On the morning of October 7, 2023, Palestinian resistance groups, led by Hamas, launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” with a surprise advance through the Erez crossing and into the colonized territories. 

Palestinian resistance fighters broke through Israel’s “Iron Wall” using motorcycles, vehicles, and paragliders, and stormed towards Israeli military bases responsible for maintaining the siege on Gaza. 

Palestinian fighters engaged in gun battles with Israeli occupation forces who were caught off guard and immediately overwhelmed. GoPro video recordings by Palestinian fighters depicted Israeli soldiers cut down in rapid succession, followed by the capture and transfer of dozens more, before retreating back into Gaza. 

At least 340 active Israeli forces and intelligence officers were killed, accounting for about 50% of confirmed Israeli deaths. Palestinian fighters proceeded into many Israeli settlements, referred to as Kibbutz’s, aiming to secure as many Israeli settlers as possible with the apparent goal of bringing them back to Gaza alive. 

Similar to operations in years past, and a chief objective later outlined by the Palestinian resistance, the captured Israelis were meant to be used for prisoner exchange deals to release some of the thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children currently held captive in Israeli prisons, over 1,300 of whom without charge. 

In 2011 for example, the swap deal for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit led to the release of over one thousand Palestinians, after five years of negotiations. 

As the Israeli military launched Apache helicopter gunfire, drone strikes, and tank shelling, many Palestinian fighters and Israeli settlers were killed in the crossfire.

The exact details of “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” remain unknown. It was, however, seen as an unprecedented military operation by the Palestinian resistance and a major failure in intelligence by Israeli forces. 

Despite the majority of Western corporate media proclaiming the attack was “unprovoked,” Palestinian officials reported the operation was in response to decades of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and the illegal Israeli occupation in general. 

This includes the Israeli blockade on Gaza, increased violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and continued desecrations of the Al-Aqsa mosque. 

At the outset of 2023, Gaza continued to be under an illegal Israeli blockade, with 63 percent of its population food insecure, 82 percent living in poverty, and 95 percent without access to clean water.

Multiple human rights organizations and activists continued to refer to Gaza as the world’s largest “open air prison” or “concentration camp,” with the UN declaring it “unlivable.” 

Meanwhile, the West Bank continued to be under illegal Israeli occupation, suffering continued settlement-expansion and increased Israeli military incursions.

Before October 7, the UN had already declared 2023 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since it began recording casualties in 2005.

As for East Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa Mosque compound continued to face violations and desecrations by Israeli religious extremists.

The Hannibal Directive

Israeli officials claimed October 7, 2023, to be the deadliest day since its inception, reporting an original death toll of approximately 1,400, followed by 1,200, and later revised to “over a thousand.” It remains unclear exactly how many were killed by the Palestinian resistance or by Israeli forces. 

A growing number of reports from both Israeli soldiers and settlers reveal that Israeli forces, while in an atmosphere of panic, confusion, and shock, deployed their notorious “Hannibal Directive” in efforts to dislodge the Palestinian resistance.

The infamous military doctrine allows the use of maximum force to prevent Israeli troops from falling captive, even at the cost of killing their own, to prevent them from being used as leverage during negotiations, bargaining, and prisoner swap deals. 

Since October 7, there has been an overwhelming amount of evidence that suggests Israeli forces were responsible for many, if not most, of the Israeli settler deaths that day.

Although such reports have been largely ignored by Western media, they have been reported on extensively by independent outlets, including The Grayzone, The Electronic Intifada, The Cradle Mondoweiss, and The Intercept..

Testimonies from Israeli generals, soldiers and settlers revealed how the Israeli military conducted airstrikes and tank shelling into vehicles and buildings containing both Palestinian fighters and Israeli captives.

Yasmin Porat, one of two Israelis to survive the hostage standoff in Kibbutz Be’eri, recounts in detail the events that transpired. She told Israeli radio Haboker Hazeh, and later Israeli newspaper Maariv, that Israeli forces “undoubtedly” killed a large number of their own civilians while engaging in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters. 

She recalled her treatment while being held captive by about 40 Hamas fighters in a small home with over a dozen other Israelis. “They did not abuse us. We were treated very humanely… No one treated us violently,” she said. She added that they intended “to kidnap us to Gaza, not to murder us.” 

Porat also revealed that chaos ensued when Israeli forces arrived. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages…there was very, very heavy crossfire,” she said.

