Here’s What We Know About the Shocking Report of Babies Being Decapitated by Hamas

It was the most horrific account to emerge from the almost unimaginable brutality of the Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel: that babies in one kibbutz, Kfar Aza, had been beheaded during the massacre, and that 40 infants were among the dead.

The detail quickly became a symbol of the sheer inhumanity of the Hamas terrorists, spread on social media and repeated by public officials from President Biden to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It is not in dispute that children and babies were killed in the massacre of Kfar Aza. But the exact details around the reports babies were beheaded in the attack remain murky. Here's what we know:

Media Reports

On Tuesday, after two days of fighting to secure the Kfar Aza kibbutz, Israeli security forces allowed members of the foreign media into the community to view and document the aftermath. Among those journalists was Nicole Zedeck, an international war correspondent for the English-language channel of Israel-based i24 News.

In a live report from the scene, Zedeck said: “There are no words to describe what they’ve seen,” referring to accounts from Israel Defense Forces soldiers who had cleared and secured the kibbutz. “Babies, their heads cut off. That’s what they said… Families, completely gunned down.”

Zedeck has since stood by her report, saying in a podcast interview on Wednesday:

“I witnessed some of those scenes with my own eyes as we were walking through this community that may be a quarter of a mile from the Gaza border, the atrocities that were still left behind, children, cribs, baby cribs overturned on their side, splattered with blood.

When told by the interviewer that people online had questioned her reporting, Zedeck said: “I could never imagine something like that happening so I could never speak those words if no one had spoken them to me because I didn’t know that was a possibility for someone to witness with their own eyes.”

In addition, Margot Haddad, international editor for French outlet LCI, tweeted on Tuesday that she had seen images of those bodies. A translation of her post reads:

“Infants and children under 2 years old were beheaded by Hamas in the Kibbutz of Kfar Aza. It is a horror, a massacre. For those asking for the source. They are multiple: Israeli army, internal intelligence service and atrocious images which reached me and which I was able to cross-check. But the best source remains this: courageous journalists from the foreign press who were able to see / agreed to see with their own eyes the bodies in Kfar Aza."

Respected international news agencies like Reuters were among other outlets that had personnel allowed into Kfar Aza. They described a horrific massacre, including babies being killed and some victims being beheaded, but they did not report the detail about babies being beheaded.

But on Thursday morning, the Jerusalem Post reported that it had confirmed the existence of photos showing "babies being burnt and decapitated" in the assault on Kfar Azar.

Israeli Military

Insider was among the first to report on Tuesday that a spokesperson for the IDF confirmed that its soldiers found decapitated bodies of babies inside Kfar Aza.

But the Turkish news agency Anadolu reported the same day that the IDF "could not confirm the claim."

The IDF also told other news agencies that it would not investigate the claim because it would be “disrespectful for the dead.”

An IDF spokesperson said to the investigative outlet The Intercept that an Israeli soldier told journalists on the scene “that this is what he saw” but that the military had not independently confirmed the claim. 

Israeli Government

The report was further complicated when the spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that babies and toddlers were found with “heads decapitated” at Kfar Aza.

Then on Thursday, CNN reported that the Israeli government “has not confirmed the specific claim that Hamas attackers cut off the heads of babies,” citing an unnamed Israeli official.

That would contradict the statement that came from the prime minister’s office a day prior. 

Israel's official Twitter/X account on Thursday morning also published a horrific image that showed the bloodied body of an infant in a body bag, with its face blurred, calling it "the most difficult image we've ever posted." That photo has not been verified by independent sources.

White House

Meanwhile, in Washington, President Biden on Wednesday afternoon said: “I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children” during broader remarks about the U.S. support for Israel.

But soon after that speech, when asked to confirm that the president had seen those images firsthand, the White House clarified that he was referring to media reports from Israel that he had seen.

Despite the fog of war that is typical in the early days of a conflict, combined with social media's unique ability to spread unverified reports at lightning speed, Western journalists on the ground have verified the following: dozens of Israeli civilians, including young children, were murdered in their homes in Kfar Aza and elsewhere during Saturday’s surprise attack.