U.S. and international media outlets are repeating unsubstantiated claims that Palestinian fighters “beheaded” babies. These unverified assertions aren’t just sloppy journalism — they are being used to justify a massacre.

U.S. and international media outlets are repeating unsubstantiated claims that Palestinian fighters “beheaded” babies. These unverified assertions aren’t just sloppy journalism — they are being used to justify a massacre.

One story has been dominating the U.S. and international media cycle for the past 24 hours. It has been repeated by pro-Israel activists, Israeli government officials, reporters, and anchors throughout the U.S. media and even alluded to by the President. The thing is — this story has not been confirmed in any way. It appears to come from a single source with a history of espousing calls for genocidal violence against Palestinians.

You have probably heard the story that Hamas fighters beheaded 40 Israeli children in the Kfar Aza community near Gaza. This story can be traced back to an article by Bel Trew, a reporter for The Independent. Trew entered Kfar Aza on October 10, soon after the Israeli army, and reported on Twitter that gunfire erupted just as they arrived. She is told by a member of the Israeli military that children were beheaded, but the article notes, “The Independent did not see evidence of this.”

The military source of this claim is Major David Ben Zion. According to his Twitter bio, he is the Deputy Head of the settler leadership organization, the Samaria Regional Council, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Fund for Israel, a quasi-governmental agency used to acquire land in Palestine that is then made available exclusively for use by the Israeli state.

In this video clip, Ben Zion speaks directly to the camera. He says the soldiers found children with their heads cut off. He is incorrectly named on-screen in the video but is correctly named in the description below the video on YouTube.

In addition to his role in settler leadership, Ben Zion has a history of calls to genocidal violence.

Earlier this year, Israeli settlers carried out a so-called “reprisal attack” on the Palestinian village of Huwwara after an unknown Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli settlers. As we reported at the time, Israeli settlers launched a ‘pogrom’ on the night of February 26, attacking Palestinian homes and property in Huwwara, Burin, and across the Nablus area, burning houses, cars, vandalizing property, and assaulting Palestinians.

read more: https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/there-is-no-proof-palestinian-fighters-beheaded-babies-the-only-source-is-a-radical-settler/

archive: https://archive.ph/AUb6K

  • Argonne@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    Don’t be afraid to click the link. I wish you would do that before blindly accusing me of misinformation.The confirmation comes from the Israeli government

    The office of Israel’s Prime Minister confirms that Israeli soldiers found beheaded babies in the Kfar Aza Kibbutz

    • treeOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      you have no media literacy or you are engaging in bad faith

      they say explicitly the sources are unamed soldiers and there was no further verification other than what the soldiers claimed, is that solid evidence for you

      Later on Tuesday, IDF spokesman Major Nir Dinar told Insider that Israeli soldiers came across the bodies of babies, including some that had been decapitated, at the Kfar Aza kibbutz near the Israel-Gaza border.

      Dinar said the IDF “can not confirm any numbers,” but described the situation at the kibbutz as a “massacre” in which children were “brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action.”

      Insider has not been able to independently verify these claims.

      The claim sparked outrage and skepticism on social media. On Wednesday, after pressure to provide evidence of the grisly claim, Dinar told Insider the IDF would not further investigate the claims and that doing so would be “disrespectful for the dead.”

      “We’re not going to investigate the condition of bodies and even if we did we won’t comment publicly about the condition of our civilians’ bodies. And babies,” he said.

      Dinar said the claim of decapitated babies was made based on what soldiers on the ground had relayed to him and others in the military.

      “Let your readers know that a soldier who handled the bodies, that was his claim,” he said. “I don’t have an evidence and I’m not looking for one.”

      This certainly does not sound like evidence “I don’t have an evidence and I’m not looking for one.” is Business Insider misquoting them? and it seems like they aren’t in a rush to look into it either,

      imagine if we just believed everything about the Ukraine war that Russian soldiers told the Russian army spokesman, I’m gonna guess for some reason you wouldn’t trust Russian soldiers saying similar things about Azov, but you implicitly trust the heresay of IDF fighters about Hamas, maybe consider where your information is coming from and whether it is verified by any remotely credible source