Israeli military killed Israeli grandmother on October 7, report says

A report on Israel's Channel 12 reveals that Israeli army gunfire killed kibbutz Nir Oz resident Efrat Katz, and injured her daughter and granddaughter as they were being abducted into Gaza.

Efrat Katz and Gadi Moses.

Months after the events of October 7, testimony continues to emerge showing how Israeli military forces killed Israeli civilians.

In a December 16 report on Israel’s Channel 12, Doron Katz-Asher described how she and her two young daughters were injured, and her mother was killed, by Israeli army gunfire. 

After Hamas gunmen stormed kibbutz Nir Oz, where she was raised and was visiting for the weekend, they loaded her, her daughters Raz, 2, Aviv, 4, and her mother Efrat Katz onto a tractor, headed for Gaza.

Efrat Katz’ partner Gadi Mozes, was taken into Gaza too.

Amid their abduction, Israeli forces opened fire, killing Efrat, and injuring her and Aviv. The two girls managed to escape during the shooting, forcing Katz-Asher to abandon her dead mother to ensure she would not be separated from her daughters. After several weeks of captivity, they were released on November 24.

Whitewashing the killing

In a CNN interview, Doron Katz-Asher says that “on the way there, there was shooting going on. That’s how my mother was murdered.” However, CNN reporter Bianna Golodryga does not bother to ask who fired the shots, glossing over the inconvenient fact that Israeli soldiers killed her. The written portion of the article simply states that unnamed “gunmen opened fire”, and does not investigate their identities.

CNN has close ties to the Israeli government. As a report in The Intercept revealed, CNN hired Tamar Michaelis, a former soldier of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, at the outset of the war on Gaza. The report also described how the corporate media behemoth willingly subjects all of its coverage of Israel and Gaza to the Israeli Military Censor. A source inside CNN described to The Intercept how the outlet tailors its coverage, saying that “lines are most often edited with a very specific nuance” to favor the official Israeli perspective.

The cozy relationship between CNN and the Israeli government was made blatant when the Israeli Embassy in the USA promoted an editorial piece from Jake Tapper rationalizing why Israel must not agree to a ceasefire and blaming Palestinian casualties on Hamas.

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A pattern of killing

The killing of Efrat Katz by Israeli soldiers is not an isolated incident.

The most prominent incident happened in kibbutz Be’eri, where Israeli tank shelling killed 14 Israeli captives along with 39 Hamas captors.

This was revealed in a Channel 12 report that contained an interview with Hadas Dagan, the sole survivor of the shelling of Pessi Cohen’s house, and Yasmine Porat, who had escaped from the house as a human shield of a surrendered Hamas militant. The report was translated by Uncaptured Media.

A December 22 New York Times report on kibbutz Be’eri described General Barak Hiram’s decision to order tank shelling of the house, including a new claim from him that Hamas militants had fired an RPG at the soldiers outside, prompting him to order a tank commander to open fire. However, Hiram has repeatedly lied about the incident, and has been denounced by family members of those killed.

The most compelling evidence of large amounts of Israeli military fire on Be’eri are several buildings with destroyed roofs but walls left intact – almost certainly a result of helicopter fire – suggest Israeli military firepower is the culprit, and is likely responsible for more of the deaths of 112 Israelis in Be’eri than has been admitted.

   

Indeed, Israeli volunteer Erez Tidhar said he witnessed an Israeli Apache helicopter launch strikes on Be’eri, as Uncaptured Media reported.

Israeli Air Force (reserve) Col. Nof Erez described October 7 as a “mass Hannibal” event, saying the attacks on settlements around Gaza were a top-down order.

“They didn’t bomb the houses without permission. I myself, by the way, saw many drones above every settlement as a computer image. We can watch from every command center in Israel,” he said.

Families call for investigation

While corporate media turns a blind eye to how the Israeli military killed its own people on October 7, families of the victims are pressing for an investigation.

On January 5, the families of the deceased Israeli captives called for an investigation into the conduct of Brigadier General Barak Hiram, who ordered the tank commander to fire shells at the house where Israeli civilians were held hostage.

Previously, the Israeli military had ruled out any investigation, saying “it would not be morally sound to investigate” these incidents “due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities.”

The Israeli military responded to the petition from the families, saying that Hiram is still engaged in the war on Gaza, and will “conduct a detailed and in-depth investigation to find out the details to the end when the operational situation allows it.” 

With the Netanyahu government insisting that the war will go on indefinitely, this may provide an excuse for the military to avoid conducting the investigation.