Shocking Hamas video reveals brutality; US President Joe Biden to visit Israel
Horrifying footage captured by Hamas soldiers during their brutal invasion has surfaced, as US President Joe Biden will to travel to Israel amid Iran promising “pre emptive” action. Warning: Graphic
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US President Joe Biden will pay a solidarity visit to Israel on Wednesday following the Hamas attacks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced.
“The president will reaffirm United States solidarity with Israel and our ironclad commitment to its security,” Blinken said early Tuesday after marathon overnight talks in Tel Aviv with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“He is coming here at a critical moment for Israel, for the region and for the world,” he said.
“President Biden will underscore our crystal clear message to any state or non-state trying to take advantage of this crisis to attack Israel: Don’t.”
The move means Israel’s invasion of Gaza is unlikely to begin before then, with Mr Biden expected to speak to Israel’s leaders about plans to extricate hostages held by Hamas and ensure the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Biden will visit Tel Aviv, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in Washington. He also announced that Biden would travel to Jordan where he would meet Jordanian King Abdullah II, Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Mr Blinken said that the United States also secured assurances from Israel on working to bring foreign assistance into the impoverished and blockaded Gaza Strip as Israel prepares a ground offensive against the Hamas-ruled territory.
Biden hopes to “hear from Israel how it will conduct its operations in a way that minimises civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas.
SHOCKING FOOTAGE EMERGES OF HAMAS’ BRUTAL MURDERS
The Israeli military has created a one-hour film using footage captured by Hamas soldier helmet cameras, as well as mobile phone videos, surveillance videos, dash cameras and victim’s livestreams.
The horrifying video was shown to a small group of journalists, who were told by a senior Israeli officer: “You won’t see rape, there’s no rape in this video ... We won’t show you beheaded babies”, explaining those images existed but would not be shown.
“The video started slowly. Hamas fighters are seen on the back of a pickup, with RPGs spiking out in every direction. You can sense their excitement. The video shows several groups cut through the fence and wave a pickup truck through,” a report by US ABC News reads.
“... Then the video gets grisly. Other militants are busy mashing a dying man‘s face with their boots. Another pair screams “Allahu akbar” as they use a garden hoe to try to decapitate another man.
“In another house, a gunman sticks the muzzle of his rifle into a room inhabited by a family. It‘s a mash of colors. In one, a terrorist is standing on an Israeli man’s chest and shoots him point-blank in the face.”
‘IN THE COMING HOURS’: IRAN’S WARNING
Iran has warned of a possible “pre-emptive action” against Israel “in the coming hours”, as Israel readies for a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip.
Tehran has repeatedly warned that a ground invasion of the long-blockaded Gaza would be met with a response from other fronts -- prompting fears of a wider conflict that could draw in other countries.
“The possibility of pre-emptive action by the resistance axis is expected in the coming hours,” Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a live broadcast to state TV, as he referred to his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday.
Iran’s top diplomat and president, Ebrahim Raisi had said time was running out to reach a political solution and warned against the expansion of the Israel-Hamas war to other fronts.
Amir-Abdollahian said that “the resistance leaders” will not allow Israel “to do whatever it wants in Gaza”.
“If we don’t defend Gaza today, tomorrow we have to defend against these (phosphorus) bombs in the children’s hospital of our own country,” he added.
Israel declared war on the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas a day after waves of its fighters broke through Gaza’s heavily militarised border with Israel on October 7 and killed over 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Israel has responded by pummelling the Gaza Strip with non-stop air and artillery strikes that have flattened neighbourhoods and killed at least 2,750 people in Gaza, mostly civilians.
Iran celebrated the Hamas assault but insisted it was not involved. The Monday remarks come as Israel prepares for a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, where fears for Palestinians trapped in the heavily-bombarded enclave have grown since Israel launched its aerial campaign.
HEZBOLLAH TARGETS ATTACKED
Israel launched strikes overnight on Hezbollah “terrorist” targets in Lebanon, the Israeli army said in a statement early Tuesday.
“The Israeli army is striking military targets of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah on Lebanese territory,” it said.
A short while ago, the IAF struck terror targets and military infrastructure of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon, in response to fire yesterday (Monday) towards Israel. pic.twitter.com/6AP56PSHld
— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) October 17, 2023
Since the start of the war triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, clashes on the Israel-Lebanon border have left around 10 people dead on the Lebanese side, mostly combatants but also a Reuters journalist and two civilians.
