Israeli Army Probing Death of 12 Hostages in Kibbutz Be'eri House Shelled on Orders of Senior Officer

[SummerFeverVenice]

Reported in the reputable Israeli newspaper Haaretz this morning:

“An Israel Defense Forces General Staff team has begun investigating an incident in which 12 hostages held by Hamas terrorists were killed in the home of Pessi Cohen in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7.

Yasmin Porat and Hadas Dagan, the only two survivors of the incident, say that the house was shelled by a tank. That has raised suspicions that Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of the army's 99th Division who led the fighting in the kibbutz, ordered a tank crew to fire on Cohen's house even though he knew hostages were being held there.”

”The shelling of the Cohen house occurred in the heat of battle on October 7. Fourteen hostages – among them the 12-year-old twins Liel and Yanai Hetzroni – had been taken by Hamas terrorists to the house, which was located behind the kibbutz dining hall. Inside the house were several dozen terrorists who demanded that the army and police, who had surrounded the house, would ensure their safe passage back to Gaza with the hostages.

In an interview with The New York Times, Hiram said that after negotiations with the terrorists had failed, he ordered a tank "to break in, even at the cost of civilian casualties."

In footage taken from a military helicopter and aired on Israel's Channel 12 news, an IDF tank can be seen firing shells at the house.”

Rest of the article is at
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-06/ty-article/.premium/idf-probing-death-of-12-hostages-in-beeri-house-shelled-on-orders-of-senior-officer/0000018d-7b6c-d008-a9cd-fbfdb0040000?lts=1707211298024

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It is such a mess and disgrace.

I was absolutely shocked to see this. I had no idea until now that it is possible that any of the Israeli victims of Oct 7th were killed by IDF not Hamas.

Especially after reading on the BBC the heartbreaking news of the deaths of 12-year-old twins Liel and Yanai Hetzroni in that house. How it took weeks for forensic pathologists to even find their remains because of the total destruction:
“Mr Heller said so little was found of Liel's body that some of her toys were buried at a ceremony instead.
"I don't even know how to put this into words," he told the BBC. "They just found remnants of Liel... initially they didn't have enough pieces to make a formal identification. They identified her literally by sieving the remnants. This will unfortunately live with me for the rest of my life."
Israeli media has reported the children, who were British-Israeli, were held hostage by Hamas gunmen in a building that caught fire during a stand-off with Israeli forces.
His daughter was finally identified just five days ago, with the help of forensic archaeologists. "I was literally inconsolable with grief, not finding her body and at least having something to bury."
The children's great-aunt, who helped raise them after their mother suffered brain damage giving birth, and their grandfather were also murdered. Mr Heller believes they were killed for just one reason.
"It's something that is such a shock that people can do this to other human beings just because they were Jewish.
"There was no other reason why these Hamas terrorists came in the kibbutz other than to kill, murder, maim Jewish children, babies, parents and old people all because they lived in the Jewish homeland."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67495736

If it turns out they were killed on the orders of Brig. Gen Hiram Barak by the IDF and not Hamas, then he should face court martial and the government should apologise to all the families for telling them that Hamas killed their loved ones.

Well, they are not the first. Remember when IDF shoot 3 hostages carrying white flags ?

Yes, I do recall that tragic incident in Gaza of the escaped hostages. IDF admitted it straight away though. There wasn’t months of saying Hamas killed them and this news of a probe happening saying oh wait IDF might have killed them.

I meant literally all the victims in Israel on Oct 7th. I thought they had all been murdered by Hamas, as that is what has been reported.

It’s just left me reeling to think that an IDF senior officer may have ordered his troops to open fire knowing it would cause the death of Israeli civilians, including children!

They also fired on the Nova music festival with Apache Helicopters. ☹️ Look up the Hannibal Directive. It's absolutely horrible and heart breaking. Those people depended on the IDF to protect them, but they killed them instead. To this day I have no idea how many deaths were due to Hamas or the IDF.

https://thecradle.co/articles-id/13111

Implementation of the Hannibal directive on October 7th has been reported for some time. Some female IDF tank officers reported that they were told to fire on targets where they suspected hostages were being held.

https://www.wrmea.org/israel-palestine/we-blew-up-israeli-houses-on-oct.-7-says-israeli-colonel.html

Mark Regev also let slip in a TV interview that the death toll had been revised down because it took weeks for the Israelis to realise that approx 200 of the bodies they had counted as Israeli, because they were so badly burnt, were actually Hamas. He gave no explanation for how the Hamas fighters had effectively cremated themselves. Other commentators with military experience said the burnt out vehicles at the music festival looked liked the highway of death in Iraq which was a consequence of hellfire missiles fired from Apache helicopters. Hamas did not have Apache helicopters.

In recent weeks the mother of one of the hostages killed in Gaza has claimed that her son died in one of the Hamas tunnels because the IDF used poisoned gas. It has been reported in Israeli media but hasn't received much attention in western media.

A full investigation of the everything from 7th October onwards is needed to know exactly who did what and hold them to account.

FOJN-I heard about the man killed by the poisonous gas. Ron Sherman was his name. Horrible. ☹️ I agree that a full investigation of October 7 is needed but I doubt Israel is going to allow it.

I remember during the early days of this a female survivor from the music festival claimed in an interview that a lot of people were killed by the IDF due to indiscriminate fire, if I remember rightly the transcript of the interview had been redacted but some journalist managed to get a complete one, her boyfriend was killed on that day, obviously I don't know how true this is

There has been speculation about this for a long time but anyone who tries to bring it up gets shut down and accused of denying October 7th. Hopefully the whole truth will come out eventually.

