Israel-Gaza war: Recovered bodies show ‘bloodthirsty’ gunmen ‘took time over torture’ – and that Hamas has changed

Published

2 years ago

October 15, 2023

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We’ve been travelling to the many different scenes where Hamas fighters carried out their terror attack on Israel this week, and it is becoming clear that their tactics and levels of brutality changed from location to location.

Warning – this story contains descriptions and pictures of a graphic nature

In the attack on the Nova music festival, for example, the gunmen abducted some of the partygoers, and then murdered many more, spraying them with gunfire and throwing grenades into places they were hiding.

The hiding places included toilets, dirt bins, cars, and bomb shelters.

Hundreds died at the festival.

War latest: Israel ‘kills Hamas commander’

In the various kibbutzim they attacked nearby, their behaviour descended to a whole new level of depravity.

They didn’t just kill – they took their time. They bound families, tortured them, and eventually murdered them.

This is something fundamentally different to the behaviours of Hamas we have seen in the past.

I’ve met Hamas on many occasions and interviewed their fighters.

They were always much more like a militia at war with Israel, rather than bloodthirsty killers and torturers.

Something has changed.

Bodies ‘tell stories of torture’

The testimony of the people charged with recovering the dead is disturbing and difficult to listen to, but they want everyone to understand just how horrific it was.

Zaka, a volunteer civilian emergency response organisation charged with recovering the bodies here, is still finding bodies of the victims over a week later.

Yossi Landau is the boss for the southern region – he has been doing this work for 33 years all over the world.

He tells me the latest person to be found at the Kfar Aza kibbutz has been beheaded.

He says: “We thought we finished but we came back now this morning after being a week around here, and we just pulled out a body over here – no head – you know it’s the worst…”

He tells me he has never seen anything like this, and that the sheer brutality of Hamas has stunned his entire team.

“We saw women with no clothes and hands tied to the back,” he says. “We saw families… over here in this kibbutz I saw families with hands tied to the back, sitting parents and children, sitting one against the other, tortured.

“We could see the bodies were telling the stories.

“You know they can’t talk but they were telling us their stories, they were crying together with us.”

‘That’s a war crime’

Yossi and his team have carried out their work at all the sites of Saturday’s rampage.

He says there are noticeable differences between the way people were killed at the various locations.

“By the festival, they weren’t tortured – there was no torture because everything was on a field and they had no time for doing that,” he explains.

“There was no torturing, it was mass killing – like if they were hiding in a garbage can or something, they threw in a grenade to make sure everyone was killed.

“That’s a war crime for itself, and most of them, I would say 70%, were shot in the back – that’s a war crime.”

He continued: “In Kfar Aza and Be’eri, we are talking about a total of 280 bodies, 280 casualties.

“I would say 80% was tortured, and you’re talking children, adults…

“You’re talking a pile, two piles – when we found them in Be’eri, two piles of ten children each were tied to the back, burnt to death…”

He says as far as he can tell, Hamas’s killers had time to do whatever they wanted.

“They had the time, nobody bothered them, they had the manpower – I wouldn’t call it manpower – the butcher power…”

‘We collect the terrorists’

When we met up with Yossi and his team, they had just been tasked with recovering the bodies of those gunmen.

We travel to one area of kibbutz Kfar Aza and are turned around – a soldier says it’s too dangerous.

Yossi wants to pick up the bodies – the soldier says he can’t.

They agree a digger will go forward and pick up the dead, and we take another route to another site to collect a handful of bodies.

The dead fighters are gathered together and placed in individual body bags.

Using a can of spray paint, members of Zaka then mark the bags with an X, designating that they aren’t civilians but that they are the bodies of the killers.

The bodies are then scooped up from the ground with a forklift and transferred onto a bulldozer.

Zaka already knows that their teams are suffering extreme psychological stress.

Their families have been briefed to pass up the line if their loved ones are behaving abnormally, so they can get help.

Yossi says humanely retrieving the very people who carried out the attack is itself “very difficult” to do because they “killed our brothers and sisters and tortured the people”.

But he says it’s what they do.

“We do it for the families, for the dead people, and unfortunately we do it for the terrorists too…

“We collect the terrorists, we make sure they get in body bags, they go in for identity and they’re being stored, but that’s not our department it goes further.

“But we have to make sure that to honour – that’s our religion, to honour death and life – because everyone has a family behind them, and that’s Zaka’s work.”

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Trump’s USAID cuts could lead to 14 million deaths, report warns

Published

10 hours ago

July 1, 2025

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Trump's USAID cuts could lead to 14 million deaths, report warns

Around 14 million people could die across the world over the next five years because of cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), researchers have warned.

