A Perspective on the Scale of the October 7th Massacre
As we approach the anniversary of the October 7th pogrom Hamas still holds 100 or so hostages. It’s believed a significant number of those remaining hostages have died in captivity to add to the 1,300 or so previously killed by Hamas on October 7th or in the tunnels under Gaza since then.
I’m afraid I’m amongst those who can’t bring themselves to watch Yariv Mozer’s documentary Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again (available on BBC iPlayer). Is this cowardice? I’m not sure. I find the images my imagination conjures up based on the brief clips I have seen distressing enough.
I leave the telling of the story of that day to brave documentary makers such as Mozer and those journalists who work hard to keep this story alive – a task made more challenging in the face of the ever-growing narrative that increasingly paints the Palestinians as the victims. Iran, Hamas and those Palestinians who came out on the streets of Gaza to celebrate the massacre knew where their actions would lead. The slaughter that has followed is a direct consequence of October 7th.
However, if I can’t illuminate the horror of October 7th, perhaps I can at least add some perspective that may help readers to put the massacre in context.
Euromomo is the international organisation that records death rates across most European countries plus a few outliers, such as Israel. One consequence of monitoring death rates is that any ‘excess deaths’ become visible. Euromomo was one of the places that, during Covid you could still see a fairly dispassionate picture illustrating that Covid barely nudged the dial for deaths amongst the young.
Euromomo provides analysis of the data by various age cohorts. The 15-44 year-old cohort covers about 150 million people. Of those 150 million, about 2% live in Israel.
During Covid, when a supposedly ‘once in a century’ virus was running rampant across Europe, on only five occasions did excess deaths among those 150 million 15-44 year-olds even marginally exceed 200. Incidentally, all five of these occurrences happened in late 2021 and in 2022, after the completion of the vaccine rollout.
However, as you can see from Figure 1, excess deaths recorded in just one week eclipses excess deaths in any other single week across the past five years.
Of course, those deaths occurred on October 7th 2023. They weren’t spread across the 150 million 15-44 year-olds across most of Europe. Rather, they occurred in one small, out-of-the-way place. That small corner in the south west of Israel where it borders Gaza.
That’s really all there is to say.
Perspective is a powerful tool, but as a postscript can I just add a personal note about the ‘progressives’, those out on the streets in Western capitals and universities chanting “from the river to the sea”. Those who were first out on the streets on October 8th supporting Hamas and the Palestinians. Those who were out on the streets condemning Israel for two weeks before Israel retaliated. Invariably, these ‘progressives’ wear face masks on their protests, even today. I don’t know why they wear face masks – maybe it’s just to evade recognition – but I suspect it’s because it allows them to claim ‘victim’ status. They seem to be saying: “I too have lived through harrowing times.” “I too am a victim.” “I too understand what it is to face death.” Possibly, they also think their mask shows compassion. They want you, providing you’re not a Jew, to think that they care about your safety, that they’re doing their bit to stop you being infected by them. Confected ‘victimhood’ and confected ‘compassion’, carefully designed to mask their very real antisemitism.
The sheer scale and barbarity of the attacks must be remembered. If it ever begins to fade from my consciousness that will be the time for me to watch Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again. Until that time my imagination continues to replay those images that still trouble my dreams.
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Many of those that died on October 7th were members of the IDF and security services so it is no surprise that they would have been in the 15 to 44 year cohort.
The final death toll from the attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.’
The identities and ages of civilian victims are available via Bituah Leumi, Israel’s social security agency.
Its website lists 695 people killed during the attack, with names and the circumstances of their deaths.
Among them are 36 children, including 20 under 15 years old
The youngest victim was 10-month-old Mila Cohen, shot and killed at Kibbutz Beeri.
An entire family, including three children aged between two and six, were killed in their home at Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Elsewhere, two brothers aged five and eight were shot dead in their car with their parents.
Many of them killed by Israeli Apache gun ships and tank rounds fired into buildings indiscriminately by the IDF due to their Hannibal directive.
And if the ‘many’ (that you suggest, without any supporting evidence whatsoever) taken prisoner by hamas, some of whom may have been killed by IDF gunfire, had survived, what would their ultimate fate have been, do you think?
