Legal threat to Covid Inquiry from children’s rights group over failure to address harms of lockdown
https://web.archive.org/web/20231220010012/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/17/covid-inquiry-legal-threat-children-rights-lockdown/

UsForThem campaigners warn of ‘predetermined view of both the pandemic and of the desirability and effectiveness of the UK’s response’

Blathnaid Corless
17 December 2023 • 8:00am
Molly Kingsley
Molly Kingsley, founder of children’s rights campaign group UsForThem CREDIT: David Rose for the Telegraph
The Covid Inquiry is being threatened with legal action over fears it is biased in favour of lockdowns and has a “predetermined view” of the UK’s pandemic response.

A children’s rights campaign group has written to the inquiry to demand it alters its scope to ensure harms caused by lockdown are properly examined, witnesses are treated fairly, and consideration is given to state censorship by the Government’s disinformation unit.

The letter, sent to inquiry chairman Baroness Hallett this week by UsForThem, states that the group may bring a judicial review against any final findings if the course of the inquiry is not corrected.

“UsForThem emphatically supports the inquiry’s stated objective to learn lessons that will inform future pandemic responses in the UK,” the letter reads.

‘Serious concerns over inquiry’s current approach’
“But it also now bears serious concerns that the inquiry’s current approach is not only failing adequately to identify those lessons, but risks entirely undermining the validity of its future findings by perpetuating the impression that it holds a predetermined view of both the nature of the pandemic and of the desirability and effectiveness of the UK’s particular response.”

It adds: “If the course of the inquiry is not corrected then we reserve the rights of UsForThem in due course to challenge any final outcome of the inquiry on the basis of any or all of the issues raised in this letter.”

Among the concerns set out in the letter, the campaigners say the inquiry appears to be “failing to consider whether there was any alternative to the lockdowns that were imposed in this country”.

Baroness Hallett, chairman of the Covid Inquiry
Baroness Hallett, chairman of the Covid Inquiry CREDIT: PIRANHA PHOTOGRAPHY/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The inquiry’s lawyers, they claim, have made numerous comments to witnesses during recent hearings exemplifying this point.

They gave an example of comments made by Hugo Keith KC about lockdown during his questioning of Michael Gove, when he remarked: “There was no real argument as to whether, for good and obvious public health reasons, these measures had to be contemplated. They were matters of life and death.

“So there wasn’t really a thesis and an antithesis position here, Mr Gove. All the public health advice on a public health crisis were pointing in one direction.”

UsForThem also say there has been an “apparent lack of curiosity or desire to follow up” by counsel when expert witnesses proffer views that challenge lockdowns.

Evidence given by Prof Mark Woolhouse, a senior epidemiologist who advised the Government during the pandemic, that lockdown was a “failure of public health policy”, has not been put to other witnesses, they claim.

‘One might expect counterviews to be put to other witnesses’
“One might have expected these important counterviews contradicting the notion that lockdown was a public health inevitability to be put to other witnesses, but it is notable that they have not been mentioned again,” they say in their correspondence to the inquiry.

The letter also includes a demand for the inquiry to examine the negative effects of censorship on Covid decision-making, specifically the Government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit.

The Telegraph previously revealed that the secretive unit worked with social media companies in an attempt to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic.

UsForThem argues it is essential for the inquiry to “consider the existence of evidence which was not visible to, or had been inappropriately withheld from or excluded by, decision-makers and their advisers”.

The group also argues that videos projected at the inquiry at the start of each module, in which victims including bereaved families and long Covid sufferers share their stories, are “highly prejudicial to the perceived objectivity of the inquiry”.

UsForThem is a campaign group for children that was set up in May 2020 and fought to keep schools open during the pandemic.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak giving evidence at the inquiry CREDIT: PA
It previously successfully campaigned for the inquiry to amend its terms of reference to address the plight of young people.

Molly Kingsley, the group’s founder, told The Telegraph: “Apparent pre-determinations during its hearings, and its persistent failure to address the central question - were the immense, certain harms of lockdowns and interventions proportionate to the actual and perceived benefits of those policies - are compromising this inquiry.

“Worse than just a huge waste of money, on its current trajectory the inquiry risks setting us up to repeat catastrophic errors. It must either course-correct, or be abandoned.”

Separate allegations of pro-lockdown bias have been made in recent months against the Covid Inquiry, which last week concluded its second phase of hearings examining government decision-making during the pandemic.

Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson, both Oxford academics, recently wrote to Baroness Hallett accusing her of favouring scientists who backed lockdown.

A spokesman for the inquiry said: “We are in regular contact with UsforThem and they have received information from us as recently as last week about looking into the impact of the pandemic on children.

‘The inquiry will be considering impact of lockdowns’
“We are surprised they are asking the same questions again. As we have only just received this letter, it would not be appropriate for us to respond to it via the media.

“The UK Covid-19 Inquiry rejects any suggestion that it has pre-determined its findings.

“The inquiry is entirely independent and Baroness Hallett has made clear that she will not reach any conclusion until she has considered all of the evidence.

“The inquiry will be considering important issues such as the impact of lockdowns and the impact of the pandemic on children and young people, the care sector, as well as business and procurement in due course. Our modular approach is clearly set out on our website.”

Covid disinformation unit made 'hourly contact' with tech firms to flag dissent, says Sarah Connolly
https://web.archive.org/web/20230610104249/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/09/covid-disinformation-unit-hourly-tech-lockdown-dissent/

Sarah Connolly can today be revealed as head of the secretive government unit that flagged critics of lockdown and pandemic policy

By
Investigations team
9 June 2023 • 9:00pm
Phone with censorship marks
A secretive government Covid unit accused of seeking to suppress free speech during the pandemic was in “hourly” contact with social media firms, the official in charge of the operation has disclosed.

The civil servant – who can today be named as Sarah Connolly – said that one of the Counter Disinformation Unit’s (CDU’s) main functions was “passing information over” to companies such as Facebook and Twitter to “encourage… the swift takedown” of posts.

The Telegraph revealed earlier this month that the CDU worked with social media companies in an attempt to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic.

Last night David Davis, the former Conservative Cabinet minister whose comments were logged by the unit, called for the CDU to be shut down and for a parliamentary committee to investigate it.

He said the “most paranoid wing of Government is interfering in the democratic process”, and a parliamentary inquiry with the “biggest combination of power, access and speed” was required.

Separately, the BBC – who attended government meetings at which so-called misinformation was discussed – was accused of acting as “the broadcast arm of the Government” during the pandemic, as journalists described being mocked if they tried to give a voice to lockdown sceptics.

Head of CDU revealed
The identity of the head of the CDU was a mystery, but it can now be disclosed that Ms Connolly, a career civil servant, led it throughout the pandemic and remains in charge.

She previously worked on anti-terror policies for the Home Office, but had already joined the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) when it started monitoring Covid disinformation under Oliver Dowden’s leadership.

It is unclear if other, more senior ministers were involved in the CDU. There is growing speculation that the unit may have links to the intelligence services, but the Government has repeatedly refused to give certain details about it for “national security” reasons.

In remarks to MPs, unearthed by the Telegraph, Ms Connolly laid bare the extent of the Government’s influence over social media.

Ms Connolly told MPs that the CDU was in contact with “almost all” social media platforms, and that discussions were “daily, sometimes hourly”.

When asked about the CDU’s process for having posts removed, Ms Connolly said: “If somebody from the cell says: ‘We are worried about this,’ that goes immediately to the top of the pile. Whoever it is in whatever company.”

The Government confirmed last night that social media firms had taken action on more than 90 per cent of the posts referred to them by the CDU during the pandemic, often by deleting them or using algorithms to ensure they were not seen as widely.

Ms Connolly described the CDU as a “cell” within Government, using the same systems as those in place to stop terrorist content spreading online.

She said one of its “big” functions was “talking to social media platforms and passing information over. It gets information back from them, and encourages that swift takedown – the swift dealing with the platforms. The cell has daily interactions with almost all the platforms”.

She is also named on documents obtained by this newspaper as the chair of the Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum – a group that operated for six months during the pandemic, which included a member of BBC staff, alongside tech companies, academics and lobby groups.

Ms Connolly told MPs that the forum was designed to take the “sometimes hourly” contact of the CDU with tech companies and “raise it to the next level”.

‘Climate of fear’ over anti-Government reporting at BBC
Current and former BBC staff have told the Telegraph that, during the pandemic, a “climate of fear” existed within the corporation among those who argued that its reporting lacked balance, saying they were branded “dissenters”.

Three journalists who gave evidence to a parliamentary group in private last year told the Telegraph they were ignored when they raised their concerns about impartiality with senior managers.

