FACT-CHECK: 40 Babies Killed and Decapitated?

I have said it multiple times this week and I’ll say it again: this is one of the most insidious and devious propaganda wars I have ever seen in my career covering the news.

They’ve set up a situation where you cannot possibly take any position other than “we blindly support Israel no matter what”.

Of course I support Israel, always have and always will.

But I’m not sure I support the FF and propaganda they are trying to force on the world right now.

In contrast, I don’t support ANYTHING from Hamas, it’s an evil organization.

But even in the midst of those two statements, (1) I support Israel 100%, and (2) I do not support any part of Hamas….even so, there are things that don’t add up.

It doesn’t pass any logical “smell test” that Israel had no intelligence on these attacks.

Sorry, that’s impossible.

Then there was a 6-hour delay in their response.

Are you kidding me?

Patrick Bet-David asked this morning on his podcast whether there was a stand-down order given, and I think that’s a fair question.

Why would you ever do that, you ask?

Simple: you want to be brought into a war.

You want to be given justification on the world stage for wiping out your enemy.

You can’t strike first, then you’re the aggressor.

PBD is about as mainstream and level-headed as they come.

Here he is asking if a stand-down order was given:

“They’re live streaming the killing of jews. Was somebody in the government said ‘stand down’? That’s a legitimate non conspiracy question…”@charliekirk11 gives his thoughts on Israel Palestine war and talks about why he is suspicious about Israel government. (EP 314) pic.twitter.com/whtlHz4214

— PBD Podcast (@PBDsPodcast) October 12, 2023

And that brings me to the reports of 40 babies being killed and decapitated.

No one is going to debate that’s probably the most horrible thing you could think of.

But….did it happen?

And if it didn’t, why is that story circulating?

Is it yet another part of this story designed to bring the USA into a brand new, longstanding war?

Some people act like it isn’t possible to hold all of these positions equally, but I’ve been doing this for too long and I can spot patterns pretty easily at this point.

I’ve seen this story before.

They’ve used the “beheaded babies” storyline before….remember this?

Biden explains why they lied about babies in incubators and beheaded babies. pic.twitter.com/ktE29HhKMz

— Syrian Girl 🇸🇾🎗 (@Partisangirl) October 12, 2023

I refuse to allow Fake News and FF’s and Propaganda to draw us into a new war in the Middle East.

A lot of people are acting like you can’t hold all of these beliefs together, but I do and I will continue to advocate for: 1️⃣ I support Israel 100%, I bless Israel, I stand with them, I pray for them, I honor them as commanded in the Bible, 2️⃣ I support NOTHING done by Hamas, it’s an evil group, period, point blank, and also 3️⃣ I refuse to let Fake News, False Flags and/or Propaganda lure us into a long and expensive and deadly war. We can’t afford it monetarily and we can’t afford the loss of life of Americans.

Those three positions CAN and DO go together and I will continue to say all three of them.

Which leads me to the story of 40 decapitated babies.

It started with Joe Biden saying he’d seen the decapitated babies:

Joe Biden says he's seen images of Israeli babies decapitated by Hamas:

"I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children." pic.twitter.com/EwVWzUFXQj

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) October 11, 2023

The NY Post ran with the story:

President Biden said Wednesday he has seen “confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children” in southern Israel following reports that up to 40 babies were butchered over the weekend near the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip — but the White House later walked back the commander-in-chief’s claim.

“I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children. I never thought I’d ever — anyway,” Biden, 80, told leaders of Jewish groups at the White House on Wednesday.

But neither the president nor US officials have seen images or heard independently confirmed reports of beheaded children, a White House spokesperson later clarified, according to the Washington Post.

The White House says Biden based his remark on claims made by a spokesman for Israel’s prime minister and media reports coming out of the Jewish state.

The sickening reports emerged Tuesday as the Israeli military offered journalists tours of areas ravaged by Hamas’ Saturday morning surprise attack, which left more than 1,200 civilians and Israeli troops dead and about 150 believed abducted — with at least 22 Americans dead and 17 others still unaccounted for.

A senior White House national security aide told reporters immediately following the event that he had not seen the images to which Biden was referring.

But almost immediately the story was walked back as outlet after outlet issued clarifications:

It’s now widely reported that the story was “Fake News”:

🇮🇱🇵🇸 The “beheaded babies” story was all FAKE NEWS from the warpigs! pic.twitter.com/H2PQx9I6F2

— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) October 12, 2023

But here’s where it gets twisted….

So many people will see me run this article and act like I’m siding with Hamas.

Pure nonsense!

I am doing nothing of the sort.

I am taking a position AGAINST THE FAKE NEWS and AGAINST PROPAGANDA designed to start a new war.

We can’t handle a new war.

The War Machine has been itching for a new war ever since President Trump starved them out for 4 years.

Can’t you see it?

It’s so obvious.

But the Neocon Warmongers like Birdbrain Nikki Haley are very upset:

Seems like to me a lot of people were upset to find out the report of 40 babies being beheaded was actually false.

— Vision4theBlind (@Vision4theBlind) October 12, 2023

In a rare turn of events, I’m going to end this article with a cite to CheckYourFact:

Update, 10/12/2023: This article’s headline has been changed to reflect that this story relies on developing information, instead of a definitive fact-check. We will update this article as more information becomes available.

