Hamas terrorists allegedly killed at least 40 babies and young children, with some reportedly beheaded and their families gunned down in a small Israeli kibbutz, according to claims made by terrified Israeli soldiers. The shocking incident happened on Tuesday near the Gaza border, according to Israeli officers and reporters.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military regained control of the besieged village. Subsequently, their soldiers were confronted with the emotionally challenging task of retrieving the bodies of numerous victims. Armed with firearms, grenades, and knives, Hamas militants brutally killed men, women, children, and babies in their beds during an assault that took place early on a Saturday morning after crossing the border.
Mercilessly Killing Babies
Around 70 Hamas terrorists, condemned as 'animals' and deemed 'worse than Isis' by the Israeli army, attacked the typically peaceful Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel. They were heavily armed with machine guns and grenades, engaging in indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children.
In the aftermath, the kibbutz grounds were marred by bullet-riddled bodies of Israeli residents amidst the ruins of burnt homes, scattered furniture, and charred vehicles. On Tuesday, solemn Israeli soldiers moved through the devastated area, collecting and removing scores of victims of the horrifying massacre.
"It's hard to even explain exactly just the mass casualties that happened right here," expressed a visibly distressed i24 News correspondent, Nicole Zedek, while reporting from Kibbutz Kfar Aza near Sderot, located around a quarter-mile from the Gaza Strip.
"Babies with their heads cut off, that's what [the soldiers] said. Gunned down. Families gunned down, completely gunned down in their beds," Zedek said of the "sheer horror.
"This is nothing that anyone would have even imagined," she said.
CNN's senior correspondent Nic Robertson, dressed in a military helmet and protective flak jacket, said, "There were so many murdered members of this Kibbutz.
"Men, women, children, hands bound, shot, executed, heads cut," he said.
French journalist Margot Haddat emphasized in a translated tweet, "It's so macabre that no one wanted to reveal it until they had 100 percent confirmation."
"It is a horror, a massacre. For those asking for the source. They are multiple: Israeli army, internal intelligence service and atrocious images which reached me and which I was able to cross-check," she said. "But the best source remains this: courageous journalists from the foreign press who were able to see / agreed to see with their own eyes the bodies in Kfar Aza."
Complete Macabre
On the scene, soldiers recounted to i24News correspondent Nicole Zedek the harrowing sight of infants' lifeless bodies next to their cribs, with their heads tragically severed—a grim testament to the appalling actions of the terrorists since their assault on Israel began on Saturday.
IDF soldiers, taken to the scene of this horrific event, disclosed to i24News that as many as 40 babies and young children had lost their lives. Heart-wrenching visuals from the site depicted a baby's crib drenched in blood, alongside a tiny bloodied dress.
The Israeli soldiers grappled with consoling one another after bearing witness to such horrors, including the devastating loss of entire families who had been mercilessly shot in their beds.
"You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms and how the terrorist kills them. It's not a war, it's not a battlefield. It's a massacre, it's a terror activity," said Israeli Major General Itai Veruv from the horrific scene.
'It is something that I never saw in my life. It's something that we used to imagine from our grandfathers, grandmothers in the pogrom in Europe and other places. It's not something that happens in new history.'
As the troops showed media the kibbutz, which is well-liked by families, there was a stench of dead bodies in the air. On a patch of grass, there were some small football nets where kids would have played. But in the distance, bodies of families were on the ground.
A resident's body was wrapped in a purple sheet outside one of the kibbutz's modest homes, with a bare foot sticking out. Other items from the residence were spread, including a pillow.
The gunmen's remains were found somewhere, face down on the ground. The location of the shooters' entrance was indicated by a shattered gate at the kibbutz's boundary.
Kfar Aza was among several Israeli kibbutzim targeted by Hamas over the weekend. Extremist militants crossed from Gaza into southern Israel, initiating a relentless spate of violence that escalated into a full-fledged war between the two factions.
Around 70 Hamas militants are suspected to have perpetrated the heinous acts at Kfar Aza, employing firearms, grenades, and knives, as reported by i24 News.
As of Tuesday evening local time, the death toll in Israel is estimated to be around 1,100, with over 2,000 wounded.
In Gaza, Palestinian civilians have been enduring retaliatory airstrikes by the IDF, resulting in a devastating toll. At least 830 Gazans have lost their lives, and tragically, a significant number of them are young children.