Porat also gave Israeli news outlet Kans exclusive details regarding the killing of 12-year-old Liel Hetzroni, whom Israel used to stir global outrage in a bid for international sympathy. Porat revealed that the other lone survivor, Hadas Dagan, had told her that the Israeli tank shells killed Liel. 

“The girl did not stop screaming for all those hours… [but] when those two shells hit, [Liel] stopped screaming. There was silence then,” Porat said. Omri Shafroni, a settler of Be’eri and a relative of Liel, also told Kans, “I do not rule out the possibility that Liel and others were killed by IDF [Israeli army] fire.”

Tuval Escapa, a local settler of Be’eri whose partner was killed in the attack, told Haaretz journalist Nir Hasson that “only after the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses with their occupants inside to eliminate the ‘terrorists’ along with the hostages – did the IDF complete the takeover of the kibbutz. The price was terrible. A least 112 people from Be’eri were killed.” 

Hasson also interviewed Erez, a deputy commander of an armored reserve battalion, who described how his unit “fought inside the kibbutz, from house to house, with the tanks…We had no choice.” 

Salman Habaka, a tank battalion commander, recalled receiving the same orders. “I arrived in Be’eri to see Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram and the first thing he asks me to do is to fire a shell into a house [where Hamas members were sheltering],” she said. 

Israel’s Channel 12 later released unseen footage of an Israeli tank firing at settler homes in Kibbutz Be’eri, in which Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram then acknowledged to the New York Times that he ordered a tank commander to fire on a home to kill Palestinian fighters. 

This is while the home contained fourteen Israeli captives as well – contradicting a previous narrative he told Channel 12.

Amos Harel, a senior military analyst for Haaretz, published a lengthy report on the events on October 7, revealing that when Hamas fighters advanced through the Erez Crossing and into the military base, “Brig. Gen. Rosenfeld entrenched himself in the division’s subterranean war room together with a handful of male and female soldiers, trying desperately to rescue and organize the sector under attack. Many of the soldiers, most of them not combat personnel, were killed or wounded outside. The division was compelled to request an aerial strike against the base itself in order to repulse the terrorists.”

Nof Erez, an Israeli Air Force colonel, described how Israeli Apache helicopters opened fire on multiple places along the border fence to prevent Hamas from taking the captives back, killing both Palestinian fighters and Israelis. 

He stated, “The Hannibal directive was probably deployed because once you detect a hostage situation, this is Hannibal.” He further said, “What we saw here was a mass Hannibal. There were many openings in the fence, thousands of people in many different vehicles with hostages and without.” 

Haaretz revealed the results of an Israeli police investigation into the Nova music-festival attack, indicating that while Israeli combat helicopters were targeting the perpetrators, they also hit some festival attendees. Israeli military footage later revealed army helicopters indiscriminately firing at crowds of people fleeing the area. 

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported how Apache pilots had no way to distinguish between Palestinians and Israelis, and therefore opened fire on all cars and people on the Gaza border without distinction. 

The paper added, “The pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian… The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select the targets.”

Lt. Col. E., the commander of an Apache unit, told Israeli news outlet Mako, “Shooting at people in our territory – this is something I never thought I would do.” 

Lt. Col. A., a reserve pilot in the same unit, described a fog of confusion, stating, “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them.”

Yedioth Ahronoth later published an investigative report by Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun, two journalists with extensive sources inside Israel’s intelligence establishment, which confirmed the Israeli military command “instructed all its fighting units to perform the Hannibal Directive in practice, although it did so without stating that name explicitly.” 

The report revealed “the instruction was to stop ‘at any cost’ any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza,” and that “some 70 vehicles” driven by Palestinian fighters returning to Gaza were blown up by Israeli helicopter gunships, drones or tanks, despite containing Israeli captives. 

The journalists wrote, “it is not clear at this stage how many of the captives were killed due to the operation of this order.” 

In the aftermath of October 7, the Israeli government released footage of the destruction, including homes in Kibbutz Be’eri reduced to rubble, and gruesome images of scorched corpses and charred vehicles near the border fence. 

They were portrayed entirely as Israeli victims of sadistic Palestinian violence. Israel presented such footage to members of the international press in an off-the-record propaganda session inside a closed military base. Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan promoted such images at the UN with a QR code captioned “scan to see Hamas atrocities.” 

Some of the images were later deleted, as they revealed charred bodies piled in a dumpster, which critics questioned were perhaps the bodies of Palestinian fighters and not Israelis, who would have been transferred to morgues.

