Is there any evidence that supports the claim that IDF killed their own citizens on 7th October?

Question

Few people and news sources claim that IDF killed its own citizens on the 7th October, the first time I heard this was on Hassan Nasrallah's (Secretary-General of Lebanon's Hizbullah) speech today, he claimed that it is the Israeli army forces who killed most of the citizens on the 7th October attack, and it blamed it on Hamas.

In Hezbollah's Nasrallah blames IDF for massacre of Israelis from Jerusalem Post:

Nasrallah went on to claim that the October 7 massacre was carried out by Israeli forces on Israeli civilians, adding that there was no evidence of Hamas beheading babies.

The Grayzone makes the same claim here: October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles

From Yedioth Ahronot (translated): Hamas deception of IDF helicopters and directing pilots on WhatsApp

After 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, a decision was made that the first task of the combat helicopters and the armed Zik drones was to stop the flow of terrorists and the murderous mob that poured into Israeli territory through the gaps in the fence. 28 combat helicopters fired over the course of a day The fighting all the ammunition in their stomachs, in rearming rounds. These are hundreds of 30 mm cannon shells (the effect of a spray grenade for each shell) as well as the Hellfire missiles. 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.

The Hamas army, it turns out, deliberately made it difficult for the helicopter pilots and the operators of the UAVs: in the investigation 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.

Another source Israel army kills its citizens during October 7 attacks - report | IDF accused of killing Israeli civilians on October 7

Yedioth Ahranoth from the Israeli press made a striking claim, suggesting that their helicopters deployed to neutralize Hamas' military wing, the Izzettin Al-Qassam Brigades, acted indiscriminately and caused most civilian casualties.

Another source by Scott Ritter.

What about the 1400 dead? Well most of them were soldiers, and of the civilians, estimated 80% of those civilians were killed by the Israeli themselves.

The majority of people who died, um, from, the majority of the civilians who died that day were killed by Apache helicopters, merkava tanks or Israeli defence force, panicked Israeli defence force.

And this by Scott Ritter: The October 7 Hamas Assault on Israel

Moreover, it turns out that the number one killer of Israelis on October 7 wasn’t Hamas or other Palestinian factions, but the Israeli military itself.

Another source for the same claim made by George Galloway here

Another source this time from the retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor

Answer 1

This is a pretty ridiculous claim. While it's not impossible that some were killed in crossfire etc. (see e.g. recent admission that the IDF killed 3 hostages in Gaza--all young men), Israel has released plenty of footage, sometime captured from GoPros of [later dead] attackers showing them shooting or even stabling (incl. one attempt to decapitate with a hoe) various unarmed people. The reason I've used the latter term is that another Hamas spokesperson has claimed that settlers aren't civilians, so... that was another excuse they invoked. As I see there are some doubts on this in comments, here's the Palestinian-friendly al-Jazeera saying/quoting that:

Osama Hamdan, senior spokesperson for Hamas, told Al Jazeera that the group was not attacking civilians even though the group’s own videos have shown its fighters taking elderly Israelis hostage during the fighting on Saturday.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International have also pointed out that Israeli civilians had been killed by Hamas.

But Hamdan insisted that the group was attacking only settlers living in illegal settlements, whom he described as legitimate targets.

“You have to differentiate between settlers and civilians. Settlers attacked Palestinians,” Hamdan said.

Asked whether civilians in southern Israel were also considered settlers, Hamdan said: “Everyone knows there are settlements there.”

“We are not targeting civilians on purpose. We have declared settlers are part of the occupation and part of the armed Israeli force. They are not civilians,” he added.

In a more recent statement Hamas denied targeting some groups (women, children), but don't claim targeting only armed men; instead 'reservists' (seemingly military age men) in any setting appear to have been declared 'fair game'...

"El-Deif clearly told his fighters 'don't kill a woman, don't kill a child and don't kill an old man'," [Mr Marzouk] said.

Reservist soldiers were, he said, "targeted". He maintained that only "conscripts [...] or soldiers" were killed.

TBH even that statement is a little confusing (has an element of self-contradiction) because women serve and are conscripted in Israel's military. Also, according to the BBC, Marzouk evaded answering a direct question about unarmed people that were seen [in videos] being shot at by Hamas fighters.

True, the amount of footage released insofar probably can't individually account for the majority of victims, and Israel controls the territory, bodies and so forth, but such extraordinary claims like those in this Q require extraordinary evidence for Hamas [or the claimant] to produce. Especially since the claim is coming from an organization that in the past blew up busses full of people using suicide bombers, and admitted it.

And one also has to wonder why is it Hezbollah (and not Hamas) saying it, and why the claim is only surfacing now.

Answer 2

TLDR: This claim doesn't fly because IDF wouldn't have the time to "spin a story" within hours of Hamas' attack.

Let's take three starting points.

• First is accepting, for the sake of this rebuttal, that the IDF would do such a thing for political gains. I.e. let's go along with Nasrallah for a second.

• The second is that Hamas initiated the Oct 7th attacks.

• Third, "most" deaths are supposedly IDF's fault. Not "some". So Nasrallah is not talking about "some" accidental friendly fire.