Children under five are expected to make up around a third (4.5 million) of the mortalities, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal.

Estimates showed that “unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030”.

“Beyond causing millions of avoidable deaths – particularly among the most vulnerable – these cuts risk reversing decades of progress in health and socioeconomic development in LMICs [low and middle-income countries],” the report said.

USAID programmes have prevented the deaths of more than 91 million people, around a third of them among children, the study suggests.

The agency’s work has been linked to a 65% fall in deaths from HIV/AIDS, or 25.5 million people.

Eight million deaths from malaria, more than half the total, around 11 million from diarrheal diseases and nearly five million from tuberculosis (TB), have also been prevented.

USAID has been vital in improving global health, “especially in LMICs, particularly African nations,” according to the report.

Established in 1961, the agency was tasked with providing humanitarian assistance and helping economic growth in developing countries, especially those deemed strategic to Washington.

But the Trump administration has made little secret of its antipathy towards the agency, which became an early victim of cuts carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – formerly led by Elon Musk – in what the US government said was part of a broader plan to remove wasteful spending.

In March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said more than 80% of USAID schemes had been closed following a six-week review, leaving around 1,000 active.

The US is the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, providing around $61bn (£44bn) in foreign assistance last year, according to government data, or at least 38% of the total, and USAID is the world’s leading donor for humanitarian and development aid, the report said.

Between 2017 and 2020, the agency responded to more than 240 natural disasters and crises worldwide – and in 2016 it sent food assistance to more than 53 million people across 47 countries.

The study assessed all-age and all-cause mortality rates in 133 countries and territories, including all those classified as low and middle-income, supported by USAID from 2001 to 2021.

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Thai PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra suspended amid outrage over leaked phone call

Published

13 hours ago

July 1, 2025

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Thai PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra suspended amid outrage over leaked phone call

Thailand’s prime minister has been suspended after a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian politician caused outrage.

An ethics investigation into Paetongtarn Shinawatra is under way and she could end up being dismissed.

The country’s constitutional court took up a petition from 36 senators, who claimed dishonesty and a breach of ethical standards, and voted 7 to 2 to suspend her.

The prime minister’s call with Cambodia’s former leader, Hun Sen, sparked public protests after she tried to appease him and criticised a Thai army commander – a taboo move in a country where the military is extremely influential.

Ms Shinawatra was trying to defuse mounting tensions at the border – which in May resulted in the death of one Cambodian soldier.

Thousands of conservative, nationalist protesters held a demo in Bangkok on Saturday to urge her to step down.

Her party is clinging on to power after another group withdrew from their alliance a few weeks ago over the phone call. Calls for a no-confidence vote are likely.

Deputy prime minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit will take over temporarily while the court looks into the case.

The 38-year-old prime minister – Thailand‘s youngest ever leader – has 15 days to respond to the probe. She has apologised and said her approach in the call was a negotiating tactic.

The popularity of her government has slumped recently, with an opinion poll showing an approval rating of 9.2%, down from 30.9% in March.

Ms Shinawatra comes from a wealthy dynasty synonymous with Thai politics.

Her father Thaksin Shinawatra – a former Manchester City owner – and aunt Yingluck Shinawatra served as prime minister before her – in the early to mid 2000s – and their time in office also ended ignominiously amid corruption charges and military coups.

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Benjamin Netanyahu to meet Donald Trump next week amid calls for Gaza ceasefire

Published

19 hours ago

July 1, 2025

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Benjamin Netanyahu to meet Donald Trump next week amid calls for Gaza ceasefire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be meeting Donald Trump next Monday, according to US officials.

The visit on 7 July comes after Mr Trump suggested it was possible a ceasefire in Gaza could be reached within a week.

On Sunday, he wrote on social media: “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!”

At least 60 people killed across Gaza on Monday, in what turned out to be some of the heaviest attacks in weeks.

According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 56,500 people have been killed in the 20-month war.

The visit by Mr Netanyahu to Washington has not been formally announced and the officials who said it would be going ahead spoke on condition of anonymity.

An Israeli official in Washington also confirmed the meeting next Monday.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was in constant communication with the Israeli government.

She said Mr Trump viewed ending the war in Gaza and returning remaining hostages held by Hamas as a top priority.

The war in Gaza broke out in retaliation for Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw a further 250 taken hostage.

An eight-week ceasefire was reached in the final days of Joe Biden’s US presidency, but Israel resumed the war in March after trying to get Hamas to accept new terms on next steps.

Talks between Israel and Hamas have stalled over whether the war should end as part of any ceasefire.