On the Israeli side, at least two people have been killed.
The international community fears an escalation of the conflict between the pro-Iran Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and the Israeli army.
Israel began evacuating thousands of residents in 28 locations in the north of the country after these border clashes.
HAMAS LEADER KILLED IN ATTACK
Dramatic footage captured the moment a top Hamas leader was killed by an Israeli airstrike as the Australian government confirms there are at least 45 Aussies trapped in Gaza.
The video shows a huge fireball erupting as giant plumes of black smoke fill the sky after the terror group’s Head of General Intelligence was targeted in the Gaza city of Khan Younis.
In a barrage of rocket attacks, Israel‘s military said it also struck other targets in the territory.
The Australian government has also confirmed that 45 Aussies stranded in Gaza and have made contact.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the situation was “obviously extremely difficult” but the government was doing everything it could to get those Australians to safety.
“We are looking at ways in which, and working very hard to find ways in which we can get those people to safety, and that obviously includes working with other countries around the establishment of a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza,” Mr Marles said.
“That hasn’t happened yet, but we are doing what we can in very, very challenging circumstances.”
Mr Marles said he didn’t have the precise breakdown of who the 45 Australians were, but given there were families caught up in it he’d “imagine” children were among the group.
Meanwhile, a Hamas-affiliated radio station has claimed Israel today shelled the Rafah crossing, which borders southern Gaza and Egypt.
Over the past few days, thousands of panicked Palestinians have been fleeing the area after Israel warned more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population to evacuate their homes.
At least 2865 Palestinians have been killed, including over 800 children, and nearly 11,000 injured, while 1400 people have been killed in Israel. and 3400 injured.
It comes as Israel’s defence minister told visiting United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken to expect a long but successful campaign against Hamas militants.
“Let me tell you, Mr Secretary, this will be a long war, the price will be high, but we are going to win - for Israel, for the Jewish people and for the values that both countries believe in,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told Blinken at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv.
Earlier that day Blinken, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet sheltered in a bunker for five minutes when air raid sirens went off in Tel Aviv on Monday, according to spokesperson Matt Miller.
Israel has denied reports of any temporary Gaza ceasefire to allow foreign nationals to flee the enclave to neighbouring Egypt.
However, the army pledged to refrain from striking routes within Gaza designated for evacuating people from the enclave’s north to the south during a limited time window, from 8:00am to noon, local time.
Israeli police, meanwhile, announced it would begin arming civilians to serve as first responders in cities nationwide, as the war on Hamas in Gaza entered its tenth day.
Police commissioner Kobi Shabtai and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir “decided on expanding the first responder units operating under police auspices to all of the cities,” a joint statement said.
The 347 new units would be manned by “13,200 police volunteers, who will be enlisted and receive a rifle and protective gear”.
It follows media reports that said Israel, Egypt and the United States had agreed the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt would be opened for several hours in a one-off move to allow foreign nationals to flee and aid goods to enter.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “there is currently no ceasefire and humanitarian aid in Gaza in return for removing foreigners”.
The entire region was “on the verge of the abyss”, warned UN chief Antonio Guterres, as cross-border fire also intensified between Israel and the Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has warned of retaliation if Israeli forces move into Gaza.
Follow the live updates below.
TOP SECURITY CHIEF TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR HAMAS ATTACKS
Israel’s top domestic security official took responsibility for the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, according to the country’s Army Radio station.
In his first comments since the surprise attacks by Gaza militants on October 7, Shin Bet chief Ronan Bar wrote in a statement, “Despite a series of actions we carried out, we weren’t able to create a sufficient warning that would allow the attack to be thwarted. The responsibility is on me,” he said.
Shin Bet is Israel’s domestic security agency, tasked with combating terrorism.
In remarks before the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised the security and intelligence failures leading to the Hamas attacks would be investigated by the government.
ISRAEL RELEASES ‘BARBARIC’ IMAGES OF HAMAS ATTACKS - WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS
Film of a gunman beheading a body and victims being riddled with bullets are among hundreds of hours of footage Israel says it has collected since Hamas attacks unleashed a devastating war.
Ahead of an expected ground invasion of the blockaded Gaza Strip, the Israeli army showed international media about 40 minutes of images from the October 7 assault that it says have been verified.
