[News] The evidence Israel killed its own citizens on 7 October

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156>
The evidence Israel killed its own citizens on 7 October

Asa Winstanley <https://electronicintifada.net/people/asa-winstanley> - 23
November 2023
------------------------------
[image: Collage: Israeli army officer and a destroyed building]

An Israeli veteran has admitted his forces may have killed Israelis.
Legacy Conversations/CNN

A retired Israeli army major has admitted Israel probably killed some of
the 1,200 Israelis the government claims Hamas murdered on 7 October.

The confession, discovered by The Electronic Intifada, is one of the
highest level confirmations to date that Israel killed many, if not most,
of the civilians that died during the Palestinian offensive.

On Saturday, it was revealed that an official Israel source had concluded
for the first time
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-helicopter-shot-civilians-7-october-rave-police-find>
that Israeli fire hit at least some Israelis.

This growing body of evidence undermines the official Israeli narrative of
savage Palestinian terrorists invading Israel bent on slaughtering
civilians. Hamas maintains
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-attacks-wipe-out-44-gaza-families>
that its targets were military and that it did not intentionally kill
civilians.

The Israeli officer’s admission came in a series of videos about 7 October
posted by Legacy Conversations
<https://www.legacy-conversations.org/>, an obscure
YouTube channel <https://www.youtube.com/@LegacyConversations> run by
military and police veterans of South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Their star guest is a South African-born man who settled
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=BzLM1nt_oyku0TJV&t=454&v=Fj4-ESduj_w&feature=youtu.be>
in Israel aged 18 and spent 29 years in the army. He took part in the 2006
invasion of Lebanon and the 2014 invasion of Gaza.

The veteran is named as “Major Graeme,” using the apparent pseudonyms
“Graeme Ipp” and
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Golani-Immigrant-Infantry-Officer/dp/B096TRTNNZ>
“Graeme I.”

In a video posted
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=zpnv-9GKNdg55QoQ&t=1768&v=sWL5DUDJfrE&feature=youtu.be>
only one week after 7 October, Major Graeme said that Israeli detainees in
Palestinian custody were “possibly killed by Israeli airstrikes when the
Israeli Air Force attacked vehicles that were returning into Gaza.”

Speaking almost two weeks before the start of Israel’s wider ground
incursion
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/un-votes-gaza-truce-israel-intensifies-strikes>
into northern Gaza, Major Graeme explained that after the airstrikes “there
was some bodies there that the special forces went and collected.”
If accurate, this account suggests that Israel is trying to cover up
evidence that – whether intentionally or otherwise – it killed its own
civilians on 7 October.

At the least the account underlines the urgent need for an international
investigation into what really happened on 7 October.

An anonymous group of Israelis has written an open letter
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/an-open-letter-to-israelis-from-israelis-we-deserve-the-truth-about-october-7/>
calling for an independent investigation. But Israel seems unlikely to
allow this, and appears to be covering up the evidence, burying some bodies
before they have been identified.

Israel also made no effort
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-war-and-urgent-need-to-id-bodies-evidence-of-hamass-october-7-rapes-slips-away/>
to collect forensic evidence from bodies supporting its allegations of rape
and sexual assault by Palestinians.

After more than three weeks of claiming
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/16/hamas-attack-israel/> that
“at least 1,400” Israelis had been killed, Israel on 10 November
officially revised
its death toll down
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-revises-death-toll-oct-7-hamas-attack-around-1200-2023-11-10/>
to “around 1,200.”

Israeli spokesperson Mark Regev last week inadvertently admitted that 200
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-admits-burning-hundreds-people-7-october>
of the dead “were so badly burnt we thought they were ours, in the end
apparently they were Hamas terrorists.”
This indicates that Israeli bombardment of the Gaza frontier settlements
was so intense and indiscriminate that they burned to death many Israeli
detainees along with the Palestinian fighters.

Major’s Graeme’s suggestion seems to be confirmed by an earlier, graphic
video posted by Israel of a bombed out car containing charred corpses.

Israel’s foreign ministry claimed that the video proved Hamas used the
“same tactics” as “ISIS terrorists.” The insinuation was that Hamas had
burned prisoners alive in the same way that ISIS burned a caged Jordanian
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/03/isis-video-jordanian-hostage-burdning-death-muadh-al-kasabeh>
pilot to death in 2015.

