Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Confirms Decapitated Babies and Toddlers Found at Kibbutz

A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu on Wednesday confirmed reports dozens babies and toddlers were found with their "heads decapitated" in a kibbutz in southern Israel over the weekend.

The confirmation from spokesperson Tal Heinrich comes a day after the Israel Defense Forces said Hamas terrorists perpetrated a "massacre" in Kfar Aza, CNN reported.

Hamas on Wednesday, however, denied what it called "false" media reports claiming the organization attacked Israeli children, according to the news network.

“The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas has strongly dismissed the false claims promoted by some Western media outlets, such as Palestinian freedom fighters killing children and targeting civilians,” Hamas wrote in a post on its Telegram channel.

Still, Israeli soldiers discovered the bodies of 40 babies in the kibbutz just outside Gaza, corroborating reports on Tuesday from journalists who viewed the aftermath of the killings.

Aside from Israeli correspondents, a French reporter who was part of the media contingent confirmed "infants and children under 2" had been beheaded, saying she and others saw the images "with their own eyes."

"It's not a war, it's not a battle. It's a massacre," said IDF Major General Itai Veruv as he spoke to the media on the scene.

In one of several calls with President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Netanyahu, describing the various attacks carried out by Hamas so far, said Israel had "ever seen such savagery in the history of the state" nor "since the Holocaust," according to a transcript of the call reviewed by The Times of Israel.

“They took dozens of children, bound them up, burned them and executed them," Netanyahu said.

"They beheaded soldiers, they mowed down these youngsters who came to a nature festival, you know, put five jeeps around this depression in the soil and like Babyn Yar, they mowed them down, making sure that they killed everybody,” he added, referring to the music festival attacked by Hamas on Saturday, leaving at least 260 people dead.

“They’re even worse than ISIS and we need to treat them as such."

The last comment is a refrain the prime minister and other Israeli officials hare repeated in recent days, including in a social media post by Netanyahu on Wednesday, which included a pictured of a child's blood-soaked bed.

Hamas has been designated a terror group by the United States and other nations.

Since the group's surprise invasion of Israel on Saturday, the death toll in Israel rose to 1,200, with Palestinian deaths in Gaza reaching 1,050.

A U.S. state official said Wednesday at least 22 U.S. citizens have died since the initial attacks. The White House said at least 17 remain unaccounted.