One senior BBC editor tried to organise, via a secret WhatsApp group, a “pushback” to stop its journalists backing Government policy, but they were too fearful of losing their jobs to join the proposed rebellion.

Today’s revelations raise questions about Ms Connolly’s influence, as both chair of the policy forum and leader of the CDU inside Government.

Her comments – made just as the vaccine rollout was beginning – also call into question what criteria the CDU use to make its judgments.

Her testimony suggests that the CDU takes a broad view of what qualifies as disinformation.

Addressing MPs, she said that the most concerning types of anti-vaccine material included discussions about side-effects and the speed with which it was produced.

“‘The vaccine was done too quickly’, ‘it is not safe’, those kind of narratives,” she said.

While the vaccines were safe for most people, coroners have ruled that a small number of people died from rare reactions to the AstraZeneca jab.

Academics have also expressed concerns about the speed of some vaccine trials.

Connolly took control like a ‘puppeteer’
Last night, sources said the CDU had been allowed to expand its reach under Ms Connolly, who took on the role of director of security and online harms in 2017.

One blamed a revolving door of culture secretaries, and said a rapid succession of ministers with little experience of the sector or ambition to stay in the DCMS had allowed Ms Connolly to take control like a “puppeteer”.

The CDU moved from the DCMS to become the responsibility of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology earlier this year, but the source said her control of the unit appeared unlikely to change because there was a lack of oversight from No 10.

“This is an abject failure of the centre [of Government],” they said.

Last night, government sources praised Ms Connolly’s work ethic and professionalism. “As a hard-working civil servant, she’s an impartial adviser – not a puppeteer,” one said.

Social media posts monitored by the CDU and the Cabinet Office’s now-defunct Rapid Response Unit include comments by respected scientists such as Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who argued against the mass vaccination of children against Covid-19. The units also flagged discussions questioning lockdown and vaccine passports.

Government tight-lipped about disinformation unit
The Government has repeatedly refused to give details about the CDU’s budget or the number of staff it employs, but it is known that during the pandemic it used an external AI firm to trawl through posts.

A Government spokesman said: “As we have repeatedly made clear, the primary purpose of the unit was to track narratives, not individuals. It does not have, and has never had, the power to remove online content – on occasions where it encountered content considered to be in breach of social media platforms’ own terms of service, it was referred to them for consideration.

“When referrals were made during Covid, over 90 per cent of them were ultimately found to be in breach of terms of service. It is important to remember that this engagement with social media platforms was undertaken at the height of an unprecedented pandemic when the government’s overriding concern was to protect public health.”

Twitter could not be reached for comment, although it is understood that it did not act on CDU referrals at the same rate as other social media firms.

Facebook owner Meta has previously said it does not “allow false claims about the vaccines or vaccination programmes which public health experts have advised us could lead to Covid-19 vaccine rejection. This includes false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients, development, existence or conspiracies related to the vaccine or vaccination programme”.

The BBC said that it rejected the characterisation of its Covid coverage and said it featured a range of voices. The broadcaster said it attended the Counter Disinformation Policy Forum in an observer-only capacity.
A spokesman for the broadcaster said: “We totally reject this characterisation of our Covid coverage; we featured a range of voices during the pandemic, including those sceptical of lockdowns, in line with our duty of due impartiality.

“We do not recognise this description of our working environment. Like other news organisations the stories we cover are the subject of robust editorial discussion and debate.

“As we’ve already made clear, the BBC attended the Counter Disinformation Policy Forum in an observer-only capacity. The person who attended was not a BBC News executive and played absolutely no role in editorial decision making.”

2024 DARPA & DoD budgeted project highlights
Thread by @eleevn on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1742406638513127495.html


...

- multiple inferences of impending supply-chain collapse & bioengineered microbial nutrient solutions
- multiple projects related to operating in extreme cold, electromagnetically unpredictable, austere & GPS-compromised environments
...

a je to tu

Now scientists say BREATHING is bad for the environment: Gases we exhale contribute to 0.1% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions | Daily Mail Online
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12859057/Now-scientists-say-BREATHING-bad-environment-Gases-exhale-contribute-0-1-UKs-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html

Whether it's eating less meat or cycling instead of driving, humans can do many things to help prevent climate change.

Unfortunately, breathing less isn't one of them.

That might be a problem, as a new study claims the gases in air exhaled from human lungs is fueling global warming.