But the corpses in the video appear to have been instantly incinerated by a
massive bomb blast. Two of the incinerated corpses – likely Israeli
detainees – had been sitting in the back seat at the moment of impact. The
bodies appear frozen in seering, but instant, pain.

The car also shows signs of having been bombed from the air, with the roof
completely twisted and destroyed.
A video of several similar airstrikes
<https://twitter.com/idfonline/status/1710586299592081657> was posted
online by the Israeli military on the morning of 7 October. The post
claimed that the vehicles were “targets of the Hamas terrorist organization
in the Gaza Strip.”

If those vehicles contained Israeli detainees in the custody of Palestinian
fighters returning to Gaza, it is likely that all were killed by Israel –
but then added to the death toll of Israelis “murdered by Hamas.”

Since 7 October, a growing body of evidence has been reported in Hebrew
indicating that a significant though undetermined number of Israelis were
killed by Israeli forces during the 7 October assault.

These accounts have been reported in English primarily by independent
media, including The Electronic Intifada
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/38861>,
*Mondoweiss*
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/a-growing-number-of-reports-indicate-israeli-forces-responsible-for-israeli-civilian-and-military-deaths-following-october-7-attack/>,
*The Grayzone*
<https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/>
and *The Cradle*
<https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october>.

A key piece of such evidence was translated into English
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/shoot-everything-how-israeli-pilots-killed-their-own-civilians>
by The Electronic Intifada on 11 November.

Israeli outlet *Ynet* quoted
<https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b111niukzt> the commander of an
Israeli helicopter squadron
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=190_Squadron_(Israel)&oldid=1179438734>
who said that on 7 October the air force sent more than two dozen attack
helicopters – as well as Elbit drones – to shoot all along the Gaza
frontier using Hellfire missiles and machine guns.

According to *Ynet’s* account of a preliminary assessment by the air force,
“it was very difficult to distinguish between terrorists and [Israeli]
soldiers or civilians” but that he instructed his pilots “to shoot at
everything they see in the area of the fence” with Gaza anyway.

“The frequency of fire at the thousands of terrorists was enormous at the
start, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow their
attacks and carefully choose the targets,” the paper reported, citing an
Israeli Air Force investigation.

The justification for this apparently indiscriminate assault was “to stop
the deluge of terrorists and the murderous masses that flowed into Israeli
territory through the holes in the fence.”

But given that Palestinian fighters were returning to Gaza with Israeli
detainees at exactly the same time that other Palestinians were still
arriving from Gaza that day, shooting at “everything” in the area of the
fence would necessarily include Israeli detainees.

According to the air force, in the first four hours his pilots “attacked
about 300 targets, most in Israeli territory.”

The Supernova rave was also very close to the frontier fence – between it
and the nearby Israeli settlement of Kibbutz Be’eri.
Israel initially claimed
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/some-10-survivors-of-rave-massacre-committed-to-mental-health-hospitals-official/>
that 260 Israelis had died there. This number later rose to 364
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-18/ty-article/.premium/israeli-security-establishment-hamas-likely-didnt-have-prior-knowledge-of-nova-festival/0000018b-e2ee-d168-a3ef-f7fe8ca20000>.


On Saturday a police source confirmed for the first time that Israel had
killed some of its own people at the rave on 7 October

Israeli newspaper *Haaretz* reported that a police investigation had
concluded that
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-helicopter-shot-civilians-7-october-rave-police-find>
an Israeli “combat helicopter that arrived to the scene and fired at
terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants.”

A second anonymous police source
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-police-slams-haaretz-claim-idf-helicopter-may-have-harmed-civilians-on-oct-7/>
criticized *Haaretz* and appeared to row back the statement the following
day, but did not deny that Israel had killed some Israelis.

Israeli footage released <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed0-OxNO_bQ> the
same day as the *Ynet* article referred to above showed what the air force
claimed were attacks on “Palestinian terrorists infiltrating into Israel on
the morning of October 7.”

The footage seems to show wildly indiscriminate airstrikes on multiple
civilian cars, similar to the one shown in the graphic video of the
incinerated corpses, as well as machine gun fire on people fleeing and
walking on foot.

