Lede: New footage corroborates previous reports that say the Israeli military is
responsible for many of the Israeli casualties during the first day of Operation
Al-Aqsa Flood
The Israeli military has released drone footage showing hundreds of scorched and
damaged cars moved from the Nova music festival, providing further evidence that
Israeli forces likely killed many of their own during the start of Operation
Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, RT reported on 6 November.
The Nova festival took place near Kibbutz Beeri, only five kilometers away from
the Gaza separation wall. It was one of the first targets hit by Palestinian
resistance fighters when they broke out of Gaza, attacking military bases and
settlements from 6:30 am.
During the attack, the Palestinian fighters managed to take some 240 Israelis
captive, including soldiers, settlers, and foreigners.
The new drone footage shows an aerial view of hundreds of burned and destroyed
cars taken from the site of the festival and placed in a dirt parking lot,
creating a makeshift junkyard.
Israeli rescue service Zaka claims they removed 260 bodies from the festival
site. Israel claims they were massacred by Hamas fighters and civilian
Palestinian looters who flooded across the open Gaza border fence in the hours
after the Hamas attack.
However, the footage appears to confirm previous reports in Israeli media that
Israeli pilots flying Apache helicopters responded to the attacks by opening
fire on both Hamas fighters and Israelis.
A 15 October report in Yedioth Ahronoth explained that the first helicopters
arrived in the Gaza Strip about an hour after the fighting began.
The Hebrew language newspaper reports that the mission of the combat helicopters
and the armed Zik drones was to stop the flow of Hamas fighters and looters that
poured into Israeli territory through the gaps in the Gaza border fence.
This was complicated by the difficulty the pilots had in distinguishing between
Hamas fighters, Palestinian looters dressed in civilian clothing, and Israelis.
The paper notes, "This deception worked for a considerable time until the
Apaches 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."
"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 target," the paper added.
Despite the confusion, twenty-eight Israeli combat helicopters fired all of the
ammunition they were holding, including hundreds of 30 mm cannon shells and
Hellfire missiles, during the day.
After landing his Apache to reload ammunition at roughly 10:00 am, the commander
of the 190 squadron instructed the other pilots "to shoot at everything they see
in the fence area," separating Israel from Gaza.
The same commander at one point attacked an Israeli military post with besieged
soldiers inside to help the Israeli army recapture it from Hamas and opened fire
near houses in a kibbutz in support of an officer from the Sinai division who
had parachuted into battle Hamas militants.
According to the air force, in the first four hours from the start of the
fighting, helicopters and fighter jets attacked about 300 targets, most of them
in Israeli territory.
Israel's response to the Hamas attack and the problem of the hostages was
alluded to in comments on 7 October from Israeli military spokesperson Rear
Admiral Daniel Hagari. He described how the Israeli army was dealing with
"hostage situations" using both air strikes and ground forces.
Hagari said the military was "fighting in 22 locations," adding there was "no
community in southern Israel where we do not have forces, in all the towns."
"There are special forces there with senior commanders, and live firefights are
going on there," he said.
Israel's air force had carried out strikes in "several locations," Hagari said,
adding there were "hundreds of deaths, including many terrorists."
The main effort was to "eliminate" all "those who infiltrated Israel and are
trying to return to the Gaza Strip," he said. "First of all, we will strike from
the air, and then also with heavy ground means," he added.
Responding to hostage situations with such overwhelming firepower meant that the
safety of the hostages themselves was not a priority.
-- Cont'd at https://new.thecradle.co/articles/israeli-apache-helicopters-killed-own-soldiers-civilians-on-7-october-report
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