Viral claims that Hamas, the Islamist terrorist organization that governs the Gaza Strip, beheaded babies during its attack on Israel have spread over social media.

Where Did These Claims Originate From?

The claim appears to originate from a report from i24 News correspondent Nicole Zedek. Zedek reported that Hamas killed dozens of Israeli civilians in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, including babies. She cited Israeli soldiers, who told her that Hamas had beheaded babies.

“I’m talking to some of the soldiers and they say what they’ve witnessed as they’ve been walking through these different houses… Babies, their heads cut off, that’s what they said. Families gunned down in their beds,” Zedek reported.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Major Gen. Itai Veruv told reporters that a “massacre” occurred at Kfar Aza.

“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,” Veruv said.

President Joe Biden claimed to have seen pictures of beheaded children, but Biden administration officials walked back the claim and said he was referring to Israeli reports, according to NBC News.

Was This Report Confirmed?

Sky’s chief correspondent Stuart Ramsey interviewed two IDF majors when he visited Kfar Aza and neither said to Ramsey that they saw beheaded babies.

“At no point did either he, or the other major I spoke to, ever mention that Hamas had beheaded or killed 40 babies or children. I believe that if it were the case, they would have told me and others there,” Ramsey said.

Ramsay stated he saw “stretcher-bearers bringing out a small child and a basketball court with bodies lined up in black body bags,” when he visted Kfar Aza. (RELATED: Fact Checking Videos, Images And Posts From The October Hamas Attack On Israel)

“We cannot confirm any numbers. What happened in Kibbutz Kfar Aza is a massacre in which women, children and toddlers and elderly were brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action,” the IDF told Sky News in a statement.

An Israeli official told CNN that the government could not confirm if babies had been beheaded. An IDF spokesperson told Business Insider that the military would not investigate reports of beheaded babies because it 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’s bodies. And babies,” the spokesperson said to Business Insider and pointed to an Israeli soldier telling i24 News that he saw beheaded children and women.

Hamas has reportedly rejected the claims of the actions on their website, according to The New Arab. “We categorically affirm the falsehood of the fabricated allegations promoted by some Western media outlets,” the statement read. “The latest of which was the claim of killing children, beheading them, and targeting civilians.”

Who Corroborated This Report?

French journalist Margot Haddad tweeted that she had seen images and videos of beheaded babies and that Israeli military and intelligence sources had told her that Hamas had beheaded children.

“Finally it’s said. This journalistic war is UNSUPPORTABLE in these circumstances. As I said on LCI yesterday in complete transparency – 3 sources: 2 high-ranking soldiers on the SOUTH field & 1 member of Shin Beth confirmed to me the beheading of children without giving me any figures. That’s also what it’s like to be a reporter in times of conflict when the news is so hot: journalists don’t have the same sources and STILL HAPPY. NO confirmation of the NUMBER,” Haddad tweeted. She added,” As for the videos of beheadings and photos of baby bodies in Kfar Aza, I have them in my possession and I will say it one last time: No. Never. I will NEVER broadcast these images.”

An IDF spokesperson told CBS News that Israeli soldiers had seen “beheaded children of varying ages, ranging from babies to slightly older children.” Yossi Landau, a leader in the civilian search and rescue organization ZAKA, said to CBS News that he had personally seen beheaded babies and children.

“I saw a lot more that cannot be described for now, because it’s very hard to describe,” Landau said.

IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said during an update that Hamas did behead babies, citing eyewitness accounts and CBS News’s reporting.

“We got very very disturbing reports that came from the ground that there had been babies that had been beheaded. I admit it took us some time to really understand and to verify that report, and it was hard to believe that even Hamas could perform such a barbaric act,” Conricus said. He added, “I think we can now say, with relative confidence, that this is what Hamas did to civilians.”

CNN editor Nic Robertson reported that there “were so many murdered members of this kibbutz. Men, women, children, hand bound, shot, executed, heads cut.”

Veruv told ABC News that Hamas “burned the apartments, then they shoot the babies, they cut their heads.” He also told the outlet that residents of Kfar Aza had been killed before their bodies were mutilated and decapitated by Hamas.

The Times reported that Israeli soldiers “said that up to 40 babies’ corpses had been found among entire families who were shot dead as they slept. The children in particular appeared to have suffered gruesome deaths: there were claims that some had had their throats cut.”

Veronika Kuchyňová Šmigolová, the Czech Republic ambassador to Israel, told a Czech outlet that she personally saw pictures of beheaded Israeli children. The Jerusalem Post reported that its team had seen and verified images of beheaded babies. (RELATED: Hamas Official Falsely Claims Group Did Not Kill Any Civilians)

“The Jerusalem Post can now confirm based on verified photos of the bodies that the reports of babies being burnt and decapitated in Hamas’s assault on Kfar Aza are correct. May their memory be a blessing,” the outlet tweeted.

Check Your Fact has reviewed images that showed at least one dead child and multiple other photos purporting to be the burnt corpses of other children, though we have not seen any images showing beheaded children. We are not linking to any of them due to their graphic and disturbing nature.