The plowed open field in the video looks very similar to other footage
posted online <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ83Q7tM4A0> of Israeli
rave-goers fleeing from the Supernova event.
[image: Israeli gun torrent footage shows a car in the crosshairs]

A civilian car along the Gaza frontier an instant before it was blown up by
the Israeli Air Force.
IAF

With Israel’s genocidal campaign against Gaza having claimed the lives of
at least 14,000 Palestinians
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker>,
Israeli detainees in Gaza have also fallen victim to Israel’s
indiscriminate bombing there.

The armed wing of Hamas says that
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/hamas-says-60-hostages-killed-in-israeli-airstrikes-on-gaza-strip-since-oct-7/3044060>
60 Israelis have been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza so far.

In the South African YouTube series, Major Graeme explains the military
rationale.

“With all the difficulty and the pain that a decision like that entails,
the Israeli army is continuing as if there are no hostages,” he said.
Israel “just cannot afford to … allow the Hamas to successfully use those
[Israeli] human shields … it’s not happening. So that’s it.”

He also said that “certain controls and limitations” on Israeli airstrikes
had been removed.

Major Graeme may have been referencing a longstanding
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/did-israeli-army-deliberately-kill-its-own-captured-soldier-and-destroy-gaza>
and secretive Israeli military doctrine known as the Hannibal Directive
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/hannibal-directive>, named after an
ancient Cartheaginian general
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hannibal-Carthaginian-general-247-183-BCE/Exile-and-death>
who poisoned himself rather than be captured.

Israel established the doctrine to discourage Arab resistance fighters
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/information-brief-history-israeli-arab-prisoner-exchanges/6096>
from capturing Israeli soldiers that could later be exchanged in negotiated
prisoner swaps. In 2011, Israel released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-israeli-soldier-worth-more-palestinian-child/10566>
in exchange for a single captured Israeli solider
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gilad-shalit>.

There was increased global scrutiny of the Hannibal Directive after it was
used to kill an Israeli soldier during the 2014 invasion of Gaza. In 2016
the Israeli army said that “the way the order as it is understood today”
would be canceled. “This move was not necessarily a full change in policy
but a clarification,” *The Times of Israel* reported
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-chief-puts-an-end-to-contentious-hannibal-protocol/>
.

But the doctrine now appears to have been revived.

Speaking in Hebrew to a *Haaretz* podcast
<https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/13145>, air force reserve Colonel Nof
Erez said that
<https://twitter.com/TheCradleMedia/status/1726625799737123024> what
happened near the fence was a “mass Hannibal” and that they had drilled
similar scenarios for 20 years.
[image: A women being interviewed by Israeli TV]

Yasmin Porat
Channel 12

Israeli ground forces also killed many Israeli civilians.

The first evidence to come to light was the testimony of Yasmin Porat, a
survivor of Kibbutz Be’eri, one of dozens of Israeli settlements along the
frontier with Gaza that Palestinian fighters assaulted on 7 October.

Porat’s account was given in Hebrew to Israeli radio, but went viral
internationally
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/watch-video-about-7-october-youtube-doesnt-want-you-see>
when The Electronic Intifada translated it into English on 16 October
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/38861>
.

An attendee of the Supernova rave, Porat escaped to nearby Be’eri soon
after the assault began.

She and about a dozen other Israelis were taken captive by Palestinian
fighters who, she insisted, “did not abuse us. They treated us very
humanely.”

Porat explained that their goal “was to kidnap us to Gaza. Not to murder
us.” The fighters apparently intended to release them after one day.

The detainees were permitted to sit outside to await the arrival of hostage
negotiators. The Palestinians, it seems, wanted a negotiated exit.

But with the arrival of special forces, known as the YAMAM, things quickly
went south.

The “negotiators” announced their presence with a hail of surprise gunfire.

“Suddenly there was a volley of bullets at us from the YAMAM. We all
started running to find cover,” Porat told Israeli TV.
[image: The rubble of a flattened building]

A building apparently flattened by Israeli shelling can be seen in a video
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/10/israel-hamas-attack-war-death/>
shot in Kfar Azza.
Washington Post

Porat insisted that the indiscriminate gunfire “eliminated everyone,
including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.” She
saw corpses on the ground.

The ensuing gun battle lasted half an hour, culminating in two tank shells
being shot into the house where they had been held. Porat herself only
survived because she had developed a connection with a Hebrew-speaking
Palestinian fighter who ultimately surrendered.

It seems that some unintentional “friendly fire” incidents occurred in the
chaotic Israeli response to the 7 October offensive.

