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- cross-posted to:
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In the first and critical days of the war, the IDF decided to forego the deployment of hundreds of soldiers specifically trained in the identification and collection of human remains in mass casualty incidents. Instead, the Home Front Command chose to use Zaka, a private organization, alongside soldiers in the Military Rabbinate’s search unit
“We saw a woman, around 30 years old, [and] she was lying on the floor in a large puddle of blood, facing the ground,” said a Zaka volunteer tearfully in an account posted on Zaka’s social media accounts. "We turned her over in order to place her into the bag “She was pregnant,” he added and stopped to take a breath. “Her stomach was swollen, and the baby was still attached by the umbilical cord when it was stabbed, and she was shot in the back of the head. I don’t know if she suffered and saw her baby murdered or not.”
This horrific incident, which the Zaka volunteer alleged occurred in Be’eri, simply didn’t happen, and was one of several stories that have been circulated without any basis. There is no evidence for this incident, and no one in the kibbutz has heard of this woman. A Zaka senior official admitted in a conversation with Haaretz that the organization knows the incident didn’t occur.
The organization has been accused of spreading false information before. In December 2022, Haaretz reported that Zaka had inflated its stated number of volunteers for years in order to receive more funding.
Also it’s pretty clear that the rave was not a target, Hamas had no idea it was there. The vast majority of civilians killed there were probably caught in the cross fire rather than targetted. There’s very clear video evidence of IDF soldiers using civilians as human shields. There’s also accounts of Hamas asking in which direction is the nearby military base. Most of the original targets were in fact military and police. Something that according to international law is perfectly legal to attack during an illegal occupation (something the UN has recognized multiple times).
The rave was officially already over that day it was not possible that that was even a target. Israeli officials gave the rave permission to extend it the day before. According to the planning the rave was not supposed to be there anymore on 7 October.
Hamas’ goals seemed to be to take israeli hostages and POW’s and trade them for Palestinian hostages and POW’s. And attack military bases to kill IDF soldiers.
But there are multiple instances of Hamas fighters shooting non-combatants on camera which is bad.