‘Ninety-seven hostages are still missing after being abducted by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October last year. Reportedly, 35 of those have perished.
“As time passes by, the threats to the life and well-being of the hostages intensifies, and the urgency of action to ensure their release and put an end to the war grows. I am extremely concerned at allegations of sexual harm reportedly inflicted on some female hostages,”
Dr Alice Edwards, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
“In ‘extraordinary’ interview, Chas Freeman (former US assistant Secretary of Defence) blames Israeli forces for ‘massacre’ and says Israel has equated itself with ‘burned buildings and dead babies’
A former US assistant Secretary of Defence has blamed Israeli forces for the mass deaths inflicted on kibbutz residents and rave-goers, either intentionally through Israel’s ‘Hannibal doctrine’ of killing potential hostages rather than let them be taken captive, or through poor training and discipline.
[Freeman] agrees that many of the victims of Oct 7th were killed by the Israeli army in the form of “undisciplined fire by helicopters with hellfire missiles or by tanks with incendiary rounds directed at buildings”. In the case of the victims of the music festival he even says they “were largely killed, it appears, by hellfire missiles and by other undisciplined fire by Israeli forces”.
To him this “disgrace in military terms” stems from a “lack of discipline and training necessary to respond” but also from the IDF’s “Hannibal directive”, which “says that rather than get into bargaining over hostage exchange you should just kill the Israeli hostages along with their captors.””
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/01/08/video-former-us-assistant-secdef-agrees-kibbutz-rave-deaths-caused-by-idf/
This is not evidence.
It is an unevidenced assertion posted on an entirely discredited website.
According to official “fact checkers” The Daily Sceptic is a “discredited website”. Israeli eyewitnesses have first hand experience of the Hannibal directive which is also evidence. “…it emerged that the scene of burnt-out and shot-up cars outside the music festival was the result not of the actions of “Hamas” but of gunfire from occupation forces on the ground or from Apache attack helicopters in the air. Footage of festival goers running from the venue on foot appears to corroborate evidence that it was impossible to evacuate by car since Zionist police had blocked the only road out and, in some cases at least, fired on those approaching. Danielle Rachiel described nearly being killed after escaping from the Nova music festival: “As we reached the roundabout [at a kibbutz], we saw Israeli security forces!” he recalled. “We held our heads down [because] we automatically knew they’d be suspicious of us, in a small beat-up car… from the same direction the terrorists were coming from. Our forces began shooting at us! … our windows shattered”. It was only when they shouted in Hebrew, “We’re Israelis!” that the shooting stopped. As one helicopter pilot confessed: “There was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the… Read more »
Skwawkbox: Pro-Corbyn blog run by a Labour Party and Unite member from Liverpool named Steve Walker. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea if Steve took the trouble to check his facts before posting this sort of ill-informed bollocks? He’s hardly in a position to denounce fake news from the MSM when he makes such a regular habit of manufacturing fake news of his own.’ Kibbutz Be’eri contact: ‘The Chief of the General Staff highlighted the following conclusions and insights: A. The IDF did not fulfill its mission to defend the residents in the most grave manner and failed in its mission.’ ‘The IDF was not prepared for the extensive infiltration scenario that occurred on October 7th, involving multiple infiltration points by thousands of terrorists attacking dozens of locations simultaneously. The type of scenario the forces trained for focused on isolated and specific infiltrations. The forces trained for that scenario, and had determined the proper deployment of forces. As a result, there were no additional reserve forces in the area that could have been sent to Kibbutz Be’eri.’ ‘The inquiry revealed that under the complex and difficult circumstances, the commanders and forces made professional and responsible decisions, and fully exhausted negotiation efforts.… Read more »
Just because Bob Pitt doesn’t like Skwawkbox doesn’t mean that everything they report is wrong.
The article I linked to of theirs stated the opinion of Chas Freeman (former US assistant Secretary of Defence) who blames Israeli forces for ‘massacre’ and says Israel has equated itself with ‘burned buildings and dead babies’ and is therefore factually correct.