But there are indications that the Israeli military’s slaughter of Israeli
civilians may also have been the result of calculated policy – or as Major
Graeme put it, “continuing as if there are no hostages.”

Lieutenant Colonel Salman Habaka rushed to Kibbutz Be’eri with two tanks
that morning.

“I arrived in Be’eri to see Brigadier General Barak Hiram and the first
thing he asks me is to fire a shell into a house,” he said, according to
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/02/israeli-tank-commander-hailed-as-hero-after-hamas-attack-is-killed-in-gaza>
*The
Guardian*. “We went from house to house to free the hostages. And that’s
how the fighting was until the evening. In the kibbutz and in the streets.”

The battle for Kibbutz Be’eri lasted for two days – ending only on the
evening of Monday 9 October.
[image: Collage shows four flattened buildings]

Photos posted online
<http://(https//twitter.com/Israel/status/1712065106052300845> by
Israel and a video posted <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnnnyejCL6c> by *The
Telegraph *show multiple buildings in Kibbutz Be’eri that seem to have been
shelled by Israel.
Israel MFA/Telegraph

During that time, according to
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/38861>
*Haaretz* (in an article which, again, was only published in Hebrew) the
Israeli commanders in Be’eri “made difficult decisions – including shelling
houses with all their occupants inside in order to eliminate the terrorists
along with the hostages.”

This suggests there was a calculated decision by Israeli officers to
“eliminate” the Israeli detainees rather than let them fall into
Palestinian hands in Gaza where they could be used as leverage in prisoner
negotiations.

According
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/it-was-a-pogrom-beeri-survivors-horrific-attack-hamas-terrorists>
to *The Guardian*, 108 residents of Kibbutz Be’eri were killed during the
assault. “The bodies of the dead,” the newspaper explained after an
army-led media tour on 10 October, “were brought and laid out to await
collection” in the kibbutz’s communal dining hall.

But according to <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWL5DUDJfrE&t=1542s>
Major Graeme in the 15 October YouTube video, “a large number” of Israeli
detainees were initially held alive by Hamas in the Be’eri dining hall.

“The dining room was stormed by the special forces,” he explained. “From
what I understand, the majority of the hostages were killed in this attempt
to rescue them. They only rescued four … I think it was 14 who were killed”
there.

Israel’s brutal and indiscriminate military tactics in Kibbutz Be’eri were
repeated in other Gaza frontier settlements.
The Electronic Intifada conducted a review of every video and photo posted
to X (formerly Twitter) between 7 and 27 October by three official Israeli
accounts: @Israel, @IDF and @IsraelMFA. We also conducted an extensive
review of mainstream media reports about the assault on Kibbutz Be’eri and
other Gaza frontier settlements.

We found a wealth of visual evidence to back up the accounts of Yasmin
Porat and others that the Israeli military attacked their own settlements.

These important indications that Israel killed its own civilians are
usually buried beneath layers of official Israeli atrocity propaganda
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/biden-lied-about-seeing-photos-beheaded-israeli-children>
blaming Hamas.

The Israeli army treated the frontier settlement of Kfar Azza (Hebrew for
“Gaza Village”) in a similarly brutal fashion as Kibbutz Be’eri.

A video report posted
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/10/israel-hamas-attack-war-death/>
by *The Washington Post* on 10 October briefly revealed two destroyed
buildings in the settlement, both of which appear to have been shelled by
tanks.

Israel says that Hamas fighters burned down buildings in the settlements.
Although other buildings in the video do appear to have been burned out, at
least two of the destroyed buildings have instead been reduced wholly or
partly to rubble.

One has been almost totally flattened, in a strikingly similar fashion to
the Israeli airstrikes currently annihilating Gaza.

The video is far <https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1711789795771351402> from
<https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1712263220000334282> unique
<https://twitter.com/IsraelMFA/status/1716389870510170141>.

The extent of the destruction cannot be adequately explained by fires or by
the light weaponry
<https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1715617136284946879> that Palestinian
fighters were armed with
<https://twitter.com/nadav_markman/status/1713845407732646083/photo/4> that
day – rifles, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and, in a few cases,
truck-mounted machine guns.

By contrast, it can be explained by the type of weaponry known to have been
used by Israel: tank shells, Hellfire missiles fired from more than two
dozen Apache helicopters.

