One of the many gut-wrenching, sickening stories from the Israel-Hamas conflict is accounts of Hamas terrorists beheading Israeli babies.
There have been many conflicting reports on the accuracy of this story.
The first claim of Hamas beheading Israeli babies came from Israeli-based i24NEWS on Tuesday.
Correspondent Nicole Zedek took the word of Israeli soldiers with no physical evidence to back the claims.
Watch:
Fox News and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk shared the report without verification of its accuracy.
“NOTE: As with all wartime reporting, it’s important to remember there are lots of errors and misinformation swirling. But if it’s confirmed to be true, it’s one of the most atrocious wartime acts you’ll ever hear of,” Kirk said.
“Then why report it as fact if you don’t know it to be true yet? The disclaimer needs to be in the original post that none of this is confirmed,” War Clandestine commented.
French journalist Margot Haddad, a former CNN international news field producer, claims she verified the story.
“That’s it, the information is out. It’s so macabre that no one wanted to reveal it until they had 100% confirmation. Infants and children under 2 years old were beheaded by Hamas in the Kibbutz of Kfar Aza. 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. 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,” she said (translated).
However, there are questions about the reliability of Haddad as an unbiased source.
“Margot Haddad, affiliated with National Endowment for Democracy-funded Coda Story, claims to “confirm” beheaded babies story, citing Israeli intelligence, soldiers, other foreign reporters and photos she claimed to have fact checked. Where are the photos, Margot? Or are you lying?” said Redacted correspondent Dan Cohen.
The Grayzone reported in 2020:
A shadowy neoconservative website called Coda Story has launched a smear campaign against American journalists who challenge new cold war propaganda. But what this publication has not disclosed is that it is funded by the US government, backed by the European Union, linked to the NATO war alliance, and part of a larger network of regime-change outfits that are bankrolled by Western governments and corporate oligarchs.
Launched in 2016, Coda Story markets itself as a brave counterweight to Chinese and Russian state-backed “disinformation.” This is quite ironic, because the website is itself financed by the regime-change arms of the US government and the European Union, and peddles disinformation of its own in support of Washington’s new cold war on Beijing and Moscow.
Multiple mainstream media outlets claimed to confirm the story, including CNN.
However, other media outlets said they could not confirm the claim.
Turkish state-media outlet Anadolu reported that the Israeli army said they have no confirmation regarding the allegations.
Sky News explained they had not seen any evidence of the allegations and asked the Israeli Defense Forces three times to confirm the reports.
According to The Grayzone, they identified a “key source” of the claim that Hamas terrorists beheaded Israeli babies.
“He is David Ben Zion, an Israeli soldier & extremist settler leader who incited violent riots by calling to ‘wipe out’ Palestinians earlier this year,” The Grayzone wrote.
Per The Grayzone:
An international outcry erupted when Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced that Palestinian militants from the besieged Gaza Strip had killed 40 “babies,” and beheaded several of them during an incursion into Kfar Aza, a kibbutz on the Gaza border. President Joseph Biden repeated the inflammatory claim during an October 10 White House Rose Garden address, while networks across the West carried the story without a shred of critical scrutiny.
According to CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, apparently citing Israeli military sources, Palestinian militants carried out, “ISIS-style executions,” in which they were “cutting the heads off of people,” including babies and pets.
The Grayzone has now identified a key source of the claim that Palestinian militants beheaded Israeli babies. He is David Ben Zion, a Deputy Commander of Unit 71 of the Israeli army who also happens to be an extremist settler leader who incited violent riots against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank earlier this year.
In an October 10 interview with reporter Nicole Zedek of the Israeli state-sponsored i24 network, Ben Zion stated, “We walked door to door, we killed a lot of terrorists. They are very bad. They cut heads of children, they cut heads of women. But we are stronger than them.”
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“CNN has long been known as one of the most egregious offenders when it comes to manufacturing consent for the state,” WLTReport wrote.
“Several days ago, the outlet chose to spread the narrative that the Israeli government discovered and confirmed that they found more than 40 beheaded babies purportedly killed by Hamas. Now, that same journalist has completely backtracked on her earlier claims.”
UPDATE: “40 Beheaded Babies” Journalist Backtracks, Issues Correction
“Yesterday the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said that it had confirmed Hamas beheaded babies & children while we were live on the air. The Israeli government now says today it CANNOT confirm babies were beheaded. I needed to be more careful with my words and I am sorry,” Sara Sidner said.
“Yesterday the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said that it had confirmed Hamas beheaded babies & children while we were live on the air. The Israeli government now says today it CANNOT confirm babies were beheaded. I needed to be more careful with my words and I am sorry,” Sara Sidner said.
“The words I used were the PM’s office must have proof if they are confirming this. Then President Biden confirmed seeing it. And then backed tracked,” she added.
CNN issued the correction in this follow-up piece:
The Israeli government has not confirmed the specific claim that Hamas attackers cut off the heads of babies during their shock attack on Saturday, an Israeli official told CNN, contradicting a previous public statement by the Prime Minister’s office.
“There have been cases of Hamas militants carrying out beheadings and other ISIS-style atrocities.
However, we cannot confirm if the victims were men or women, soldiers or civilians, adults or children,” the official said.