In one scene shot with a militant’s phone, a gunman is seen hacking at the head of a dead victim with a garden tool in a kibbutz community near the Gaza border where more than 100 people died.
Militants stand nearby, shouting encouragement. Shots are then fired into the body.
Hamas has used images of its attacks on social media, but has denied that abuses were committed.
Israel showed footage to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other visiting ministers to highlight “barbaric” action, with infants killed and women allegedly raped and tortured before being slaughtered.
AFP was unable to independently verify claims of rape and torture.
Hamas started a war against Israel.
— דובר צה״ל ×“× ×™×ל הגרי - Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) October 9, 2023
We paid a heavy price; but we will restore security to the people of Israel. pic.twitter.com/qa6mywpmgu
Around the world “people are saying this is another round in Gaza”, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said. “But it’s something else. It is a war against humanity, not against Israel,” Hagari told reporters after watching the harrowing images.
The footage has been taken from the body cameras and mobile phones of Hamas fighters killed or taken prisoner, Hamas social media, and the phones of victims and emergency responders, military officials said.
The images show gunmen entering a military base, searching for victims in Beeri kibbutz, where dozens of hostages had been seized.
One sequence shows a car trying to leave through the community gate and gunmen stepping out to fire at the driver and passenger. The car moves on with the occupants seemingly dead.
A long bodycam sequence shows militants in green fatigues crossing well-tended gardens between the empty homes searching for targets.
Gunfire can be heard in the background and one dog that appears is pumped with three bullets.
Film from a first responder’s mobile phone shows a blood-soaked corridor in a home with footprints and trails as though a body had been dragged along.
Other images show a dozen young women screaming in a shelter as gunfire goes off outside.
Several show gunmen firing into the bodies of victims.
One woman in blood-soaked clothes is dragged by her hair from the back of four wheel drive truck and pushed into a front seat. She is believed to be one of at least 199 hostages Israel says are held in Gaza.
Military officials said the images have been verified against official and family accounts of the killings and the identification of victims.
ROCKET SIRENS SOUND IN JERUSALEM AND TEL AVIV
Rocket alert sirens blared in Jerusalem and several blasts were heard in the city, AFP correspondents said, amid the war raging with Hamas militants in Gaza.
The army confirmed “sirens sounding in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem”, Israel’s biggest cities, while a parliament meeting starting the legislative winter session was interrupted by the rocket alarm.
The Times of Israel reported incoming rocket sirens sounded in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as terrorists in the Gaza Strip launch long-range rockets at Israel’s largest cities in possibly the largest barrage since the initial salvo on October 7.
Several loud explosions could be heard during the opening war session of the Knesset, sending politicians and other attendants into a bomb shelter and delaying the session.
ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE HITS GAZA
At least five people were killed and 15 others injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a multi-story house in Rafah in the southern Gaza strip, the Palestinian interior ministry said.
The ministry said the airstrike happened without prior warning from the Israel Defense Forces.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday urged the United States and the international community to intervene to stop Israel’s airstrikes and blockade, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Shtayyeh also said during a weekly cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah that “Israel is targeting civilians, and the goal behind this blockade is mass killing and mass displacement.”
NO AID INTO GAZA, MILLIONS TRAPPED
Israel said there was no temporary truce to allow aid in or foreigners out of the Gaza Strip, where desperation was mounting among millions of Palestinians trapped in the heavily bombarded enclave with little food or water.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to Israel before a looming ground offensive to “destroy” the Hamas Islamist group that rules Gaza, and emphasised that “civilians should not have to suffer for Hamas’s atrocities”.
But with Israeli troops massed along the border, its calculations to invade Gaza where Hamas has built a warren of tunnels are complicated by the presence of 199 hostages captured by the Islamists.
In Gaza, there were scenes of panic, anger and despair all around, as Palestinians heeded Israeli warnings to vacate the north before its major offensive.
But the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people in the south was putting severe pressure on a place which had little resources to begin with and from where it is impossible to leave.
“No electricity, no water, no internet. I feel like I’m losing my humanity,” said Mona Abdel Hamid, 55, who fled Gaza City to Rafah in the south, where she is staying with strangers.
German national Ahmed Al Qasas, who has been waiting at the border three days for a chance to cross said “people here are barely receiving water and food”.