Methane and nitrous oxide in the air we exhale makes up to 0.1 per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say.

And that's not even accounting for the gas we release from burps and farts, or emissions that come from our skin without us noticing.


Whether it's eating less meat or cycling instead of driving, humans can do many things to help prevent climate change. Unfortunately, breathing less isn't one of them (stock image)

Composition of exhaled human breath
- Nitrogen (N) - 78%

- Oxygen (O2)* - 17%

- Carbon dioxide (CO2) - 4%

- Other gases including methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) – 1%

*Exhaled human breath contains oxygen, but just less oxygen than the air we inhaled

The new study was led by Dr Nicholas Cowan, an atmospheric physicist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh.

'Exhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming,' Dr Cowan and colleagues say.

'We would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible.'

As most of us remember from science classes at school, humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

When we inhale, air enters the lungs, and oxygen from that air moves to the blood, while carbon dioxide (CO2), a waste gas, moves from the blood to the lungs and is breathed out.

With plants, it is the other way round; plants use CO2 to create oxygen as a by-product (the process known as photosynthesis).

Every person breathes out CO2 when they exhale, but in their new study, the researchers focused on methane and nitrous oxide.

These two are both powerful greenhouse gases, but because they're breathed out in much smaller quantities, their contribution to global warming may have been overlooked.


When we inhale, air enters the lungs, and oxygen from that air moves to the blood, while CO2, a waste gas, moves from the blood to the lungs and is breathed out

What's more, plants essentially soak up all the CO2 that's emitted in human breath, so 'CO2 contribution in human breath to climate change is essentially zero,' Dr Cowan told MailOnline.

The same cannot be said for methane and nitrous oxide, as plants don't use these gases in photosynthesis.

For the study, the researchers investigated emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath from 104 adult volunteers from the UK population.

Participants were required to take in a deep breath and hold it for five seconds, then exhale into a sealable plastic bag.

A total of 328 breath samples were collected and every participant had details recorded such as age, sex and dietary preference.

After analysing the samples, researchers found nitrous oxide was emitted by every participant, but methane was found in the breath of only 31 per cent of participants.

Researchers say those who do not exhale methane in their breath are still likely to 'release the gas in flatus' – in other words, by farting.

Interestingly, people with methane in their exhaled breath were more likely to be female and above the age of 30, but researchers aren't sure why.

Concentrations of the two gases in the overall samples let the researchers estimate the proportion of the UK's emissions are from our breath – 0.05 per cent for methane and 0.1 per cent for nitrous oxide.

Dr Cowan stresses that each of these percentages relate specifically to these respective gases, not all of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions as a whole.

Researchers didn't manage to find any link between gases in the breath and diets – although meat eaters are known to fuel the climate crisis in other ways.

The experts stress that their study only looked at greenhouse gases in breath, and so it does not provide an overall estimate of a person's emissions footprint.

In experiments, all participants breathed out carbon dioxide (left). Nitrous oxide (right) was also emitted by every participant, but methane (centre) was found in the breath of only 31 per cent of participants

According to the authors, emissions of methane and nitrous oxide are 'generally ignored in most environmental monitoring' as they're considered negligible.

However, further study of human emissions of these gases - not just from our breath - could reveal more about 'the impacts of an ageing population and shifting diets,' the team say.

Inside the human body, methane gas is produced by microorganisms called methanogens, which colonise our digestive tract.

The methane crosses into the blood and is carried to the lungs where it can be exhaled in breath.

Meanwhile, bacteria in the gut and oral cavity turns nitrates in food and water to nitrous oxide, which also escapes in human breath.

The study has been published in the journal PLOS One.

Measurements of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath and the development of UK scale emissions | PLOS ONE
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0295157

The factors that affect human emissions of CH4 and N2O are not well understood and the impacts of an aging population and shifting diets is still relatively uncertain. Converting from high meat and protein content diets to higher fibre vegetarian options to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases from meat production potentially results in higher production of gases in the human gut [24],

October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles - The Grayzone
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/

Israel’s military received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases as they were overwhelmed by Hamas militants on October 7. How many Israeli citizens said to have been “burned alive” were actually killed by friendly fire?
Several new testimonies by Israeli witnesses to the October 7 Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel adds to growing evidence that the Israeli military killed its own citizens as they fought to neutralize Palestinian gunmen.