These helicopters are also armed with 30mm machine guns which fire shells
each of which is “like a hand grenade
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/shoot-everything-how-israeli-pilots-killed-their-own-civilians>”
as Israel’s *Ynet* put it. These devastating guns designed to destroy tanks
and capable of firing about 600 rounds per minute, are seen demonstrated in
the video above.

On 7 October, “28 fighter helicopters shot over the course of the day all
of the ammunition in their bellies, in renewed runs to rearm,” *Ynet*
reported.
Israel’s human shields

Why did Hamas strike at Kibbutz Be’eri and 21 other
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/12/hamas-planning-terror-gaza-israel/>
Israeli settlements, bases and military outposts in the first place?

To understand that we have to consider both immediate history and the past
141 years
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/nakba-75-job-israeli-settler-colonialism-never-done>
of expulsion and genocide perpetrated by the Zionist colonization project
in Palestine.

Not only are Israel’s frontier settlements all built on Palestinian land
<https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1654492>, but they are often
also used as bases to station troops fighting in Israel’s recurring
military assaults on Gaza.

In his book
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Golani-Immigrant-Infantry-Officer/dp/B096TRTNNZ>,
*My Golani* Major Graeme explained how, in 1995, he and his army unit were
stationed in “our quarters at Kibbutz Kfar Azza.”

During Israel’s war against Lebanon in July 2006, he was ordered to take
his battalion to Kibbutz Sassa in the north. During Israel’s 2014 attack on
Gaza – which killed 2,251 people, including 551 children – his brigade’s
forward headquarters was based “not far from the kibbutzim of Kissufim and
Ein Hashlosha,” both next to the Gaza fence and both assaulted on 7 October.

The reason the Gaza frontier settlements were founded in the first place
was to contain and repress the massive civilian population around Gaza,
most of whom, since 1948, are now refugees. These settlements – including
the allegedly socialist kibbutzes
<https://www.asawinstanley.com/2010/10/our-dreams/> – have always been an
integral part of Israel’s military strategy.

As *Haaretz* correspondent and Kibbutz Nahal Oz resident Amir Tibon
explained
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-08/ty-article/.premium/israels-war-with-hamas-one-month-into-the-conflict-what-lies-ahead/0000018b-aeaa-d3c1-a39b-beeb5d510000>
recently, “we protect the border, and [the government] protect us.”

The kibbutzes are effectively human shields for Israel.

One of them, founded in 1951
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magen,_Israel&oldid=1183524651>,
is even named “Magen” – literally Hebrew for “Shield.”

Magen <https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1654492>, and three other
kibbutzes
<https://mondoweiss.net/2020/09/the-long-journey-of-a-refugee-trying-to-return-home-salman-abu-sittas-memoir/>,
were built on the land of the destroyed Palestinian village of Ma’in Abu
Sitta
<https://prc.org.uk/en/post/4227/historian-abu-sitta-right-of-return-sacred-for-palestinian-refugee-descendents>.
Prominent Palestinian historian Salman Abu Sitta was in 1948 forced out of
the village by Zionist forces
<https://mondoweiss.net/2020/09/the-long-journey-of-a-refugee-trying-to-return-home-salman-abu-sittas-memoir/>
aged 10.
[image: A group of armed men]

A unit of the Palmach assembled at Kibbutz Be’eri in 1948. During the
Nakba, the Palmach and other Zionist militias expelled about 800,000
Palestinians. (Wikipedia)
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Be%27eri_i.jpg>

What explains Israel’s willingness – indeed, its desire – to see Israelis
killed rather than end up in Palestinian custody?

It starts at the top.

Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich urged
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/israeli-man-waits-for-news-of-10-relatives-caught-in-beeri-kibbutz-attack>
the cabinet soon after 7 October to “hit Hamas brutally and not take the
matter of the captives into significant consideration.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with family members of Israelis in
Palestinian detention soon after. The group pressured him to negotiate. But
four unknown people suddenly joined the meeting. One reportedly
<https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bje4makba> said that he was ready to
pay with the life of his captive daughter.

It later turned out <https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b11hqicwp> that
the mystery visitors were West Bank settlers planted by Netanyahu’s office.
Israeli journalist Noga Tarnopolsky named
<https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1714321254042194157> the man as
the leader of a far-right organization, who, she said
<https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1717651382692417886>, had no
captive daughter.

