaps a tank"! Who operated a tank on October 7? 

In other words, the Israeli military, in an act of desperation, decided to just kill everyone, including Israelis. 

This is why footage shows large shrapnel and bullet holes in the walls of destroyed homes in the Israeli settlements, while other homes were turned to rubble.

Equally important, this is why there were severely burned bodies of Israelis that the regime blamed on Hamas to justify its war on Gaza. 

During his speech last Friday, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, alluded to this and pointed out that more evidence will emerge in the future on how the Israeli military killed civilian settlers. 

It has been documented that the Israeli military used Apache helicopters on October 7. 

In an interview with Israeli media outlet Mako, an Apache pilot admitted that many of the cars he fired missiles at contained Israeli hostages. 

Among the mayhem, one Israeli military commander even ordered an airstrike on his own position.

The very first target that Hamas resistance fighters attacked was the Israeli Erez military checkpoint. 

The attack was so fierce that in an act of desperation, Israeli military commander Avi Rosenfeld called for an airstrike on his own position at the nearby Erez military base. 

Until today, Hamas says the Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip is killing Israeli hostages, whom it wants to free. 

The spokesman for the al-Qassam brigade, Abu Abeida, has repeatedly stated over the past weeks that the group wants to release non-Israeli combatants and other foreign hostages on humanitarian grounds but the regime's bombing of Gaza has made it impossible for them to do so. 

Many Israeli hostages have also spoken of the humane treatment they received from Hamas fighters.

The exact number of Israeli settlers killed by the Israeli military will not be known until the war is over, which may explain why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants the war on Gaza to stretch for "months" or "as long as needed" in order to escape prison. 

He will ultimately be held accountable for the regime's military and intelligence failure on October 7.

What is clear is that barbaric actions were committed by the regime's forces against its settler population. 

The Israeli regime is very similar to Daesh (not the other way round as the Israeli regime wants the world to believe). 

Israel and Daesh had common goals. The Israeli military set up field hospitals for the terrorist group in the occupied Syrian Golan heights for treatment, at a time when the resistance was defeating it. 

For Israelis, the truth is the biggest casualty in the regime's war on the besieged Gaza Strip.