“In Gaza, in general, you can’t say there is a safe zone for any person or for any animal or for even stones,” said Danish national Etaf Al Rai, also waiting at Rafah in the hope of leaving.
In southern Gaza, the city of Khan Yunis, usually home to 400,000 people, has more than doubled in population within just days, with terrified families hunkering down in any available space, indoors and outdoors.
Israeli energy minister Israel Katz on Sunday said water supplies to southern Gaza had been switched back on, a week after a “complete siege” was announced.
But power outages threaten to cripple life-support systems, from sea water desalination plants to food refrigeration and hospital incubators.
Even everyday functions - from going to the toilet, showering and washing clothes - are almost impossible, locals said.
And being in the south is no guarantee of safety from Israeli air strikes. Pointing to a doctor’s house that was targeted, Rafah resident Khamis Abu Hilal said: “All the family was wiped out.”
EVACUATING US NATIONALS LEAVE ISRAEL ON CRUISE SHIP
A ship evacuating US nationals from Israel left for Cyprus from the Israeli port of Haifa, an AFP correspondent reported, as a war raged between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.With Israel now moving towards a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, the US embassy had on Sunday urged its “citizens and their immediate family members with a valid travel document” to depart from Haifa.
The 'Rhapsody of the Seas' cruise liner carrying US citizens left the Israeli port of Haifa to be evacuated to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
BIDEN CANCELS DOMESTIC TRIP FUELLING ISRAEL RUMOURS
US President Joe Biden has abruptly cancelled plans for a trip to Colorado, the White House announced, fuelling speculation that he will soon go to Israel in a show of support as it wages war against Hamas.
Biden has been invited to Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN, adding that he had no travel plans to announce for now.
Biden, 80, will instead stay in Washington to attend national security meetings, the White House said in a short statement, as several media outlets report he might travel to Israel this week.
Biden will “stay focused on what’s going on between Israel and Hamas,” Kirby said.
Several news outlets including Axios and CNN have reported that US and Israeli officials are discussing a possible Biden trip to Israel.
Biden has repeatedly pledged strong support for close US ally Israel as it retaliates for the Hamas attack that killed hundreds of Israelis, most of them civilians.
He last visited Israel in July 2022.
A MOTHER’S HEARTBREAKING PLEA
A distraught Israeli mother described listening to her 12-year-old son beg Hamas fighters not to kidnap him because he was “too young”, in their last telephone call.
Renana Gomeh broke down recounting in a media conference organised by the Israeli Foreign Affairs, how she was on the phone with the 12-year-old and his 16-year-old brother trying to calm them after their home in the kibbutz Nir Oz was attacked.
Ms Gomeh was not home at the time and the boys rang to tell her what was happening.
“They heard voices and the noises of the door breaking,” she said.
“I was on the phone with them and trying to calm them down. I told them the military would get there – they were safe and in their home.
“When they heard the noises of the door breaking, I asked them to be quiet. To stay quiet.
“They were in the safe room... which is the bedroom of the eldest. He is 16 years old. Then about 10 minutes later I could hear people speaking in Arabic outside their door and they broke in and the last thing I heard was my youngest who is 12 saying I am too young don’t take me.
“And that was it, that was the last time I heard from them. I don’t know if they eating or sleeping or if they are being tortured or if they are alive.”
ISRAEL EVACUATES CIVILIANS
The Israel Defence Force is evacuating 28 civilian communities close to the border with Lebanon as a new war front opens against Hezbollah and other militant groups.
The Israeli military’s anticipated invasion of Gaza was paused, ostensibly due to poor weather and visibility but also as artillery and troops reposition to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
The ministry’s National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) began moving residents on the instruction of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Hezbollah has been launching daily rocket attacks but has now increased ferocity and firing antitank missiles, barrages of mortars and deploying small units of troops in an apparent bid to stall a Gaza invasion.
Israeli security analysts said normally the IDF would launch a full-blown military campaign for such attacks but have responded only with artillery so as to not open a new front.
One civilian and one soldier have so far been killed as well as unspecified number of militants which have included Hezbollah and Hamas-backed Islamic Jihadists.
Hezbollah has not yet declared war formally but their social media outlets have referenced that.
The death toll from Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip has risen to around 2,750 since Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel last week, the Gaza health ministry said Monday. Some 9,700 people have also been injured.
