Survivors of kibbutz attack say IDF tank shells killed Liel Hetzroni and her family
A twelve-year-old girl whose death has been exploited by the Israeli regime for anti-Palestinian propaganda was not killed by Hamas, as Israel has claimed, but by Israeli tanks, according to Jewish survivors of the 7 October kibbutz raid in information published by The Grayzone.
Liel Hetzroni’s image has featured prominently in Israeli propaganda channel claims that Hamas ‘massacred’ civilians on 7 October, in an attempt to win sympathy from the global community for their mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza:
But according to kibbutz survivor Yasmin Porat, Liel, along with her her twin brother Yannai and her great-aunt Ayala, was alive until an IDF tank fired two shells into their small home.
Porat told Israeli national broadcaster Kan News that she had even told IDF commanders who the hostages in the house were and where they were situated – even drawing them a diagram – and told of her horror as a tank called up by the troops began firing repeatedly into the house, ending the screams of Liel:
I sat there with the commander of the unit and I described to him what the house looks like, and where the terrorists are, and where the hostages are. I actually drew it for him: ‘Look, here, on the lawn there are four hostages that are lying this way on the lawn. Here are two that are lying under the terrace. And in the living room there is a woman lying like this, and a woman lying like this.’
I told him about the twins and their great-aunt, I didn’t see them. You know what, when I left, they were the only ones I didn’t see. I heard Liel the whole time, so I know for certain that they were there.. I tried to explain to him that from somewhere near the kitchen, that’s where I heard the screams coming from. I didn’t see her, but I heard her, and I heard where the screams were coming from. I tried to explain to them where all the hostages were…
I thought to myself, ‘Why are they shooting tank shells into the house?’ And I asked one of the people that was with me, ‘Why are they shooting?’ So they explained to me that it was to break the walls, in order to help cleanse the house.
Porat’s partner Tal was also being held at the house and was killed by the shelling. Her account was backed up by Hadas Dagan, the owner of the house and the only survivor of the shelling:
When the two big booms hit, I felt like I flew in the air… It took me 2-3 minutes to open my eyes, I didn’t feel my body. I was completely paralyzed. When I opened my eyes, I saw that my Adi [her husband] is dying… Tal also stopped moving at that point.
The girl [Liel] did not stop screaming for all those hours. She didn’t stop screaming… [until] those two shells hit, she stopped screaming. There was silence then.
Porat said that Hagan told her that all the Israelis had been killed by the Israeli fire:
There were no executions, or anything like that. At least not the people with her.
Electronic Intifada has translated Porat’s KAN interview in full:
Israel has already been exposed claiming deaths that it caused were murders committed by Hamas – including an inadvertent admission by former Israeli ambassador to the UK Mark Regev, now a top Netanyahu adviser, that Israel had killed hundreds whose burned bodies were portrayed as victims of Hamas.
Pilots and local security have also said that tanks and helicopter gunships killed many of the Israelis who died – and that the IDF’s ‘Hannibal doctrine’ of killing Israelis to prevent them being taken as hostage is still being practised, despite officially being abandoned more than a decade ago.
Israeli police have admitted that rave-goers were killed by a helicopter gunship. At least one Israeli tank commander has publicly said she fired on at least one kibbutz house without knowing who was inside – and shot the bodies of the burned, now known to be Israelis, to make sure they were dead.
Now, just as Israel’s attempts at propaganda to justify their bombing of schools and hospitals have quickly fallen apart, the apartheid regime’s attempt to use a poor dead girl to demonise Palestinians has collapsed, adding further to the 7 October death toll now known to have died because of Israel’s own forces.
Despite the now-overwhelming evidence, however, the UK media have remained silent on it.
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