One story has been dominating the U.S. and international media cycle for the past 24 hours. It has been repeated by pro-Israel activists, Israeli government officials, reporters, and anchors throughout the U.S. media and even alluded to by the President. The thing is — this story has not been confirmed in any way. It appears to come from a single source with a history of espousing calls for genocidal violence against Palestinians.
You have probably heard the story that Hamas fighters beheaded 40 Israeli children in the Kfar Aza community near Gaza. This story can be traced back to interviews given by Major David Ben Zion. According to his Twitter bio, he is the Deputy Head of the settler leadership organization, the Samaria Regional Council, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Fund for Israel, a quasi-governmental agency used to acquire land in Palestine that is then made available exclusively for use by the Israeli state.
Interviews with Ben Zion initially appeared in two places: i24 News and the Independent. According to a timeline of how this story spread from researcher Marc Owen Jones, i24’s Nicole Zedek first reported the claim after joining a tour of Kfar Aza led by the Israeli military for foreign press to survey the scene and document the carnage left by the attacks. Zedek’s report included the claim that Hamas fighters beheaded children in the community: “Some soldiers say they found babies with their heads cut off, entire families gunned down in their beds.” This article also noted that the bodies of “[a]bout 40 babies and young children have been taken out on gurneys”.
Here, Major David Ben Zion relates the story to i24 News.
In an article for The Independent, Bel Trew also reported being told by a member of the Israeli military that Hamas fighters “cut the heads of children.” However, the article notes, “The Independent did not see evidence of this.”
The military source of this claim is also Ben Zion, who speaks directly to the camera in this video clip. He says the soldiers found children with their heads cut off. He is incorrectly named on-screen in the video but is correctly named in the description below the video on YouTube.
A similar claim was also made in a video posted on CNN’s official Instagram account, where reporter Nic Robertson says men, women, and children were found with their “hands bound…executed, heads cut.” Robinson does not name his sources in the video report or clarify if that information was independently verified by CNN.
It was not long before social media sites filled up with claims that Hamas fighters had beheaded 40 babies in Kfar Aza.
But as we see, all of the documented reporting on this story could be tied back to one source: David Ben Zion. In addition to his role in settler leadership, Ben Zion has a history of calls for genocidal violence against Palestinians.
Calls to violence
Earlier this year, Israeli settlers carried out a so-called “reprisal attack” on the Palestinian village of Huwara after an unknown Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli settlers. As we reported at the time, Israeli settlers launched a ‘pogrom’ on the night of February 26, attacking Palestinian homes and property in Huwara, Burin, and across the Nablus area, burning houses, cars, vandalizing property, and assaulting Palestinians.
Following the reprisal attack on Huwara carried out by Israeli settlers, Ben Zion wrote in a now-deleted tweet:
“Here in Hawara, the blood of our children, the residents of Samaria who were murdered here an hour ago, is spilled on the road. The village of Huwwara should be erased today. Enough with the talk of building and strengthening the settlement, the deterrence that was lost needs to be restored immediately, and there is no room for mercy.” (Translation by Google, archived here: https://twitter.com/Louis_Allday/status/1629963086424690689)
In March 2023, the organization Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) after learning that Ben Zion would be traveling to the United States. In the letter, they noted:
“It is reasonable to assume that Ben Zion is in the United States to raise funds for those who participated in the attacks and to support the ongoing efforts by settlers to attack Palestinians with so-called “price tag” attacks. It is also reasonable to expect that Ben Zion will continue to incite violence and genocidal acts against Palestinians during his time in the United States.”
DAWN requested the DOJ “issue a federal arrest warrant and open an investigation into Ben Zion” for violating U.S. laws related to the incitement of violence. Their letter concluded:
“With Ben Zion already in the United States, it is very likely that he is continuing to perpetrate the crimes of incitement and conspiracy to genocide. Urgent action is required to stop this activity and to arrest the perpetrator of a serious crime, for which the United States has jurisdiction while Ben Zion is in the country.”
Since we first reported this story, we learned DAWN has sent a second letter to the DOJ relating this episode as further evidence of Ben Zion’s violation of the U.S. law prohibiting the incitement of violence.
The story begins to fall apart
On October 11, the Israeli journalist Oren Ziv, who was also on the tour of Kfar Aza, wrote on Twitter, “During the tour we didn’t see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents.”