GAZA GROUND ASSAULT STILL LOOMS
The IDF confirmed it was still poised to make a ground assault on Gaza and more troops had on Monday been brought forward to the Gaza front, on the tenth day of the war, but declined to comment on timings.
“This will be a fierce war, a deadly war, a precise war, and it will be a war that changes the situation permanently,” Mr Gallant would only say.
The IDF again urged Palestinian civilians to make an 11km shift south in the Gaza Strip to stay safe with aid groups estimating hundreds of thousands of civilians had made the trip in the past 72 hours.
US-HAMAS HOSTAGE DEAL FAILS
Israel on Monday resumed water supply to southern Gaza, at the urging of the US, to encourage the more than one million citizens to relocate south.
The US also reportedly, through back-channels, had been attempting to do a deal with Hamas for Gaza aid in exchange for the revised number of 199 hostages - previously 155 - but the militants attached too many conditions.
Israel Defence Force Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Monday that the families have been notified. He did not specify whether that number includes foreigners, or say who is holding them.
Most are believed to be held by the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza. Some are understood to be being held by the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ). It is not clear whether this number includes the reported bodies of hostages that have been found in Gaza since the war began.
In the absence of a ground force entering Gaza en masse, Hamas were not given time to regroup with IDF fighter aircraft continuing precision bombing runs on more than 50 targets in the enclave.
US WARNS AGAINST TAKING GAZA
The US meanwhile has recommended Israel not look to reoccupy Gaza.
That followed senior Israeli minister Gideon Sa’ar declaring Gaza had to be “smaller at the end of the war” with a new “security zone” created.
“Settlement in Gaza should not be renewed … they do have to pay the price of loss,” he said.
“We must make the end of our campaign clear to everyone around us. Whoever starts a war against Israel must lose territory.”
Another prominent politician from the ruling Likud Party, Danny Danon, claimed a “large Gazan public” took part in murder, massacres and rapes and some hostages were in the hands of civilians not militants.
Israel first occupied Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War and only fully returned it to Palestinians in 2005.
A year later, Israel imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the strip of land and in 2007 tightened it after Hamas took control of Gaza from the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Israel sought to distance itself from Mr Sa’ar’s remark, with Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan clarifying Israel had no intention to reoccupy Gaza.
“We have no interest to occupy Gaza or to stay in Gaza but since we are fighting for our survival, and the only way – as the President himself defined – is to obliterate Hamas,” Mr Erdan said.
“We will have to do whatever is needed to obliterate their capabilities.”
MORE AUSSIES TO FLEE ISRAEL
Meanwhile, another charter flight was expected to be made overnight to Tel Aviv to collect Australians still wanting to leave the region even though hundreds of Aussies were a no-show on flights yesterday.
Three flights were dispatched to Ben Gurion airport in the Israeli capital on Sunday, including two RAAF aircraft, and had been fully booked with a capacity to carry up to 800 passengers but only 255 bothered to turn up. All aircraft, bound for Dubai before onward flights to Australia, left half full.
Both Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong reinforced the need for those wanting to flee the crisis to take the first available flight and not hedge their bets.
“We’re dependent on airspace remaining open, we’re dependent on being able to obtain a slot at Ben Gurion Airport and so a whole lot of things can change at a very short moment’s notice … Don’t wait for it to be convenient, because we don’t know how long this window will remain open.”
Australia’s military RAAF aircraft will remain pre-positioned in the United Arab Emirates but might not be able to re-enter Tel Aviv if the war escalates as feared.
ISRAEL’S NEW WAILING WALL
The faces all tell the same grim story.
Some are smiling, and have clearly been taken on holiday, others are with family members are simple portraits.
But they all are victims of the terror attack that has plunged Israel into a hostage crisis that gets more desperate by the day.
The pictures are of people, mainly Israeli’s, who have been lost amid the carnage of the Hamas attack.
The Islamist group has threatened to kill its hostages one by one if civilian targets are bombed without advance warning.
Under a red and white banner that reads ‘Kidnapped’ is the missing person’s name and a description of them and a QR code.
People have come in their hundreds to stick them onto the wall of the outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.
Hamas-led attackers who invaded southern Israel last week killed more than 1,300 people and abducted as many as 200 people - including babies, young children, women and the elderly - and took them to Gaza.
- With AFP
Originally published as Shocking Hamas video reveals brutality; US President Joe Biden to visit Israel
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