Fact checkers say The Daily Sceptic is a blog created by British commentator Toby Young. It has published misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and engaged in climate change denial.
It doesn’t mean the so called fact checker are also right.
If you believe the whitewashed report by the IDF Chief of the General Staff just shows that you are brainwashed and are hardly a “sceptic”.
I don’t ‘believe’ anything. I am a daily sceptic.
I most particularly do not believe a Unite member from Liverpool, Chas Freeman or some random punter like you.
We have now regressed once more to an international situation where ‘might is right’, an old testament world.
And Britain enters that world almost completely defenceless.
There will be consequences, unhappy consequences as a price to be paid for the delusional ‘peace dividend’.
The barbarism of Middle Eastern terrorism is, yet again, coming to a town near you shortly.
“Middle Eastern terrorism” caused by US and Israeli wars against Muslims.
The masses – the huge majority – hold your views on COVID, the climate and on Israel. The majority view is almost always mistaken. You’re mistaken.
Absolute bollox from a Hamas supporting anti-semite.
Just watch the body cam celebrations of the perpetrators of the rapes and massacres.
Yes, war is dirty and chaotic – and Israel didn’t start it.
This is what the terrorists you and your ilk idolize so much do to their own people, and I’ve seen a lot worse than this. They shoot them in the legs, lash their backs until they’re bloody, hang them, defile their bodies then chuck them in the garbage, etc etc. They are barbarians and need to be blasted into oblivion.
Meanwhile, Israel, it’s own worst enemy, in my opinion, has form for operating on and giving other hospital treatment to terrorists that wish them dead, and their family members, with even the evil top dog, Sinwar, who apparently had a brain tumour, whose life was saved by the far superior medical facilities and personnel in the hated Jewish state. I don’t know why they did this, ”suicidal empathy” perhaps?, but there you go;
https://x.com/K0sher_C0ckney/status/1841073898479042691
“They are barbarians and need to be blasted into oblivion.”
No, they are freedom fighters against 76 years of foreign occupation.
Just like the French Resistance who also committed atrocities against their German occupiers who were only there for a few years.
For some facts on “occupation”, read ‘The War of Return’ by Adi Schwartz & Einat Wilf. A scholarly work, fully referenced. A history of Muslim rejection of one Israeli offer of compromise after another. Muslims do not compromise, therefore to their minds Israel will always be “occupied”. But… they’re mistaken.
What’s this constant worshipping of the Israeli state all about??
It’s simply idiotic naivety to point the finger at only one party here, and I can’t even begin to explain how utterly deluded you sound.
Anyone, absolutely anyone with any sense and historical understanding would be able to see the complexity that enshrines this tragic conflict, and that to solely apportion the blame to anyone side is simply void of any empathy or understanding
TDS might be many things but critical thinking re Israel is most definitely not in its remit.
Mind you, the same is true for about 75% of the contributors here.
There has never been a single article even remotely critical of Israel’s conduct, some may say genocide.
“There has never been a single article even remotely critical of Israel’s conduct, some may say genocide.”
Well there you go…. It’s blindingly obvious (to those who have the ability to think freely) that the narrative is controlled.
I rest my case…
Oh hi ‘Jon’ 👋 What, did you think to yourself “third time lucky”, and we’d all fail to see that it’s not you again, behind yet another name change?🤡
Is this the part where you call me a “disgusting bitch” because I support Israel instead of terrorists, and troll me and anyone else you choose to single out around the comments sections, because you’re that triggered by anyone with a different opinion to yours, that’s when you’re not banging on like some deranged obsessive about the “Bolsheviks”?😴
You know the funny thing about unhinged haters like you? You always make such a performance of slagging off this site, its posters, and telling us you’re going away, but you never manage to stay away, do you? What does that say about your mental state?
Go hang out with your “Free Palestine”, terrorist-fanclub mates. There’s a good, deluded little boy.🤣
Great, Mogs.
No doubt the “deluded little boy” will receive his payment from the usual Qatari source.
I refer to my last comment, re ‘The War of Return’.
Are you ill?