He continued: “Soldiers I spoke with in Kfar Aza yesterday didn’t mention ‘beheaded babies.’ The army’s spokesperson stated: ‘We can not confirm at this point… we are aware of the heinous acts Hamas is capable of.’”
We don’t know exactly who the reporters on that tour spoke to, but as of yet, no independent news publication appears to have verified the claim made by Major David Ben Zion about finding beheaded children in Kfar Aza, and the Israeli military has even denied having evidence of the event.
And other similarly horrific stories that have been reported are also starting to fall apart. The Los Angeles Times has retracted similarly unconfirmed reports of rape, and reporters are beginning to “clarify” or retract their statements about this claim of beheadings. We will continue to follow this story.
Of course, if this horrific event did happen, the world needs to know about it because it is an indefensible war crime and will color and inform how we understand the unfolding events.
But If it did not happen, it is also important that the world know that a member of the Israeli military lied to journalists about such a gruesome crime and, in the process, helped create a global story with no bearing in fact beyond the claim of one person whose own history should put his trustworthiness under deep suspicion.
And regardless of when the truth comes out, it is possible the damage has been done. As has been the case in many recent examples, in the rush to war, misreporting or intentional misinformation can help build support for deadly consequences.
Correction (October 14, 2023 ): This article has been corrected to clarify the initial publication of Ben Zion’s claim. The article originally said, “This story can be traced back to an article by Bel Trew, a reporter for The Independent,” when, in fact, i24’s story appeared online first.
As the saying goes: truth is the first casualty in war.
Have heard Richard Engel and Ari Melber repeat the “beheading” story.
What has and continues to really get to me is how American leaders, main stream media host refuse to get that until they fully understand that for many until leaders, main stream media reporters, analyst refer to Palestinian’s who have been killed, beaten, shot, imprisoned (basically hostages) etc the way they should and are referring to the lives of Israeli’s who have been brutally killed, beaten, injured, taken hostage nothing will change.
This is very much still happening in the U.S. media. Yes, we should absolutely see the gruesome brutality that has been inflicted by Hamas on Israeli citizens, soldiers, etc. We are and should see it, however, for decades we know Israel has been inflicting and committing war crimes against the Palestinians. Video’s, gruesome pictures, reports of Israeli crimes not put on U.S. screens across the nation. In fact, Israel has restricted access to reporters to crimes committed by Israel for decades.
The mainstream media is also letting Israeli ambassadors, officials, form officials, and spokesmen spout propaganda in real time live on air and completely unchallenged and unchecked. They’re asking them direct questions, and they aren’t even trying to answer the questions, they are just repeating factless and baseless hasbara and propaganda unchecked by the hosts.
I literally just watched an Israel spokesman lie straight to Katy Tur’s face, when she called him out about Gazan’s being allowed to leave via the Rafah Border Crossing, and and Israel having bombed the very same gate they’ve been directing Gazans to use.
With a straight face, he said that Israel didn’t do what multiple news outlets, including WSJ, MSN, Washington Post, Reuters, have already reported on. Even the government of Egypt has told the world that they had to close the gate, because Israel had informed them of the imminent strike, She knows this is an indisputable fact, that he lied straight to her face, and she didn’t even bother following up or pushing back. Leaving him to redirect and spout even more propaganda. This on about the most left-leaving outlet on TV. Others like CNN, and Fox aren’t even trying to ask questions and their own hosts are cutting out the middleman and just actively engaging and acting on behalf of Israeli instead.
The US media is yet again complicit in the actions of the Israeli government and giving these liars unprecedented direct access via their platforms to the American people to spread their propaganda, talking points, misinformation, and lies. It’s only a matter of time before the IDF, yet again, abuses this access and uses our media to carry out another subversive military operation.
Our media has learned NOTHING from their own direct complicity in Israel’s actions. They are now serial repeat offenders and are looking to repeat the exact same mistakes and intentional behavior and whitewashing they’ve engaged in during previous “lawn mowing” operations. They’ve been wittingly co-opted as an arm of the Israeli military, intelligence, and political apparatus.
So maybe babies were not beheaded. Maybe they were only burned alive. Or shot. Or blown up. Is that OK?
Yes, but so what? “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.” We have seen the Hamas version of this vision. It’s going to take something credible to displace this vision. Maybe this chant doesn’t mean genocide. But it seems to. Undo that.