Tuval Escapa, a member of the security team for Kibbutz Be’eri, set up a hotline to coordinate between kibbutz residents and the Israeli army. He told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that as desperation began to set in, “the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”

A separate report published in Haaretz noted that the Israeli military was “compelled to request an aerial strike” against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza “in order to repulse the terrorists” who had seized control. That base was filled with Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers at the time.

These reports indicate that orders came down from the military’s high command to attack homes and other areas inside Israel, even at the cost of many Israeli lives.

An Israeli woman named Yasmin Porat confirmed in an interview with Israel Radio that the military “undoubtedly” killed numerous Israeli noncombatants during gun battles with Hamas militants on October 7. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she stated, referring to Israeli special forces.

As David Sheen and Ali Abunimah reported in Electronic Intifada, Porat described “very, very heavy crossfire” and Israeli tank shelling, which led to many casualties among Israelis.

While being held by the Hamas gunmen, Porat recalled, “They did not abuse us. We were treated very humanely… No one treated us violently.”

She added, “The objective was to kidnap us to Gaza, not to murder us.”

According to Haaretz, the army was only able to restore control over Be’eri after admittedly “shelling” the homes of Israelis who had been taken captive. “The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri residents were killed,” the paper chronicled. “Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed houses. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble.”

Much of the shelling in Be’eri was carried out by Israeli tank crews. As a reporter for the Israeli Foreign Ministry-sponsored outlet i24 noted during a visit to Be’eri, “small and quaint homes [were] bombarded or destroyed,” and “well-maintained lawns [were] ripped up by the tracks of an armored vehicle, perhaps a tank.”

Apache attack helicopters also figured heavily in the Israeli military’s response on October 7. Pilots have told Israeli media they scrambled to the battlefield without any intelligence, unable to differentiate between Hamas fighters and Israeli noncombatants, and yet determined to “empty the belly” of their war machines. “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them,” one Apache pilot commented.

Video filmed by uniformed Hamas gunmen makes it clear they intentionally shot many Israelis with Kalashnikov rifles on October 7. However, the Israeli government has not been content to rely on verified video evidence. Instead, it continues to push discredited claims of “beheaded babies” while distributing photographs of “bodies burned beyond recognition” to insist that militants sadistically immolated their captives, and even raped some before torching them alive.

The objective behind Tel Aviv’s atrocity exhibition is clear: to paint Hamas as “worse than ISIS” while cultivating support for the Israeli army’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which has left over 7000 dead, including at least 2500 children at the time of publication. While hundreds of wounded children in Gaza have been treated for what a surgeon described as “fourth degree burns” caused by novel weapons, the Western media’s focus remains trained on Israeli citizens supposedly “burned alive” on October 7.

Yet the mounting evidence of friendly fire orders handed down by Israeli army commanders strongly suggests that at least some of the most jarring images of charred Israeli corpses, Israeli homes reduced to rubble and burned out hulks of vehicles presented to Western media were, in fact, the handiwork of tank crews and helicopter pilots blanketing Israeli territory with shells, cannon fire and Hellfire missiles.

Indeed, it appears that on October 7, Israel’s military resorted to the same tactics it has employed against civilians in Gaza, driving up the death toll of its own citizens with the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons.

Israel bombs its own base, nerve center of the Gaza siege
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood at 6 AM on October 7, quickly overwhelming the military bases from which Israel maintain its siege of the Gaza Strip. Chief among the objectives outlined by Hamas and PIJ was the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including as many as 700 children passing through the system each year along with 1264 Palestinians currently being held without charges.

The 2011 swap for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured five years prior and released in exchange for 1027 prisoners, provided clear inspiration for Al-Aqsa Flood. By storming military bases and kibbutzes, the Palestinian militants aimed to capture as many Israeli soldiers and civilians as possible, and bring them back to Gaza alive.

The lighting assault immediately overwhelmed Israel’s Gaza Division. Video recorded from GoPro cameras mounted on the helmets of Palestinian fighters shows Israeli soldiers cut down in rapid succession, many still dressed in underwear and caught off guard. At least 340 active soldiers and intelligence officers were killed on October 7, accounting for close to 50% of confirmed Israeli deaths. The casualties included high ranking officers like Col. Jonathan Steinberg, the commander of Israel’s Nahal Brigade. (Many first responders and armed Israeli civilians were also killed).

