Today, 7 October 2026, is the third anniversary of horror. However, it is not the horror that the mainstream UK media, British politicians and Israel lobbyists will tell you about.

On 7 October 2023, from before dawn until well into the evening, Israel conducted the mass slaughter of its own citizens.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had known a Palestinian counter-attack was coming. Israeli border troops say they were told to stand down that morning. Then Israel used the deaths it inflicted on its own to launch a genocide on innocent Gazans.

7 October: Old news, no news

Israel began shooting its own people from helicopters and tanks under its so-called ‘Hannibal directive’, just after 6am. It continued issuing ‘Hannibal’ orders roughly every 15 minutes, until after 9pm, with orders to “kill anything that moves”.

Cars burned from helicopter chain-gun fire and missiles, houses destroyed by tanks, civilians mown down as they fled. Hundreds of the total death toll, probably a large majority, were murdered by their own side: Israel.

Many of the Israelis the occupation included in the total turned out to be Palestinians. The bodies of so many were so burned by the helicopter attacks that the regime couldn’t tell which were Israelis and which were not.

In Israel, they began to admit to this ‘Hannibal’ slaughter just a few weeks after 7 October. The UK and other western media remain silent on it, even now, three years later.

The Israeli military admitted it almost immediately, but said it would be counter-productive to think about the “immense” number it had killed. Israeli media began to admit it too. They continued admitting it regularly until the Netanyahu regime made it a crime to question the official government narrative.

Even wanted war criminal, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s ‘defence’ minister at the time, admitted it. More than admitted it — he said he wished Israel had killed more of its citizens.

A recording leaked this year showed senior Israeli military and government figures discussing the ‘need’ to “destroy Gaza along with the [Israeli] captives”.

UK media, unbound by Israeli law, still won’t admit it. Nor will the UK government. Admitting it would undermine their support for the Gaza genocide Israel began and still perpetrates.

Poster children

To mask its crimes and justify its genocide, Israel claimed atrocities that never happened. The UN found no evidence of rapes or sexual mutilation and said it had proven many of Israel’s claims untrue. Israel’s own prosecutor found no evidence of such crimes.

There were no beheaded or baked babies. One child, tragically, died that day in a fire fight. Western governments and media eagerly repeated the lies. Israel lobbyists still use it now — and will be using it constantly today — without challenge from UK politicians or media.

To reinforce its campaign of lies, Israel needed a poster child. They chose Liel Hetzroni, claiming she was murdered by Palestinians. This fell apart when surviving family members said she was killed by Israeli tanks along with most of her family — but this fact remained unreported by British media.

So Israel moved to the Bibas family — Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two angelic children, Kfir, nine months old, and Ariel, age four.

The occupation claimed they were brutally strangled in captivity in Gaza. The Starmer government and UK media eagerly reinforced this narrative. However, the family said they were killed by Israeli bombs and would not allow Netanyahu or any of his ministers to attend the funeral.

Ultimately, Israel admitted killing them and the Israeli military admitted that it had known all along. Israeli ministers and lobbyists continue to refer to their strangling despite the admission.

Israel’s poster children, used to excuse the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians, were killed by Israel. And not only children.

Released captive, Noa Argamani, said Israel had killed her friend and fellow captive in a bombing raid and that Israeli bombs were the only threat to her life.

All victims of Israel

Every Israeli accusation is a confession. Just don’t expect to hear the facts from the UK media or politicians. Many of the victims on 7 October were killed by Israel. Israel then used their slaughter as an excuse for genocide, starvation, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The official death toll of that genocide is dwarfed by reality.

Therefore, 7 October is a day we must mark as the beginning of Israel’s escalated genocide of the Palestinians — and a sign of its willingness to murder even its own to excuse it.

• For more Canary coverage on the 7 October attacks, go here.

Featured image via AFP

By Skwawkbox

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