Not as infected with the forced narrative as you…
Never been better.
Thank you for asking.
Now STFU.
The standard of subscribers to The Daily Sceptic has gone down hill rapidly.
They are no longer “sceptics” as far as Israel is concerned and are just racist bigots who think people with brown faces are inferior and deserve to die in their tens of thousands.
Your government and their Zionist presstitutes in the mainstream media will be pleased you have believed all their lies, propaganda and omissions of the truth.
I find it quite extraordinary that most here have seen through the propaganda re-
Covid.
Lockdowns.
Slav Ukraine. Lol,
“Vaccines”.
The WHO/UN.
Climate change.
Net Zero.
To name but a few.
Yet when it comes to Israel, deary me.
Still, I suppose that’s a result of decades worth of pro Jewish propaganda.
How on earth can anyone find fault with CGW’s comments on here?
Arabs have brown faces and many on here are racists who are not prepared to accept the truth about Israel.
They are sceptical of the things you listed because they don’t involve taking the side of a person of colour.
Nothing says ”I’m a real man” like three cars full of psychopathic death cult members mowing down an unarmed lone woman in her car, and are we actually expected to believe it was a case of, ”Whoops, wrong lady”, before they opened fire? I’ve seen the footage of what they do to fellow Gazans, let alone what they’ve done to Israelis. All terrorists are savages and none have a conscience or an ounce of humanity. Jihadis are like Terminators because they’re programmed to kill and will just keep on with that sole objective until they themselves are killed. This is why they need to be eliminated from existence by whatever means possible; ”CAIRO, Egypt — Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US-based charity, firing on her car in what officials from the Hamas-run government told her family was a case of mistaken identity, Reuters reported Friday. However, anti-Hamas Palestinian activists cited by the Walla news site said that Hamas gunmen murdered her for refusing to turn over aid funds to the terror group. The car in which Islam Hejazy, Gaza program manager at HEAL Palestine, was traveling was intercepted on Thursday in… Read more »
I recently “remembered” that the Israeli war against who knows who will have lasted a year shortly and doesn’t show any sign of either abating or accomplishing anything. As Gaza must be pretty flattened by now, South Lebanon might become the next theatre for IDF pro-active revenge bombing, maybe for another year or so or for as long as Netanjahu considers it convenient to maintain the impression of Israel being at war for reasons of domestic policy.
I’m pretty indifferent to that as the issues behind this simply don’t concern me. But this spectacle of the most powerful state in the region declaring itself a perpetual victim because of an isolated event which occurred almost a year ago is both shameful and laughable.
An ‘isolated event’? An isolated event might be an attack on an individual. It certainly isn’t the biggest mass murder since 9/11. Your use of this phrase is utterly contemptible and demonstrates nothing but prejudice.
Do you sometimes feel like an AI imitation of yourself? Because that’s about the quality this totally displaced boilerplate answer has.
An terror attack on Israel occurred on 07/10/2023 and nothing comparable has happened since (otherwise this article wouldn’t try to reuse it to drum up some more sympathy for the foreign policy of Israel since then). Hence, it was an isolated event.
Do you sometimes feel like an amoral tool of the terrorists? Or perhaps just a tool.
Yes, let’s just forget about it, eh RW? Murders, hostages… fuss about nothing, innit!
It’s possibly the most powerful state in the region though there are at least a couple of other contenders for that title – Iran and Saudi Arabia. But it is surrounded by states that are hostile to it in varying degrees. As for the “isolated event”, Israel has been under attack for decades – you may regard some or all of those attacks as justified, but they did happen.
Depending on whom you ask, you might also get the answer that Israel has been the attacker for decades, begining with the invasion of European Jews tolerated by the British mandate troops supposed to prevent it since about 1919. But the article wasn’t about that.
The real Israel is on the warpath since October last year, doesn’t have anything to fear from whomever it might want to attack in the region (which includes neither Saudi Arbia nor Iran, BTW) and apparently doesn’t have any military objectives beyond Warfare! for the sake it. Otherwise, we ought to have learnt something about them by now.
