I’ve been studying this issue for a while now, and I’m finally able to come up with some totals that I feel confident about publishing. Unfortunately, there are still significant error bars within these totals, but it does give you a general snapshot of what is the closest we can come to an actual Israeli death toll for the 10-7 attack.
Most Recent Death Toll from Ha’aretz
This new total is from the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. It supplants previous totals I had from an earlier summary by Ha’aretz.
Israeli Deaths on 10-7, Civilians and Security Forces
Total: 1,166.
IDF: 278. Some of the IDF were killed by their own army via Hannibal Doctrine. Israel called in an airstrike on their own base, killing the wounded soldiers still there. Four IDF POW’s were killed by a helicopter while being taken back to Gaza per Hannibal Doctrine. However, this also includes soldiers killed in Gaza and in the north. 40 were killed in Gaza and one in the north, so we must subtract this from the total.
Police and Shin Bet: 67. 57 police and 10 Shin Bet. Many of the police were killed by the IDF per Hannibal Doctrine (see below).
Community police forces: 50+.
Rescue services: 14.
Total security forces and rescue services: 409.
Security forces by IDF via Hannibal Doctrine: 34+.
Civilians: 707
Baby or infant: 1. The latest toll does include one infant, however, it’s not known how the baby died as it could well have been killed by the IDF tanks that slaughtered 122 civilian hostages deliberately as per the Hannibal Doctrine.
Civilian hostages by IDF tanks in Be’eri via Hannibal Doctrine: 122
Other civilians by IDF: 4+. Four in a vehicle by a Hellfire missile from a helicopter.
Civilians by IDF: 126 (too low). This figure is much higher, as it does not include the dead from the festival parking lot.
Civilian hostages and military POW’s in Gaza by IDF bombing: 60+
Total by IDF via Hannibal Doctrine: 216. 122+ civilians, 34+ security forces, and 60+ hostages killed in Gaza by IDF bombing.
Unarmed civilians killed at the festival: 333. All presently listed as killed by Palestinians, but many were killed by the IDF.
Unarmed civilians by Palestinians: 581 (too high). Too high as it does not include the festival parking lot.
Furthermore, the Palestinian total of 581 civilians killed, while surely deplorable and an obviously war crime, is below the endlessly repeated, “Hamas murdered 1,400 unarmed Jewish civilians.”
Compare:
Unarmed civilians by Palestinians according to pro-Israel media: 1,400
Actual unarmed civilians by Palestinians: 581 (too high).
The figures killed by Palestinians have been exaggerated by 2.4X or the number killed by Palestinians is reduced by 59
Equally incredible is that Israel killed 216 of its own civilians more or less deliberately by the Hannibal Doctrine.
Figures for IDF, police forces, rescue personnel and civilians are from the latest Ha’aretz total.
Known Unknowns about the Death Toll
Festival Mess
Palestinians showed up and started shooting. People started dropping and running everywhere. A number were shot as they ran. Others hid under bush clumps. Some of these were ordered out by Palestinians and killed when they appeared. We have many testimonies of fleeing festival-goers reporting Hamas gunmen shooting them down and zero reporting IDF at the scene.
A walk through the site afterwards shows gunned down civilians everywhere, all by Palestinians. There is footage of armed men at the festival taking cover under bushes, and pro-Palestinians says this means the IDF was there right away and everyone was killed in “crossfire.” Except those armed men are several festival security guards, not IDF. There was no IDF at the festival til everyone was gone or dead.
People ran towards their cars. Some of the cars made it to the road, but the road 1/2 mile ahead is already blocked by IDF. So you see it’s a lie that Israeli troops did not appear for seven hours. Some were there very quickly. There were cars stalled along this road with their doors flung open, people dead in their cars and lying in the road. All obviously shot dead by Palestinians.
Many who ran for their cars made it to a huge parking lot where the festival people parked.
This parking lot somehow got turned into a kill zone, but no one knows what happened there. All the cars are burned out, and there are scorch marks all over the pavement. Hamas had automatic weapons and RPG’s. They don’t do that.
That parking lot obviously got sprayed with devastating fire from IDF helicopter gunships. The burned-out cars and scorched pavement are clearly from missiles from the gunships. Can’t be anything else. So these helicopters shooting blind shot up that whole parking lot and killed many festival goers.
333 were killed at the festival. But how many killed by Hamas and how many by IDF? No one knows.