The Erez Crossing is the home of a massive military and Coordination of Government Activities in the [Occupied] Territories (COGAT) facility which functions as the nerve center of Israel’s siege on Gaza. When it was overrun by Palestinian fighters on October 7 with droves of army bureaucrats inside, the Israeli military flew into a panic.

According to Haaretz, the commander of the Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld, “entrenched himself in the division’s subterranean war room together with a handful of male and female soldiers, trying desperately to rescue and organize the sector under attack. Many of the soldiers, most of them not combat personnel, were killed or wounded outside. The division was compelled to request an aerial strike against the [Erez Crossing] base itself in order to repulse the terrorists.”

Video released by Israel’s COGAT ten days after the battle – and the Israeli airstrike – shows severe structural damage to the roof of the Erez Crossing facility.


Israeli Apache helicopters attack inside Israel: “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at”
By 10:30 AM, according to an account the military gave to the Israeli news outlet Mako, “most of the [Palestinian] forces from the original invasion wave had already left the area for Gaza.” But with the rapid collapse of the Israeli military’s Gaza Division, looters, common onlookers and low-level guerrillas not necessarily under the command of Hamas flowed freely into Israel.

By this point, Israel’s two Apache helicopter squadrons had 8 choppers in the air, “and there was almost no intelligence to help make fateful decisions,” Mako reported. The squadrons did not reach full strength until noon.

As the wave of infiltrations from Gaza drove chaos on the ground, discombobulated Israeli pilots unleashed a frenzy of missile and machine gun salvos: “The Apache pilots testify that they fired a huge amount of munitions, emptied the ‘belly of the helicopter’ in minutes, flew to re-arm and returned to the air, again and again. But it didn’t help and they understand it,” Mako reported.

The Apache helicopters appear to have focused on vehicles streaming back into Gaza from the Nova electronic music festival and nearby kibbutzes, attacked cars with apparent knowledge that Israeli captives could be inside. They also fired on unarmed people exiting cars or walking on foot through the fields on the periphery of Gaza.


In an interview with Israel’s Mako news outlet, one Apache pilot reflected on the tortuous dilemma of whether to shoot at people and cars returning to Gaza. He knew that many of those vehicles may have contained Israeli captives. But he chose to open fire anyway. “I choose targets like that,” the pilot reflected, “where I tell myself that the chance that I am shooting here on hostages as well is low.” However, he admitted that his judgment “was not 100%.”

“I understand that we have to shoot here and quickly,” the commander of the Apache unit, Lt. Col. E., told Mako in a separate report. “Shooting at people in our territory – this is something I never thought I would do.”

Lt. Col. A., a reserve pilot in the same unit, described a fog of confusion: “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them.”

A report on the Apache squadrons by the Israeli outlet Yedioth Aharanoth noted that “the pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian… The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select the targets.”

A squadron commander explained to Mako how he nearly attacked the home of an Israeli family occupied by Hamas militants, and wound up firing next to it with cannon rounds. “Our forces hadn’t had time to reach this settlement yet,” the pilot recalled, “and I’ve already run out of missiles there, which is the more accurate weaponry.”

With the family inside a fortified bomb shelter, the pilot “decided to shoot a cannon 30 meters from this house, a very difficult decision. I shoot so that if they are currently there, they will hear the bombs inside the house, that they understand that it is known they are there, and with the hope that they will leave that house. I am also telling you the truth, it crossed my mind that I was shooting at the house.”

Ultimately, the Israeli helicopter pilots blamed clever Hamas tactics for their inability to distinguish between the armed militants and Israeli non-combatants. “The Hamas army, it turns out, deliberately made it difficult for the helicopter pilots and the operators of the UAVs,” Yedioth Aharanoth claimed.

According to the Israeli paper, “it became clear that the invading forces were asked in the last briefings to walk slowly into the settlements and outposts or within them, and under no circumstances to run, in order to make the pilots think they were Israelis. This deception worked for a considerable time , until the Apache pilots realized that they had to skip all the restrictions. It was only around 9:00 a.m. that some of them began to spray the terrorists with the cannons on their own, without authorization from superiors.”

And so, without any intelligence or ability to distinguish between Palestinian and Israeli, the pilots let loose a fury of cannon and missile fire onto Israeli areas below.


