We’ve spent so much time focused on the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 — and rightfully so — but it’s easy to forget that they weren’t the only victims on that horrible day. At least another 1,141 people died in less than 48 hours between October 7 and October 8, 2023, and the more we learn about it, the more gruesome it gets.
Chaired by House of Lords member and British historian and journalist Lord Andrew Roberts, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on UK-Israel recently released a 318-page “7 October Parliamentary Commission Report,” something that’s been called “the most detailed Western investigation to date into the Hamas-led attack on Israel.”
It states that the entire attack was “a meticulously planned operation designed not only to kill but to terrorize through extreme brutality, looting and humiliation.”
Related: ‘Hi, I’m Doctor Hamas’: One Hostage Tells Her Harrowing Story
Groups of women and girls were raped before and after their murders. Infants were shot in their strollers or buried alive. Corpses were lined with grenades so that those who tried to help were killed or maimed. The terrorists played mind games, using the victims’ phones to send messages to their friends and family or upload disgusting videos of the attack to the victims’ social media pages. They looted. They set fires. They brought machetes along, not to use as weapons, but to dismember and desecrate bodies for fun.
Even those who survived went through hell. At just 16 years old, Rotem Matias was shot by the bullet that killed his mother. Hamas terrorists laughed as he bled, and he listened to the screams of his father as they murdered him. When they left, he hid under his mother’s corpse and was rescued 10 hours later by the Israeli Defense Forces. (You can watch him tell his story below.)
Meet Rotem Matias. Rotem is 16 years old and both of his parents were murdered on 10/7/23 . When Hamas terrorists stormed Kibbutz Holit,they broke into the Matias home and opened fire on the house, spraying bullets through the windows. Rotem’s dad stood with a hammer and then… pic.twitter.com/h9hQuDZHZ9
— Montana Tucker (@montanatucker) October 16, 2024
Israel President Isaac Herzog had this to say about the report:
On the last five pages of this incredible and thorough report, each individual murdered on October 7th is meticulously listed by name and age. This moving tribute follows the 311 previous pages which record in thus-far unparalleled scrutiny and detail, the atrocities committed by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists on that dark day. It reflects on how the attack was premeditated, and designed to kill and kidnap, rape and mutilate, murder and maim as many innocent people as possible. This independent and brutally honest report by the UKs 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report, chaired by the renowned historian Lord Roberts, is not only a vital record for history, but a must-read for all. I welcome and greatly appreciate this historic work, and hope and pray that the final chapter in this dark period may soon be written with the return of all our sisters and brothers held in brutal captivity, and the safe return of all our citizens to their homes.
Herzog is right; the intention was to kill, rape, and mutilate as many innocent people as possible without discrimination. Seventy-three percent of those murdered were civilians. These people are animals.
The youngest victim hadn’t been born yet — her mother was on the way to the hospital when she was shot in the stomach, the bullet hitting the baby’s leg. The little girl survived 14 hours outside the womb before succumbing to her injuries.
The oldest appears to be 91-year-old Moshe Ridler. The grandfather of eighteen had survived Hitler and the Holocaust only to be taken out by Hamas. He was born in Romania and sent at the age of nine to a concentration camp, where his mother and sisters were murdered. He eventually moved to Israel in 1951, joining the police force and focusing on building a big family like the one the Nazis robbed him of in his youth. He loved to dance and travel, and, according to his grandson, was known as the “grandfather of Holit,” which refers to the Holit kibbutz where he lived.
Lord Roberts told Fox News Digital that “We actually made the report much less than it could have been, because we insisted on only putting things in that could be double-checked. If we had put in things that we truly believe happened but couldn’t prove happened, we kept them out.” He also called the terrorist attack “premeditated bloodlust” and said he was inspired to create the report because of the many who try to downplay the attack or even deny it.
Related: Rubio: ‘Every Time I Find One of These Lunatics, I Take Away Their Visa’
If you decide to read the report or even skim it, I’ll warn you that it will make you sick to your stomach. Just when you think what you’ve heard about that day can’t get any worse, it does.