This is horrendous. No words.

Your genuine sympathy for Israeli casualties is noted.

So sad

It is good that all these things are being investigated.

This, the other allegations against IDF mentioned, but also the allegations about UNRWA’s possible links to Hamas or other factions.

We all deserve to know the truth.

I agree. At the heart of all of this are families who deserve to know the truth of what has happened to their loved ones and to know that there will be accountability.

Haaretz Issued a follow-up article in which they said that the report had actually been misinterpreted. I cancelled my sub but will try and find it.

The idea that IDF helicopter fire had killed lots of people at Nova was started by Syrian girl on Twitter a Hamas and Assad supporter and has been debunked.

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1723183300993237299?t=evar6eoiIRXguiN9A5VDjg&s=19

Another debunking.

https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1723022290886025424?t=QCFOKgLbmrwN7DbjAdukjQ&s=19

That was Yasmin Porat. They fled the festival then went to Beeri. She was talking about Beeri, not the festival.

I saw reported a few weeks ago (may not have been quite that long) that there is a difference in reporting on the 7th October atrocity inside and outside of Israel. Namely that it’s largely accepted in Israeli media and talked about how some of the deaths on October 7th were at the hands of Israeli forces attempting to deal with the attacks. Media outside rarely reports on that for what is probably some understandable reasons.

I doubt the whole truth of what happened is likely to come out without some sort of independent inquiry.

I think there has to be an independent inquiry once the war is over. There was obviously either a huge intelligence failing ( as at Yom Kipper 50 years ago) or it may be that they didn't expect more than a skirmish that could be handled.

Of course it may have to wait till Netanyahu has been booted out at the next election.

The claim was made in relation to video footage of unknown provinence and that has been debunked but Hareetz reported about a police investigation which found that an Apache helicopter did fire at the festival, clearly intending to kill Hamas fighters but also killing Israeli civilians. The burnt bodies and cars of Hamas fighters and Israeli civilians looked to have been caused by the same type of attack. I think we can safely assume Hamas didn't attack themselves.

It's is clear that both Hamas and the IDF killed Israeli citizens on October 7th but it is not clear how many deaths each were responsible for.

https://thecradle.co/articles-id/13111

The claim was actually made in relation to the IDF footage which was attached to my post ( have you read the debunking articles?). Haaretz said that a few Israelis may have been killed whereas people were implying that many Israelis were. This is highly unlikely since one of the major criticisms of the day was that the IDF took hours to arrive, by which time many were dead.

I've read and watched just about every interview with survivors from that day and none I saw mentioned helicopter fire. It's also worth noting that 42 Nova survivors are suing the Israeli govt due to the intelligence failures. However they mentioned nothing about the helicopters so I think it's safe to say that the vast majority were killed by Hamas.

I believe the footage was from the IDF but the date and location of the filming were unconfirmed. So I agree that the footage which went viral cannot be trusted.

If you've watched the interviews with survivors then you will know that some were hiding for hours before being rescued.

We do not know how many festival goes were killed by Hamas or the IDF. How do you explain the burnt out cars and bodies burnt beyond recognition? Hamas did not have that capability and are unlikely to have killed 200 of their own. Many of the cars were fired on as they tried to leave.

The police investigation detailed in the article I linked to mentions helicopters. It's possible the Israeli police are lying.

I believe the footage was from the IDF but the date and location of the filming were unconfirmed. So I agree that the footage which went viral cannot be trusted.

It was posted on the IDF's X account on the 9th of October. Did you actually read the Geo location link attached to my post? if you had you would see that it gave the location, which was near the border fence and you can see the breach in the fence. The Geo location posts explains the location in detail. The footage itself can be trusted, the commentary from accounts who shared it, cannot.

If you've watched the interviews with survivors then you will know that some were hiding for hours before being rescued.

Their interviews made it quite clear that they could hear what was happening, nobody mentioned hearing any helicopters.

We do not know how many festival goes were killed by Hamas or the IDF. How do you explain the burnt out cars and bodies burnt beyond recognition? Hamas did not have that capability and are unlikely to have killed 200 of their own.

Many of the burned bodies mentioned in accounts seem to actually be from Beeri as well, which has been discussed separately. Many of the terrorists had RPG's with them. Have you seen what happens when an RPG a hits petrol tank? I have, one example is even on some Hamas video. Of course empty cars could later have been hit by IDF helicopters. Don't forget many cars were abandoned.

Many of the cars were fired on as they tried to leave. By Hamas according to most survivors accounts.

The police investigation detailed in the article I linked to mentions helicopters. It's possible the Israeli police are lying.

It refers to one helicopter but I think it's probably best if you read the original Haaretz article - and my link which discusses the conspiracy theory in detail.

Of course a few Israelis may have been killed by friendly fire in all the panic and confusion but the idea that huge numbers were killed by their own side simply is not what is being said by survivors, Haaretz, or the police.

But you obviously disagree so I think we might as well just leave it there.

@SummerFeverVenice Reported in the reputable Israeli newspaper Haaretz this morning:

I think we all know that Haartz is so left wing it's meeting itself coming back. 🙄

It is only extreme left wing if you are hard right.
To a centrist, they are no more to the left than Jerusalem Post is to the right.

I called them reputable for three reasons:
-their high credibility rating
-their decades long clean fact check record
-they are the oldest newspaper in Israel so are widely known, and
-they are Jewish owned

Political bias is something every newspaper has, it’s only a bad thing if it results in poor credibility and failed fact checks.