Max Blumenthal, editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, published a detailed report on the emerging Israeli testimonies, stating, “The objective behind Tel Aviv’s atrocity exhibition is clear: to paint Hamas as “worse than ISIS” while cultivating support for the Israeli army’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip.” 

He added, “Yet the mounting evidence of friendly fire orders handed down by Israeli army commanders strongly suggests that at least some of the most jarring images of charred Israeli corpses, Israeli homes reduced to rubble and burned out hulks of vehicles presented to Western media were, in fact, the handiwork of tank crews and helicopter pilots blanketing Israeli territory with shells, cannon fire and Hellfire missiles.”

Atrocity Propaganda

In preparation for Israel’s War on Gaza, Israeli media reported stories of ‘40 beheaded babies,’ ‘mass rapes,’ and other gruesome acts allegedly committed by Palestinian fighters. An Israeli PM spokesperson stated babies and toddlers were found “with their heads decapitated.” 

When journalists asked for more details, the reply was, “We cannot confirm but you can assume it happened.” Other inflammatory claims included ‘babies in ovens,’ ‘hung children,’ and ‘pregnant women shot.’ 

Despite lacking any evidence, such ‘atrocity propaganda’ led to widespread publication, manufacturing outrage and providing media and politicians with the rhetoric needed to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

CNN’s Sara Sidner repeated the false narrative on live television in front of millions of viewers, before posting on X,  “I needed to be more careful with my words and I am sorry.” President Biden publicly claimed to have seen images of the beheadings, before the Whitehouse clarified he had in fact not seen such images. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken regurgitated the unverified claims in front of the U.S. Senate.

Haaretz detailed how the inaccurate accounts and alleged atrocities committed by Palestinian fighters appeared to be false. It cross-referenced allegations provided by Israeli officials and soldiers with search and rescue volunteers, finding multiple discrepancies. 

The unverified claims of “mass rapes” were also debunked by numerous independent news outlets and investigative journalists, exposing the inconsistencies and discrepancies within such reports. 

CNN aired a report claiming to provide testimonies of “rape crimes,” which immediately sparked an international media campaign by pro-Israel groups. Other news outlets, including the Washington Post, also based their reporting on the CNN report. 

Every “witness” the CNN report claimed to have found, however, proved to be either lacking credibility or having direct ties with Israeli officials, calling into question how much original reporting or fact-finding went into the CNN report. 

The New York Times published a supposed two-month investigation detailing a pattern of sexual assault and alleged rapes by Palestinian resistance fighters, which was thoroughly debunked by The Electronic Intifada. The report could not confirm the existence of any victims nor physical or forensic evidence. 

It continued to reference the same supposed eyewitness testimonies linked to the Israeli military and other Israeli organizations, such as ZAKA and United Hatzalah, which were already exposed for fabricating much of the atrocity propaganda, including the tales of beheaded babies. 

The Times’ story was centered around an Israeli woman named Gal Abdush, who the newspaper claimed was a victim of rape before she was killed, depicting her as “a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls” on October 7. 

Abdush’s family, however, repudiated the claim, saying that there was no evidence she was raped and that they were manipulated by The New York Times, stating they had no idea the newspaper was going to use their loved one to further the rape narrative despite lacking evidence. 

In January 2024, Haaretz published an article directly contradicting the Times’ report, citing Israeli police who stated authorities were “having difficulty” finding “victims of sexual assault from the Hamas attack.” 

This failure came after three months of investigation by all branches of the Israeli police and military. Due to its inability to locate such alleged victims, or even those who have “witnessed such attacks,”Israeli police decided to “appeal to the public to encourage those who have information on the matter to come forward and give testimony.” 

Ali Abuminah, director of The Electronic Intifada, writes, “Israel’s mass rape claims fit the longstanding colonial tradition of atrocity propaganda meant to demonize colonized indigenous or enslaved men as inherently brutish, violent and lustful, especially towards white or settler women.” 

Such failures by many Western media’s adherence to professional and ethical standards of responsible journalism have raised grave concerns about their complicity in Israels efforts to dehumanize Palestinians and justify the ongoing genocide on Gaza. 

🚨🇮🇱 𝗠𝗔𝗦𝗦 𝗥𝗔𝗣𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗬 🇮🇱🚨

⚡️An Israeli RAPIST founded the group that is spreading 'mass rape' stories and 'atrocity propaganda' lies⚡️ pic.twitter.com/wMqVcPJuPh

— Propaganda & co (@propandco) December 25, 2023

Israel’s War on Gaza

On October 8, 2023, Israel formally declared a state of war on Gaza – its first such declaration since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 

Israel mobilized 300,000 reservists, the most in its history, with goals to retrieve the captives, eliminate Hamas, and take control of Gaza. Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a ‘total’ blockade on the already besieged Gaza strip.