Now, let's shift the analysis to the Supernova music festival. With 260 deaths, it is a sizable proportion of the total civilian deaths of 10/7.

most of those who they say civilians killed by Hamas

Well, if most civilians were killed by IDF, it stands to reason the Supernova victims were also killed by IDF.

Now, if you remember the timeline of us reading the news on 10/7, Supernova quickly started making the news, though it would take a while for the full scale of the atrocities to come out.

Let's take an article which came out on the BBC on October 8th.

This is a first hand account, reported to the BBC

Gili Yoskovich was among hundreds of young people at a dance music festival in southern Israel, near the Gaza Strip, when gunmen opened fire in the early hours of Saturday morning, as Palestinian militants launched a co-ordinated attack on Israel.

She described to the BBC how she hid under a tree in a field as gunmen roamed about shooting anybody they found.

"They were...all over the place with automatic weapons.

"They were standing next to the cars starting to shoot but I realised it was very easy to get killed...because everyone was going everywhere.

Now, doubtless, many of us recall seeing many similar news stories come out on the 7 or 8th of October, within hours of the attack.

Oct 10th: Israeli music festival: 260 bodies recovered from site where people fled in hail of bullets - BBC News

Does it stand to reason that, if Hamas initiated the attack and if the IDF wanted to derive political benefits from carrying out a false flag atrocity on their own people, Israel could then coordinate stories across many people that would all be coherent enough to deceive reporters? WITHIN HOURS??? All the while making sure, of course, that no Israeli witnesses to this supposed false flag IDF action would survive to testify? And credibly falsified released-soon-after videos as well?

Also, the notion of "friendly fire" happening at scale, in broad daylight (attack started early morning, remember), where the IDF would somehow confuse gaudily-dressed ravers with Hamas combat troops? Yeah, pull the other one.

I took Supernova as an example, because it is one, very high-profile event, with lots of victims and lots of interviews. So you can check the timeline of articles coming and you might remember your own reading of them in the immediate hours and days. But, really, the same logic applies to the other reported sites of massacre. Except that multiple locations would have compounded the logistical difficulty of carrying out false flags.

This dude has been sleeping on the job while taking lessons from Alex Jones if he thinks we are stupid enough to be believe him.

Or does it stand to reason that Hassan Nasrallah is lying? Because, while provoking IDF to massive strikes on Gaza might win Palestinians sympathy on one side, the sheer scale and savagery of Hamas' atrocities on 10/7 also means that world opinion may very well first allow Israel to take out Hamas current leadership in Gaza. As well as discount any role for Hamas in subsequent Palestine-Israel negotiations.

Carrying out a false flag is tricky to pull off in most cases and very rarely happens successfully. In this case, the timeline makes it even less believable. Accusing others of false flags is however frequent and often induces sufficient doubt to be worthwhile.

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* I think the Q should be deleted, not just closed, because no good will come out of giving oxygen to this claim.

As it is both sides are dehumanizing each other. Both the sheer ugliness of making the claim itself and the belief, by some, that it might be true will only embitter extremes on both sides.

Hamas does not represent Palestinians. But the more efforts are made to justify Hamas' atrocities on 10/7, the less credible those making those justifications are in calling out Palestinian sufferings.

The Economist for example covered this very speech by Nasrallah: Is Hizbullah stepping back from the brink of war?. That coverage did not grace this claim by talking about it. Not to discuss it. Not to discredit it. Not even to criticize Nasrallah for making it.

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Update: if you look at this Q's supposed additional evidence, you'll find first an article about targeting challenges encountered by IDF helicopters. That's pretty much all there is in that article, nothing to bolster the claims made by Hizbullah (which, again, were that most Israelis were killed by Israelis).

Second, Grayzone.

What a reference, eh? Next time, I'll quote Breitbart to make my points.

The Grayzone publishes questionable material, stating that a Chemical Attack did not occur in Douma, Syria OPCW investigator testifies at UN that no chemical attack took place in Douma, Syria. They have also promoted conspiracy theories, such as claiming that Pete Buttigieg is a CIA agent. There is no evidence to support this claim. Finally, according to Radio Free Asia, The Grayzone content is frequently shared by the Chinese Communist Party media outlets “CCP propaganda is also increasingly laundered through Western influencers and denialist fringe media outlets like The Grayzone,” the report said, adding that, between December 2019 and February 2021, The Grayzone was cited at least 313 times in Chinese state media.”

Finally, The Grayzone promotes conspiracy theories involving George Soros funding regime changes, and the editor Max Blumenthal claims that Bill Gates ran a Covid simulation before it occurred. This is false. In general, The Grayzone promotes a socialist left perspective that promotes conspiracy theories and pro-Russian/Chinese propaganda.

To answer a comment below:

I have added a source where the claim is made by Douglas Macgregor. Does this change your answer?

My answer isn't really based on this Q's "sources". It is based on the sheer material impossibility of spinning up a coherent disinformation campaign involving numerous first hand witnesses and evidence, within 24-48 hours of an event started by your adversary. You can bring in all the "experts" you want, Occam's Razor is still massively on Hamas having carried out these atrocities.