In a video report that was widely viewed online CNN’s Clarissa Ward
tearfully
<https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/kibbutz-beeri-israel-war-intl-cmd/index.html>
interviewed Tom Hand, an Irish-born settler
<https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/10/18/can-you-imagine-the-sheer-horror-for-an-eight-year-old-tom-hand-tells-of-grief-at-daughter-emilys-death/>
who arrived in Be’eri 30 years ago. A distraught Hand recounted his elation
after being told by Israeli authorities that his eight-year-old daughter
Emily had been found dead.

“I went ‘Yes!’ and smiled … if you know anything about what they do to
people in Gaza, that is worse than death.”

Israeli authorities later changed their assessment. Thankfully, Emily is now
thought to be alive
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/emily-hand-8-irish-israeli-said-killed-on-oct-7-now-believed-to-be-gaza-hostage/>
.

Another resident of Kibbutz Be’eri made an equally grim resolution. Or
Yelin – the son of a former local council leader – told Israel’s
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=T03XEMeBRaQP2AMT&t=248&v=ZOfVrfVaQ28&feature=youtu.be>
i24 News channel that he and his wife agreed that they would rather he stab
her to death with a kitchen knife than be captured alive by Hamas.

All this is backed to the hilt by the United States government.

President Joe Biden has reportedly indicated
<https://apnews.com/article/biden-west-bank-settlers-israel-hamas-war-0a2f38878720c962a20d9286315cde94>
to Netanyahu that the return of the Israeli prisoners alive – even those
who are US citizens – is very much optional.

“What I have indicated to him is that if that’s possible, to get these
folks out safely, that’s what he should do. It’s their decision,” Biden
said.
The villa in the jungle

Who really was responsible for the civilian deaths in Kibbutz Be’eri and
the other frontier settlements is no abstract historical question.

Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza has wiped about 14,000 Palestinians off
the face of the earth so far. Some 40 percent are children.

The United States and most European governments are fully backing this
genocide.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell visited the remains
of Kibbutz Be’eri for an Israeli army propaganda tour last week. The
Spanish socialist actually volunteered
<https://aurora-israel.co.il/feroz-con-israel-y-carinoso-con-iran-preocupacion-en-jerusalen-por-el-inminente-nombramiento-de-borrell-en-la-ue/>
on a kibbutz decades ago.

“Nothing justifies killing women, children, elderly people or abducting
them from their homes,” he said.
The man who infamously divided
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/eu-josep-borrell-europe-garden-built-on-plunder-jungle>
the planet between Europe’s “garden” and the “jungle” of the rest of the
world was lending his support to the Israeli entity, the self-proclaimed
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/jewish-majority-israel-villa-in-the-jungle>
“villa in the jungle.”

He had no regard for the dead women, children and elderly of Palestine, not
to mention the men. Neither did he mention the nearly 7,000 Palestinians
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-using-its-national-anthem-noise-torture-against-detainees>
currently being held hostage in Israeli jails, many without charge or trial.

The armed rebellion of the Palestinians to their oppression was portrayed
as profane, irrational violence
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/hopeful-pathologies-in-the-war-for-palestine-a-reply-to-adam-shatz/>
rather than a well-planned military offensive
<https://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/an-unyielding-will-to-continue>
in the Palestinian
war for liberation
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/just-another-battle-or-palestinian-war-liberation/38661>
.

They broke the rules of both the “garden” and the “villa.”

Or Yelin’s father Haim took similar umbrage to the resistance: “They walked
around Be’eri like they owned the place,” the former leader of the local
regional council said
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/kibbutz-beeri-bloodbath-reminds-israelis-of-fears-and-fortitudes-from-1948/>
.

That the sons of the Gaza Strip – 80 percent of whose people are the
descendents of refugees from Israel’s 1948 Nakba of the Palestinians – do
actually own the land he lives on never seemed to occur to him.

Speaking on Israeli TV recently
<https://twitter.com/davidsheen/status/1721877338437431574>, another Be’eri
resident spelled out the genocidal logic of Zionism in stark terms.

“I’ll return to Be’eri only when the last Palestinian is annihilated. I
don’t care if it’s children, elderly, people on crutches that came to
pillage, I don’t care. At this moment I have mercy for no one.”

“It’s just us. Just us.”

*With additional research by Ali Abunimah, Michael F. Brown, Tamara Nassar,
Jon Elmer, Maureen Murphy and Refaat Alareer.*

*Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist and associate editor with
The Electronic Intifada.*
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