Israel doesn’t need anybody’s sympathy on this as it’s perfectly capable of taking whatever it might want by force and I’m no more inclined to become a moral footsoldier for Israel than for this or that American party.
So the most secure and high tech border fence on the planet gets breeched in 19 separate places, while the most well resourced and trained military are caught relaxing by the pool with their pants down and fail to respond for 6 hrs..
Meanwhile, Mossad the most revered and accomplished secret service organisation, who, as we have recently witnessed can assisnate and murder their enemies in far away countries with ease of course knew absolutely nothing about the impending attack, even after several warnings from Egypt….
But that’s “antisemitic, Neo nazi, far right” propaganda isn’t it…
Ie the Truth…
I’m the same, Nick.
I have NEVER felt the need to visit Auschwitz.
I asked the following questions in January of this year: Is it true that Gaza is essentially an open-air prison, the 40 x 10km strip of land surrounded by a high wall and fence with 24/7 surveillance? Is it true there are watch towers along the wall/fence armed with machine-guns that are operated remotely? Is it true there is a single entrance to Gaza on the Israeli side, only open 6 days a week to ‘authorized’ Palestinians, and one entrance on the Egyptian side, open 5 days a week? Is it true there is a tightly controlled supply of goods allowed in or out? Is it true the inhabitants of Gaza are not allowed unrestricted fishing in the bordering waters of the Mediterranean? Is it true the people of Gaza have no possibility to address any issues with Israel by diplomatic means? Is it true there have been multiple occasions over several decades where uprisings have resulted in casualties on both sides of the border, with a ceasefire generally called after widespread destruction of residential areas in Gaza? The answer to all these questions was of course ‘yes’. Surely everyone can imagine how frustrating and hate-inducing it must be if you… Read more »
Yes it will continue. Netanyahu knows that after decades of refusals by the Arabs to contemplate the slightest compromise, there’s no point offering it any longer. His job is to protect a sovereign country. Read at least the first chapter of ‘The War of Return’ by Adi Schwartz & Einat Wilf (All Points Books, 2020). It’s a question of the Arab refusal to accept any Jewish presence in the Middle East. Any. Israel’s mishandling – if that’s what it is – of the post-Oct 7th situation – has been, not ‘deserved’, but certainly generated by that intransigence. It’s a complex situation, but its causes are straightforward.
I am not convinced the problem is that complex but the solution certainly is. An originally Arabian/Levant land has, during a period exceeding 100 years, been taken over by a constant influx of Jewish settlers who used ever increasingly violent means to gain influence and property. A minority population of 6% was never a problem but replacing a majority population by a minority, and that done with violence and government support, is never going to lead to a peaceful new country. Many commentators here worry (and so do I) about the ever increasing number of immigrants landing on our shores, propagated by government support at the cost of the indigenous citizens, with resulting unpleasant changes to our society.
If you want a truly depressing read, try “The Biggest Prison on Earth, A History of the Occupied Territories” written by Ilan Pappé – Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.
Nothing was ever accidental; it is always carefully planned.
Like the author, I will not watch the documentary. I am sorry to say that I cannot read the comments below the line either.
“It says much about the institutional racism of the BBC that it thinks its Surviving October 7: We Will Dance Again is a suitable title for the documentary it aired marking the first anniversary of the massacre of Israelis at the Nova rave. Presumably the programme-makers believed it suggested healing and empowerment for those who survived Oct. 7, rather than, as it does, continuing indifference to the horrifying plight of the people of Gaza who live — or, in so many cases, have died — just a stone’s throw from where the Nova festival was held. At the time of the rave, Palestinians were trapped in the concentration camp of Gaza, under a medieval-style siege by land, sea and air that Israel had imposed on them for 17 years. Until, that is, Hamas broke out for one day, on Oct. 7, briefly spreading carnage in its wake. Like most other Israelis, the partygoers at Nova either did not know or did not care that so much suffering was happening just out of view in Gaza. They know now. As do the programme-makers. [The documentary is also available in several countries, including the U.S., via Paramount+.] Tens of thousands of Palestinians, most… Read more »
Excellent post and so sad.