Cops at Sderot Police Station
30 police officers were killed, mostly in Sderot. I figured Palestinians killed them but Hamas took over the station and the cops surrendered. Hamas ended up taking them hostage or POW and holding them at the station. IDF tanks showed up, assessed the situation and blew up the station, killing all cop hostages and Hamas captors. So many cops were killed by the IDF. How many? All of them? No one knows.
Israeli Atrocity Propaganda Debunked
I will barely cover the endless lies that Israel told about the 10-7 attack, all atrocity propaganda:
40 babies beheaded. 0 babies beheaded.
40 babies killed. 1 baby killed, but it’s not known by whom.
A baby was cut out of its mother’s stomach and then the mother was murdered. Didn’t happen. Israelis are projecting here. If you study them, they project constantly.
This is a reference to a documented atrocity committed by Lebanese Maronite militias in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, all done under the watchful eye of Ariel Sharon’s soldiers, who stood watching on nearby rooftops in case the killers encountered any armed opposition to their murder spree. A video of this has shown up on Israeli channels but to my eyes, it’s a poorly done fake.
A baby was put in an oven and burned to death. Didn’t happen. Once again, more projection. This references a documented case that occurred in an Arab village in 1948. A Jewish militia member placed an Arab baby in an oven and turned it on, killing it.
Sometimes the two stories above are combined, with the baby being cut out of the mother’s stomach, the mother killed, and the baby then put in the oven and burned up. A video of this is said to exist, but as the last one was a fake, this one surely is too. This story is accompanied by photos of burned bodies. Apparently one is supposed to represent a burned baby. These photos were actually taken from one of the homes burned down by IDF tanks shells, so these were Jews deliberately burned to death by their own army.
There was an earlier photo of a burned baby stating only that the baby had been burned when Hamas set a house full of civilians on fire. Hamas did set one and only one house on fire. Israel had previously said the whole town was set on fire by Hamas. This photo is AI or Photoshop. They took a picture of a puppy on a vet’s table and somehow charbroiled the puppy, thereby creating the “dead baby.”
Multiple reports of rapes:
Various reports of rapes have been reported. Some even sound credible. However, Palestinian armed groups, perhaps especially Islamists, heavily look down on rape as a crime or even a punishment for Jewish settlers. A Palestinian abducted, raped, and killed a young Jewish woman a while back. Hamas and other groups barely mentioned it.
Surely they were ok with the murder, but I found that the Palestinian groups despise rape in all circumstances as it is seen as a low, disgusting crime. Jewish female civilians are never to be raped under any circumstances. Sure, kill all you want of them, but no raping please.
In fact, Palestinian revulsion for this crime is so severe that I think if any 10-7 fighter was found to have raped an Israeli woman and caught, I think they may well execute him. This makes any reports of rapes by fighters on 10-7 dubious.
Further, it has now surfaced that the IDF ordered no rape testing done on any Israeli victims, alive or dead. Apparently the IDF itself doesn’t think there were any rapes at the same time they insist that some Israeli women were raped. So far, there is no evidence that a single Israeli woman was raped on 10-7.
Shani Louk Case
Shani Louk was a 22 year old German-Israeli woman who was at the festival. She suffered a gunshot wound in the head, surely by Palestinians. She also somehow broke both of her legs, but no one knows how that happened.
She is seen in widely seen video footage in the back of a pickup truck followed by wild mobs of boys and young men spitting on her and trying to climb into the truck. Obviously, maniacs spitting on this woman’s sparsely clad and immobile body are is not a good look. However the armed men squatting over her body seem to be protecting her from these mobs more than encouraging them to abuse her.
She is in the back of the truck either passed out or dead. She is wearing full clothes and Israeli propaganda said she was stripped and raped by gunmen. Problem is she was barely wearing anything at the concert either, so she was probably not stripped. Nor is there any evidence she was raped. Her story is very confused.
Some say she survived and was taken to a hospital where she survived a few days and then died while Hamas doctors tried to save her life. Another says she was already dead in the pickup truck. Neither story can be confirmed but she is presently deceased.
The latest Israeli story is that Shani’s body was found in Gaza, abused and beheaded. This seems quite dubious. Hamas cared enough about this woman’s life that a story was put out about her being treated in a hospital, so she’s a known and famous victim.
She dies in a hospital, they take her body out, abuse it after death, behead it, and leave it out in the open for the IDF to find to make a propaganda coup out of it? Real doubtful. Even if she was dead in the pickup she was obviously quickly buried by Muslim tradition. In short, little is known about this sad woman’s case other than that Hamas no doubt shot her in the head. Everything else is pretty uncertain, but the Israeli propaganda additions are almost surely false.