One of many homes in Kibbutz Be’eri which appears to have been shelled with heavy weapons
Israel’s military “eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” firing tank shells into kibbutz homes
Photos of the aftermath of the fighting inside kibbutzes like Be’eri – and of the Israeli bombardment of these communities – show rubble and charred homes that resemble the aftermath of Israeli tank and artillery attacks inside Gaza. As Tuval Escapa, the security coordinator at Kibbutz Be’eri, told Haaretz, Israeli army commanders had ordered the “shelling [of] houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”

Yasmin Porat, an attendee of the Nova music festival who fled into Kibbutz Be’eri, told Israeli Radio that when Israeli special forces arrived during a hostage standoff, “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.”

“After insane crossfire,” Porat continued, “two tank shells were shot into the house. It’s a small kibbutz house, nothing big.”


Destroyed homes in Kibbutz Be’eri following the fighting on October 7, which included Israeli tank shelling of residences
A video posted by the Telegram account of Israel’s South Responders shows the bodies of Israelis discovered below the rubble of a home destroyed by a powerful explosive blast – likely a tank shell. The right-wing New York Post ran a report on a similar incident about a boy’s body found scorched beneath the ruins of his home in Be’eri.

The phenomenon of charred corpses whose hands and ankles had been tied, and who were found in groups beneath the rubble of destroyed homes, also raises questions about “friendly” tank fire.

Yasmin Porat, the hostage who survived a standoff at Be’eri, described how Hamas militants tied her partner’s hands behind his back. After one militant commander surrendered, using her as a human shield to ensure his safety, she saw her partner lying on the ground, still alive. She stated that Israeli security forces “undoubtedly” killed him and the other hostages as they opened fire on the remaining militants inside, including with tank shells.

Israeli security forces also opened fire on fleeing Israelis whom they mistook for Hamas gunmen. A resident of Ashkelon named Danielle Rachiel described nearly being killed after escaping from the Nova music festival when it was attacked by militants from Gaza. “As we reached the roundabout [at a kibbutz], we saw Israeli security forces!” Rachiel 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!”

“When our forces fired at us, our windows shattered,” she continued. It was only when they shouted in Hebrew, “We’re Israelis!” that the shooting stopped, and they were taken to safety.


From Danielle Rachiel’s video testimony on October 7
Some Israelis were not as lucky as Rachiel. Adi Ohana was shot dead by Israeli police near his home after being mistaken for a Palestinian guerrilla. “An innocent man was killed in the most negligent way possible,” his niece complained. Israeli media is now filling up with reports of the military gunning down fellow Israelis, even as they were defending their homes from Palestinian gunmen.

Did Israel’s now-disappeared “Hamas atrocity” photos depict dead Hamas fighters?
Among the most gruesome videos of the aftermath of October 7, also published on the Telegram account of South Responders, shows a car full of charred corpses (below) at the entrance of Kibbutz Be’eri. The Israeli government has portrayed these casualties as Israeli victims of sadistic Hamas violence. However, the melted steel body and collapsed roof of the car, and the comprehensively scorched corpses inside, evidence a direct hit from a Hellfire missile.

It is also possible that the male occupants of the car were Hamas activists who had streamed in after the fences were breached. They may have also been returning to Gaza with Israeli captives inside their car.



Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, appears to have promoted photos showing dead Hamas fighters during his October 26 tirade at the United Nations. Erdan gesticulated angrily at the podium, bellowing that “we are fighting animals” before whipping out a paper displaying a QR code captionioned, “Scan to see Hamas’ atrocities.”

When I scanned the code that day at noon, I found around 8 grisly images of burned bodies and blackened body parts. One showed a pile of completely charred male corpses piled into a dumpster. Would Israeli rescuers and medics have disposed of dead Jewish Israelis in such a fashion?

All Israelis killed on October 7 appear to have been collected in individual body bags and transported to morgues. Meanwhile, numerous videos recorded by Israelis showed them defiling the corpses of Hamas gunmen killed by security forces – stripping them naked, urinating on them, and mutilating their bodies. Throwing their bodies in a dumpster would seem to be a part of the de facto policy of corpse abuse.

Just over twelve hours after Ambassador Erdan promoted the supposed Hamas atrocity photos at the UN, the Google Drive file contained only one brief video. Among the mysteriously disappeared photos was the image of the dumpster filled with burned bodies. Had it been deleted because it showed Hamas fighters torched by a Hellfire missile, and not Israelis “burned to death” by Hamas?


Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan at the UN, October 26. The QR code he displayed currently leads to a 404 notice.
Destruction reminiscent of Israeli attacks on Gaza
Some rescuers who arrived at sites of carnage in southern Israel after October 7 said they had never seen such destruction. For those who have borne witness to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, however, the images of bombed-out homes and burned cars should have been familiar.

