Babies ‘beheaded’ and families ‘massacred at home’ in Hamas attacks, Israel claims

WARNING DISTURBING: Dozens of Hamas gunmen are said to have raided Kfar Aza kibbutz near the Gaza border, massacring residents and allegedly beheading babies during a sickening rampage

Hamas attackers have allegedly beheaded babies and gunned down whole families – including an estimated 40 young children – in their homes, Israeli soldiers claim.

Around 70 members of the Palestinian militant group armed with guns and grenades are said to have stormed a small kibbutz near the Gaza border in southern Israel, before killing everyone in their path. Israeli troops say they found bodies laying strewn among burned out homes and torched cars in the quiet community of Kfar Aza today. They moved house to house to take away the dead in body bags. They had been unable to do so previously as they were still fighting off gunmen and disabling booby traps.

Outside destroyed homes they described seeing the bodies of babies with their heads cut off. The soldiers were seen in video footage comforting each other after witnessing the horrors, with the stench of death said to be heavy in the air. Members of Hamas had stormed the community killing hundreds of unarmed civilians before taking dozens hostage.

Follow the Mirror’s live blog on the Israel Palestine war here

Israeli Major General Itai Veruv, speaking from the horrific scene, told i24News: „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. It is something that I never saw in my life. It’s something that we used to imagine from our grandfathers, grandmothers in the pogrom in Europe and other places. It’s not something that happens in new history.”

i24News reporter at the scene Nicole Zedek said: „Some soldiers say they found babies with their heads cut off, entire families gunned down in their beds. About 40 babies and young children have been taken out on gurneys — so far.”

One soldier shouted: „Tell the world what you saw here.” Gunfire and explosions could be heard in the distance. The massacre at the Kfar Aza kibbutz is just one of many such barbaric acts committed by the terrorists since the surprise attack was launched on Saturday.

The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen reports residents in Israeli border communities expected the occasional rocket attack after Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007. The preferred to retain their country life in small settlements with an understanding of the danger that could follow – and otherwise enjoyed a high quality of life.

Concrete shelters were constructed to accessed at short notice, while their homes had reinforced safe rooms. However, he writes: „No one – here in Kfar Aza or elsewhere in Israel – imagined Hamas would be able to breach Israel’s defences and kill so many people. The horror and rage of Israelis has been mixed with incredulity that the state and the military failed in its fundamental duty to protect its citizens.”