NV: This in no way is meant to minimize anything. But journalism is about facts and facts matter, particularly when the fog of war engulfs the hearts and minds of whole populations. We do know for certain that scores of Israelis and Israeli children were brutally executed. Alas, as we've seen repeatedly in the US, the details of that brutality can and do matter when people decide what they are willing to accept as retribution. Like the claim of Iraqis pulling Kuwaiti babies from incubators or the buffet of bogus claims made about Iraq in the lead-up to the second, torture-stained war on that nation, the rush to respond to unsubstantiated claims can be a perilous business.
TITLE: 'It's important to separate the facts from speculation': What we actually know about the viral report of beheaded babies in Israel
https://news.sky.com/story/its-important-to-separate-the-facts-from-speculation-what-we-actually-know-about-the-viral-report-of-beheaded-babies-in-israel-12982329
EXCERPT: Claims Hamas fighters beheaded babies have only been reported by one journalist - Nicole Zedek from i24 - and have not been verified by Sky News.
Ms Zedek was among the reporters invited to see what was left at the kibbutz on Tuesday.
In one live broadcast, which has since been viewed millions of times on X, formerly known as Twitter, she says: "Talking to some of the soldiers here, they say what they witnessed as they've been walking through these communities is bodies of babies with their heads cut off and families gunned down in their beds.
"We can see some of these soldiers right now, comforting each other."
She is also filmed speaking to the deputy commander of the IDF's unit 71, David Ben Zion, who describes Hamas fighters as "aggressive" and "very bad".
He says: "They cut off heads… of children, of women."
And in another live broadcast, Zedek describes "40 babies at least were taken out on gurneys" - which is where the widely shared 40 figure comes from.
In an interview with Sky's Mark Austin on Tuesday evening, Israeli economy minister Nir Barkat echoed a similar claim: "We've seen just now... we've heard of 40 young boys. Some of them were burned alive. Some were beheaded. Some were shot in the head."
CBS News in the US said on Wednesday that Yossi Landau, head of operations at Zaka, Israel's volunteer civilian emergency response organisation, confirmed to them he had "personally seen" adults, children and babies beheaded.
But when asked directly whether "40 babies were beheaded", an IDF spokesman said children were killed - but that reports of beheadings were "unconfirmed".
Stuart Ramsay interviewed two IDF majors - one of whom was a spokesman.
Ramsay said: "At no point did either he, or the other major I spoke to, ever mention that Hamas had beheaded or killed 40 babies or children. I believe that if it were the case, they would have told me and others there.
"There is no doubt that a horrific attack took place at Kfar Aza, and it needed to be reported, and we did see the bodies of the dead from the community in their houses, in the back of a truck, and on the basketball court.
"But it's important to separate the facts from speculation in a situation like this.
TITLE: IDF says it won't back up its claim that Hamas decapitated babies in Israel because it is 'disrespectful for the dead'
https://www.businessinsider.com/idf-says-wont-back-up-beheaded-babies-disrespectful-2023-10
EXCERPT: Meanwhile, CNN's Nic Robertson, live from Kfar Aza, also appeared to address the claim, saying: "There were so many murdered members of this Kibbutz. Men, women, children, hand bound, shot, executed, heads cut." He did not elaborate further.
The Anadolu Agency, a Turkish state-run news agency, reported that the Israeli army said to its reporters that it had no information to substantiate the allegation that "Hamas beheaded babies."
In the Tuesday statement provided to Insider, Dinar said that the IDF "can not confirm any numbers," but described the situation at the kibbutz as a "massacre" in which children were "brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action."
On Wednesday, Insider approached [IDF spokesperson Major Nir] Dinar again to ask if the claim would be fully investigated to provide details of the numbers and their manner of death.
He responded by saying: "We're not going to investigate the condition of bodies and even if we did we won't comment publicly about the condition of our civilians's bodies. And babies."
In a phone call, he said he would not "give away numbers" of the number of babies.
"The war crimes that Hamas committed are obvious to the world and are seen in the world and I don't need to provide any proof of that and I'm not going to," Dinar said. "It's disrespectful for the dead."
He said the position was out of respect for the families of those whose babies had been killed.
He said the claim of decapitated babies was made based on what soldiers on the ground had relayed to him and others in the military.
"Let your readers know that a soldier who handled the bodies, that was his claim," he said. "I don't have an evidence and I'm not looking for one."
NV: It could eventually turn out to be true, but as it stands now there is no confirmation and anyone making this claim is, whether they know it or not, making an unverified claim. I will continue to monitor this story as it develops.