While reporting on Israel’s 51 day-long assault on Gaza in 2014, I came across a destroyed vehicle in central Gaza City belonging to a young taxi driver named Fadel Alawan who had been assassinated by an Israeli drone after he unwittingly dropped a wounded Hamas fighter off at a nearby hospital. Inside the car, the remains of Alawan’s sandal could still be seen melted into the gas pedal.

By the afternoon of October 7, placid settlements and desert roads across southern Israel were charred and lined with bombed-out cars that looked much like Alawan’s. Were the lightly-armed Hamas fighters actually capable of exacting destruction on such a comprehensive scale?


Is the Israeli government distributing photos of friendly fire casualties?
This October 23, Israel’s government gathered members of the international press for an off-the-record propaganda session. Inside a closed military base, officials bombarded the press with snuff films and a collection of lurid allegations of “harrowing scenes of murder, torture and decapitation from Hamas’s October 7 onslaught,” according to the Times of Israel.


In perhaps the most unsettling document presented by the Israeli government, reporters were treated to video showing “a partially burned woman’s corpse, with a mutilated head… The dead woman’s dress is pulled up to her waist and her underpants have been removed,” according to the Times of Israel.

Daniel Amram, the most popular private news blogger in Israel, tweeted the video of the woman’s burned corpse, claiming that “she was raped and burned alive.”


In fact, the young woman appeared to have been killed instantly by a powerful blast. And she seemed to have been removed from the car in which she was seated – and which may have belonged to a captor from Gaza. The vehicle was comprehensively destroyed and situated on a dirt field, as many others attacked by Apache helicopters were. She was scantily clad with her legs spread apart.

Though she had attended the Nova electronic music festival, where many female attendees dressed in skimpy attire, and her bent limbs were typical of a body that had been seated in a car after rigor mortis, Israeli pundits and officials ran with the claim she had been raped.

But the allegations of sexual assault have so far proven baseless. Israeli army spokesman Mickey Edelstein insisted to reporters at the October 23 press briefing that “we have evidence” of rape, but when asked for proof, he told the Times of Israel, “we cannot share it.”

Was this young woman yet another casualty of the Israeli military’s friendly fire orders? Only an independent investigation can determine the truth.

Israel’s military kills Israeli captives inside Gaza, grumbles about their release
Inside Gaza, where some 200 Israeli citizens are held hostage, there is little doubt about who is killing the captives. On October 26, the Hamas armed wing known as the Al-Qassam Brigades announced that Israel had killed “almost 50 captives” in missile strikes.

If Israel’s military had intentionally targeted areas where it knew the captives were held, its actions would have been consistent with Israel’s Hannibal Directive. The military procedure was established in 1986 following the Jibril Agreement, a deal in which Israel traded 1150 Palestinian prisoners for three Israeli soldiers. Following heavy political backlash, the Israeli military drafted a secret field order to prevent future kidnappings. The proposed operation drew its name from the Carthaginian general who chose to poison himself rather than be held captive by the enemy.

The last confirmed application of the Hannibal Directive took place on August 1, 2014 in Rafah, Gaza, when Hamas fighters captured an Israeli officer, Lt. Hadar Goldin, prompting the military to unleash more than 2000 bombs, missiles and shells on the area, killing the soldier along with over 100 Palestinian civilians.

Whether or not Israel is intentionally killing its captive citizens in Gaza, it has proven strangely allergic to their immediate release. On October 22, after refusing an offer from Hamas to release 50 hostages in exchange for fuel, Israel rejected an offer from Hamas to free Yocheved Lifshitz, an 85-year-old Israeli peace activist, and her 79-year-old friend, Nurit Cooper.

When Israel agreed to their release a day later, video showed Liftshitz clasping hands with a Hamas militant and intoning “Shalom” to him as he escorted her out of Gaza. During a press conference that day, she recounted the humane treatment she received from her captors.


The spectacle of Lifshitz’s release was treated as a propaganda disaster by the Israeli government’s spinmeisters, with officials grumbling that allowing her to speak publicly was a grave “mistake.”

The Israeli military was no less displeased by her sudden freedom. As the Times of Israel reported, “The army is concerned that further hostage releases by Hamas could lead the political leadership to delay a ground incursion or even halt it midway.”