The Story Israel Tells about Oct 7th

The only information we have about Hamas’ attack on 2023 October 7 attack comes from the Israeli government, which is known to lie shamelessly. So how can we know the truth when we lack credible evidence one way or the other?

All we can do is examine the story we’ve been told. Is it internally consistent? Is it credible?

What is the story? An unknown but significant number of Hamas fighters armed with assault rifles and pistols crossed the border from Gaza into Israel; attacked a rock concert; killed unarmed civilians; raped, mutilated, and murdered young Israeli women; burned automobiles filled with people fleeing for their lives; and carried hostages back to Gaza.

This story has been repeated and amplified over time as more “facts” become known. It’s an important story because it has been used to outrage the international community and garner support for the Israeli invasion of Gaza to root out Hamas in search of justice for Hamas’ victims and security for Israel in the future.

So let’s examine the story.

First: Is it true that Hamas crossed the border with assault weapons? Undoubtedly. There is ample evidence to support that. And the Palestinian people have never denied it.

Second: Did Hamas kill unarmed civilians? Undoubtedly. It was an armed invasion of Israel.

How many unarmed civilians were killed by Hamas? That’s a much more difficult question to answer. Israel has claimed between 1200 and 1400. Hamas has never said, and can’t because the bodies were left on the Israeli side of the border. But there are questions about the exact number.

How many of the victims were civilians? Not all of them. Israel conscripts men and women alike into the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), so any gathering of young people will contain a certain portion of soldiers, on and off duty. Some of the “innocent women” taken by Hamas were wearing IDF uniforms in the pictures that were distributed. They were not civilians.

How many victims were unarmed? Likely most. Israel has more laws restricting firearms than the United States. Some Israelis carry guns, either with a permit or illegally, probably only a few of the victims of Oct 7 were armed.

How many of the victims were killed by Hamas? That’s the big question. Israel claims they were all killed by Hamas, but eyewitness accounts by Israelis contradicts that assertion. We know that the IDF responded immediately to counter the invasion. They not only sent IDF troops on the ground, they supported those troops with helicopter gunships equipped with machine guns and hellfire missiles. More significantly, the IDF did not know how many Hamas fighters had invaded, nor where the fighters were located. Hamas fighters were not wearing uniforms, and they were moving as quickly as they could. Eyewitnesses have reported that the IDF soldiers were in a panic and were shooting people indiscriminately, fearing that anyone on the ground could be a Hamas fighter and was about to return fire. Lacking information and responding blindly is typical in war zones and is called “the fog of war.” Undoubtedly at least some of the Israeli civilians were shot by “friendly fire”. It is impossible to believe that somehow the Israeli soldiers managed to shoot only Hamas fighters in a crowd and never hit the Israeli civilians in that same crowd. The Israelis killed when they were fleeing in their cars shows a more damning picture. Photographs of the aftermath show numerous cars and bodies that were incinerated. A man on foot doesn’t do that with a pistol or even an assault rifle. Are we supposed to believe the Hamas fighters somehow managed to run down fleeing cars, open gas caps, and throw matches into their tanks? Do Hamas fighters have superpowers? It’s far more likely that those IDF helicopter gunships saw cars driving deeper into Israel, assumed that was part of the Hama invasion, and loosed hellfire missiles on them. How many of the dead were victims of Hamas and how many of the IDF? We will never know, but common sense dictates that a significant proportion of the Israeli victims were collateral damage during the IDF’s panicked and thoughtless attempt to defend Israel from an invasion.

Third: Did Hamas deliberately attack a rock concert? No. Witnesses are clear that neither Hamas nor the IDF knew about the rock concert. Hamas stumbled upon it by accident and the IDF had no idea what was happening on the ground when they arrived. All they knew was that there were young people everywhere, running in all directions.

Fourth: Did Hamas fighters rape and mutilate young Israeli women? Let’s think about that for a minute. Imagine you’re a Hamas fighter and you’ve crossed the border into Israel with your assault rifle. You know the IDF is going to respond. They’re known to hit back fast and hard. You hear gunship helicopters already in the air. You and your friends find a group of young people. And what is your first thought? According to the Israeli propaganda factory, you’re going to decide to halt your invasion, ignore the sound of the IDF shooting your comrades, ignore the sound of an approaching gunship, put aside your gun, grab a young woman and tear off her clothes, drop your pants, and rape her. Or worse, stand in line behind three of your fellow fighters, waiting your turn to gang rape her. Then when you’re finished, get out your knife and mutilate her, and finally shoot her dead instead of taking her hostage, which was undoubtedly the primary goal of the invasion. After doing all that to one woman, you’re going to clean off your knife, get dressed, grab your gun, and go looking for another woman to rape and murder because, if the Israelis are to be believed, mass numbers of young women were raped that night, even though most of the Hamas fighters had to be busy fighting off the IDF and carrying hostages back to Gaza.

Let’s be serious. Can anyone believe that Hama fighters were busy raping women while they were under fire by the IDF? When sexual assault is used as to intimidate and terrify people in a war zone, it’s done after the fighting is over, not in the heat of battle when bullets are flying and missiles are landing. I wouldn’t write a scene like that in a novel and expect readers to suspend that much disbelief.

Journalists from the New York Times tried to find victims of Hamas’ supposed rapes right after Oct 7th. And couldn’t find a single one. Not even when they contacted clinics in Israel that counsel victims of sexual assaults. I’m pretty sure I know why no one has ever found an Israeli women who has a credible claim to having been raped by Hamas on Oct 7th, and I’m sure if you think about it for a minute, you’ll know why, too.

What about those mutilated bodies of young women? I hate to think that IDF soldiers might have taken their knives to the dead corpses of their own citizens in the aftermath of the fighting to give credibility to the horrific stories the Israeli propaganda machine was creating, but that seems more likely than the nonsense we hear from the Israeli government about Hamas. And, most regrettably, that false flag story is consistent with the subsequent sociopathic behaviour we’ve seen from some members of the IDF during the genocide in Gaza in the months after Oct 7th.

It certainly does not help that Israel refuses to allow any independent investigation of its actions by the international community. Does not allow any experts access to any physical forensic evidence. And kills journalists on sight. It’s almost like they don’t want anyone to know the truth.

I’m not surprised that the Israeli government would make up such outrageous stories about Oct 7th. They need the international community to be horrified so that no one will stop them from killing tens of thousands of unarmed civilians at will in Gaza month after month until they’ve eliminated all Palestinians “from the river to the sea,” as stated in the Likud party’s founding documents back in the seventies. But I am shocked and dismayed that so many people around the world have swallowed such obvious fiction so readily. I’d like to think more highly of the international community.