There is clear evidence that the terrorists attacking Israel on Oct 7th were deliberately targeting civilians and civilian population centers.
There are plenty of video evidence of them targeting, shooting at and killing civilians. Just looking at the huge list of victims we see the tens of murdered children and hundreds of murdered women, youngest of them (of all those whose identity was released by now) is 10 month old Mila Cohen.
We also have the identity of the kidnapped confirmed by Hamas and PIJ. Hamas released two elderly women, Yocheved Lifshitz, 85 years old and Nurit Cooper, 79 years old. There is no way that a reasonable person will think that two elderly women are IDF soldiers or part of the Israeli military forces. Earlier they released mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan, 59 and 18 years old. And released a video showing three women they hold captive Rimon Buchshtav Kirsht, Danielle Aloni and Lena Trupanov, aged 36, 44 and 50. PIJ released a video confirming that they hold Hannah Katzir, 77 years old, and Yagil Yaakov, 13 years old. We have terrorist confirmation that they took captive and hold elderly women and children. None of them are military members and can't be confused as military members. All taken from their civilian homes in civilian clothes.
We have the story of the Elyakim-Arava family (video from the news, shows blood). The father Noam Elyakim and his two daughters Ella and Dafna aged 8 and 15 and his girlfriend Dikla Arava and her son Tomer, 17 years old. They were filmed in Hamas captivity in their home alive and well except for a minor wound in Noam's leg. Later on Oct 7th there are pictures of Ella and Dafna in Hamas captivity. In the following days and weeks the bodies of Noam, Dikla and Tomer were found. They were killed by Hamas while they were kidnapped from their home and were in their custody.
There is plenty more evidence from the day of the attack made and published by Hamas themselves where we can clearly see women and children kidnapped. This news video contains some of the published clips, but not all of them (clip is SFW), in the following time stamps:
- 0:46 - Women and children from Nir Oz
- 1:30 - Elyakim-Arava family
- 5:00 - Yafa Hadar, 85 years old woman.
- 7:15 - Noa Argamani, a young woman who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival.
The video contains also footage of kidnaped civilian men, but for some reason QCMSA don't concern themselves about them. And these are not the only videos in existence, there are other, more gruesome.
Dead civilians: many women and children were killed, just one example from Kibbutz Be'eri shows four hostages led by Hamas terrorists handcuffed, and in a later video they are shown dead next to the gate of the Kibbutz. From a Washington Post article
At least four Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during their unprecedented incursion into Israel on Saturday were killed soon after being taken captive, according to videos reviewed by The Washington Post. Graphic video shared on Telegram on Oct. 8, and verified by The Post, shows multiple bodies in the street in Be’eri, a kibbutz in southern Israel, just yards from where Hamas militants were filmed walking with several civilians who appear to be those same hostages.
Initial video of the hostages, which was filmed roughly an hour and a half after the attack began, was among the first pieces of visual evidence showing Hamas militants taking Israeli civilians captive.
In the video, the civilians appear to have their hands tied behind their backs and are being led by men in military clothing carrying AR-style weapons down a residential street. Some walk barefoot. Black smoke billows in the distance. The person filming shouts toward the group as they approach an intersection that is guarded by a gate, leading out of Be’eri toward Gaza.
At least four bodies are visible near that gate, in a second graphic video shared on Telegram on Oct. 8, which was independently verified by The Post and first geolocated by Rollo Collins and Benjamin den Braber of the Center for Information Resilience. The Post was not able to immediately verify exactly when this video was filmed, though burned cars and smoke are visible in both videos.
There is the video of the death of Osama Abu Essa an Israeli Arab Bedouin who was held by Hamas, interrogated, abused and then murdered, captured by a dash cam. I'm not linking to the video, because gore and snuff, you can look at the question on this site about him
And the story of 22 years old East Jerusalem Palestinian driver Suhaib Razeem:
Footage emerged on Tuesday showing the moment Razeem was captured by Hamas terrorists, some of whom apparently intended to let him go at first, upon finding out he was an Arab.
In the video clip, published by the South First Responders group on Telegram, one terrorist asks him “Are you an Arab?” to which Razeem replies “Jerusalemite.” Another one asked to see his ID.
A third terrorist asks “What are you doing here?” to which the young Palestinian replies that he is a bus driver.
Someone then screams: “Where are the soldiers?” as they express apparent surprise at the lack of Israeli military response and possibly seek to find out information.
As more terrorists gather around Razeem, others can be heard calling for him to be let go. “He is a worker, he is from Jerusalem, leave him alone,” one person says.
Nonetheless, Razeem was not spared in the massacre.
His body was only identified on October 19, after his family spent 12 days frantically searching for news about him.
Finally, to prevent the argument that those are rogue elements or that civilians were not the intended targets. And what I think is the most important piece of evidence, we know that this attack was targeted from the very start at civilians, and that the terrorists had prepared information and documents on civilian targets. As shown in this news article the operation plan for attacking Kibbutz Miflasin, a civilian target said explicitly to take civilian hostages and harm civilians.
In the document, the terrorists received clear orders to kidnap Israelis. "Take soldiers and civilians prisoner and hostage so that we would use them to negotiate," the document said. This is in contradiction to claims made by Salah al Arouri, a senior Hamas official, to Al Jazeera, that Hamas only targeted the military and that the Israelis were taken by civilians crossing the breached border fence.
British Sky News reported overnight that a document found on a dead terrorist, which appears to be the same one described by the Times, referred to Kibbutz Miflasim, where the terrorists were repelled by local residents and prevented from invading.
British Sky News reported overnight that a document found on a dead terrorist, which appears to be the same one described by the Times, referred to Kibbutz Miflasim, where the terrorists were repelled by local residents and prevented from invading.
One page in the document titled, The Mission at Kibbutz Miflasim, said the Hamas force would be made up of two commanders and two teams of five. Sky also reported that the document included an order to abduct soldiers and civilians. One of the teams was told to breach the security fence and indicated the time it would take and that reinforcements would arrive within 3 to 5 minutes.