He infamously stated, “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” collectively punishing over 2.3 million people whom he referred to as “human animals.” 

Other genocidal rhetoric and subhuman references began to emerge from Israeli officials, calling for ‘eliminating,’ ‘erasing,’ and ‘destroying’ everything and everyone in Gaza. Israeli PM Netanyahu invoked the Bible command to smite the ‘Amalek,’ which states to “destroy all that they have and spare them not, slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” 

Israeli President Herzog suggested civilians are legitimate targets, stating, “It’s an entire nation that is responsible.” Giora Eiland, former head of Israeli national security, stated, “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” Galit Atbaryan, Israeli Knesset member, called for “Erasing Gaza from the face of the earth.”  

Israeli heritage minister Amichai Eliyaho stated, “there are no non-combatants in Gaza” and that dropping a nuclear bomb was “an option.” Revital Gotliv, another Knesset member, called for Israel to use nuclear weapons in Gaza, stating, “It’s time for a doomsday weapon. Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighborhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza.” 

Mouin Rabbani, Jadaliyya co-editor and policy analyst, reported Israel used the events of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its ‘long-standing ambition’ to push Palestinians out of Gaza, reflecting Zionist policy since even before the founding of Israel.

“Ethnic cleansing, or what Zionists would call transfer, is intrinsic to Zionist and later Israeli policy towards the Palestinians from the very outset,” Rabbani said.

Israeli ministers began calling for a “Second Nakba.”  Israeli Knesset member, Ariel Kallner, expressed, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!” Israeli Agriculture Minister, and former Shin Bet director, Avi Dichter stated, “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich repeatedly called for nearly two million Palestinians to leave Gaza and emigrate to other countries around the world to make way for Israelis to ‘make the desert bloom.’

“We need to encourage immigration from there. If there were 100,000-200,000 Arabs in the Strip and not two million, the whole conversation about the day after [the war] would be completely different,” he said.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel promoted the idea of ‘voluntary resettlement’ of Palestinians to sites around the globe, stating, “Instead of funneling money to rebuild Gaza or to the failed UNRWA, the international community can assist in the costs of resettlement, helping the people of Gaza build new lives in their new host countries.” 

Gamliel proposed “tent cities in the Sinai” followed by eventual construction.

More from Ynet's interview with Ben Gvir two days ago. Ben Gvir talks about his plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza: "We will start with a pilot of 100-200 thousand. After this pilot, I believe… they can have it better in other countries" https://t.co/pZSBXsZotU pic.twitter.com/N5YFBSMMf7

— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) January 19, 2024

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir described the war as an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza” and a pretext for annexing territory.

“We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing,” he said. During an interview with Israel’s Ynet News, when asked about the impracticality of ‘transferring’ two million Gazans, Ben-Gvir stated, “We will start with a pilot of 100-200 thousand. After this pilot, I believe… they can have it better in other countries.”

Israel’s Atrocities Since October 7

On October 8, 2023, Israel launched what analysts have described as the most destructive bombing campaign in modern history, with satellite technology revealing the bombing being more intense than the Second World War. 

In the first week alone, the Israeli Air Force is reported to have dropped about 6,000 bombs on Gaza. Within the first month, Israel dropped over five hundred 2000-pound bombs onto densely populated areas, capable of killing people over one thousand feet away and leaving forty foot craters. 

By November 9, Israel dropped 25,000 tonnes of explosives, equivalent to two nuclear bombs. By November 26, it reached 40,000 tonnes, reflecting Israel’s intention to make Gaza uninhabitable. 

By December, the Israeli Air Force reportedly conducted over 10,000 airstrikes, indiscriminately bombing residential buildings, schools, mosques, churches, hospitals, refugee camps, communication systems, water facilities, power plants and other vital infrastructures. 

By January 2024, Israel dropped more than 45,000 bombs on Gaza, equating to over 65,000 tonnes of explosives and equivalent to four “Little Boy” atomic bombs, which the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. 

As of October 2024, Israel’s ongoing War on Gaza has killed over 41,600 Palestinians, according to UN statistics. A study by the Lancet medical journal, however, reveals the actual death total could be greater than 186,000, due to indirect and unaccounted deaths. 

Additionally, more than 2,000 Lebanese have been killed in Israel’s escalating aggression on Lebanon.

Image source: CNN