Naama Levy Case
There is widely seen footage showing a young Israeli woman being roughly taken out of the back of an Israel army vehicle and placed in the backseat. All of the videos carry the title, Israeli Civilian Woman Abducted by Hamas in Gaza. Problem is the title is not true. It’s been known for weeks now that she’s not a civilian, but not one network has bothered to go back and change the title on their video, which should be trivial. I suppose the lie sells better.
The woman has been identified in Israeli media as Naama Levy, age 19, and she was indeed an IDF soldier on the Home Front at a base on border. I have seen a video of her and two other soldier women being taken POW at their base. The fighters are treating them decently enough. She has also been seen all over TikTok parading about in her uniform. In addition, if you understand Arabic, you can hear that the mob is shouting, “She’s a soldier!” as she’s being put in the back seat.
One argument that she is a civilian is that her clothing does not look like a military uniform. I have no idea what’s going on with her clothes, but the two other women arrested with her at the base were wearing the same clothing. Perhaps this is what they sleep in? Perhaps this is their uniform? I have no idea but the charge is refuted.
True, she’s being treated pretty roughly, but POW’s are often treated roughly in wartime and that’s when they are lucky. Many times they are tortured, murdered, or both. She’s lucky to be alive. She has blood on her arms and on her ankle. Sadly, her Achilles tendon was cut, an unnecessary and cruel act. Worst of all, she has a huge stain on the rear of her pants.
Many people think this is a blood stain and say that she has obviously been raped brutally and anally multiple times by these men. The same people often say she’s in for for more of the same treatment from these captors, but see above about why I am dubious about rape charges against these fighters. Close examination of this stain and comparison to a similar stain on the rear of another female IDF soldier shows that she has clearly soiled herself. People, perhaps especially women, loose their bowels in sheer mortal terror. Some call these “terror poops.”
Many are insisting that she is obviously dead now, but we have no reports of POW’s being killed by the militants.
10-7 Was by Far the Most Humane and Ethical Major Attack the Palestinians Have Ever Done
Surely that headline looks like a joke, but it’s true.
Shortly after 10-7, Mohammad Deif, commander of Hamas, issued an order to his forces to refrain from killing minors, women, and elderly Israelis. He also ordered that hostages be treated well and POWs receive humane treatment. He justified this by the laws of warfare in Islamic laws and he is correct on that score, not that Muslims typically follow them.
No such statement has ever been issued by any Palestinian leader during this century-long irregular conflict. Any chance an armed Palestinian had to get close to any Israelis, they tried to kill as many of them as they could. They’ve killed the only civilians they took hostage. They’ve taken only a couple of POW’s. One was treated well and another was killed by his captors as the IDF raided the home he was kept in.
The fact that these armed Palestinians on 10-7 flat out refused to try to kill or even harm many Israeli civilians they captured, choosing only to take a number hostage while releasing others unharmed, affording at times polite treatment to their captives while choosing to take so many IDF soldiers POW shows that this is actually by far the most humane and civilized war that Hamas or any Palestinian armed group has ever waged.
There may be many reasons for this, but the best analysis is that Hamas has been moderating since at least 2009 and dramatically in the past three years. In the transition from an illegal armed group to an actual government of a de facto state, pragmatic moderation was an obvious and intelligent choice. That even the bloodthirsty Deif was humane enough to issue such an edict about ethics in warfare was probably a result of the massive negative blow-back Hamas and the Palestinians received from the brutality of the 10-7 attack, especially on civilians.
Commenters all over the Internet were reporting that they had supported the Palestinians before, but after 10-7, they were so sickened that they were retracting all support from them, often throwing it to Israel. A casual look around the Net showed that Palestinians lost a lot of support in the West after 10-7.
Indeed, polls in the US also showed loss of a lot of support, especially among liberals and Democrats, sometimes up to a 15-20 point loss. As a response to this PR catastrophe, Deif issued his remarkably ethical orders for his troops, demanding that they follow many though not all of the rules of war.
It’s Not Only Israel That Is Lying – the Pro-Palestinian Side Is Too
All civilians were killed by the IDF.
Nope! Hamas killed civilians. That is clear.
All of the deaths at the festival were by IDF helicopters.
No. Both sides probably killed quite a few people at the festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdzJfiQSh7c