Israel admits to “immense” amount of “friendly fire” on 7 October

Asa Winstanley Rights and Accountability 12 December 2023

Destroyed cars in a field

Drone footage released by the Israeli military last month shows the extent of the destruction of the cars fleeing the Supernova rave on 7 October, likely inflicted by Israeli drones and helicopters. (RT/Israeli military)

Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October.

The key declaration was buried in the penultimate paragraph of an article by Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israeli outlet Ynet.

It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.

An Israeli police source last month appeared to admit that some of the Israelis at the Supernova rave taking place near Gaza that day were hit by Israeli helicopters. A second police source later partially walked back the admission.

Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate” them.

He reported that this was “due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities.”

The Ynet article also reported that “at least” one fifth of the Israeli army deaths in Gaza since the ground invasion began were also due to “friendly fire” incidents.

Israel has in recent weeks faced increased internal pressure to investigate the failings of 7 October.

On Monday in Tel Aviv, family members of those Israelis who died on 7 October established a new group calling for an official Israeli government investigation into the events of that day.

One of the speakers accused the government of a “cover-up.”

Israel does indeed appear to be covering up a lot of the evidence.

The Jerusalem Post reported recently that cars containing the blood stains or ashes of Israelis who died on 7 October would be crushed and – in what the paper said was a first – buried in a cemetery.

The paper provided a religious pretext for all this. Nonetheless, this is a worrying development which amounts to a state-sanctioned coverup of what could potentially be some of the most important forensic evidence from 7 October.

Since that day, there has been a steadily growing mountain of evidence that many – if not most – Israelis killed that day were killed by Israel itself.

This evidence has been reported in English almost entirely by independent media, including The Electronic Intifada, The Grayzone, The Cradle and Mondoweiss.

In one of the most recent revelations, an Israeli air force colonel admitted to a Hebrew podcast that they blew up Israeli homes in the settlements but insisted they never did so “without permission.”

Colonel Nof Erez also said that 7 October was a “mass Hannibal” event – a reference to a controversial Israeli military doctrine.

Named after an ancient Carthaginian general who poisoned himself rather than be captured alive, the Hannibal Directive allows Israeli forces to take any means necessary to stop Israelis being captured alive – even at the cost of killing the captives.

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Hank replied on

Judging from what we are witnessing in Gaza and HAVE witnessed in the past it only makes sense that Israel had the "trigger happy fingers" on 10/7! Hostages that were released have all said they were treated with respect. Why would Hamas treat hostages with respect on one hand and murder indiscriminately on the other? It doesn't make sense. It DOES make sense when you consider that Israel needed a "vengeance justifier" to do what it's doing in Gaza and the West bank! Freedom fighters generally don't molest the common man as they need their support.

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Allan Howard replied on

By the next day (October 8th) the media were reporting that 'over 260 people' at the music festival were killed, and a couple of days or so later the media were citing a specific figure, which had obviously been released by Israeli authorities, of 280 if I remember correctly. And then sometime later (maybe a week or two), the number of people killed shot up by nearly a hundred, to 360-something, without explanation, as far as I am aware. I've been trying to determine how long it was after the initial specific figure was released that it was updated, without success so far. but I'm absolutely certain it wasn't a day or two before the update, or even several days, and this is my point: Why did it take them so long to release the final figure; and the obvious answer I assume is because these 90 or so people had been burnt beyond recognition, and had to be identified by their DNA, and that would have taken a while to do.

I was searching for images/pictures of the aftermath yesterday, and I came across one with several people in a car (taken from behind) who were literally completely charred (and needless to say the damage one saw in so many of the early pictures of numerous cars wasn't done by Hamas et al). And if I'm right that there was no explanation given for the number suddenly going up by getting on for ninety, then if they were all charred and incinerated, then that would explain WHY no explanation was given.

Anyway, when I was trying to determine when the figure went up to 360-something just prior to starting this post, I came across a really bizaar article dated November 10th by PBS News Hour entitled 'Survivors, rescuers in Hamas music festival attack recount the day’s horrors', and one of the rescuers said this:

Eran Massas: There is a group of people who started run. They fell. They just take the gasoline from the generator of the lights to the party, and they burned them........ They burned them alive.

Ah, so THAT explains it!

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Allan Howard replied on

In my post above I said that I thought it was a week or two before they revised the number of people killed at the music festival from 280 to around 360, but it was in fact nigh on six weeks, as I learnt earlier by chance when a Times of Israel article from November 18th came up in the results when I did a related search, headlined:

Death toll from Nova music festival massacre on Oct. 7 raised by 100 to over 360

And this was just one week after they revised the figure for the number of Israelis killed from 1,400 down to 1,200

Anyway, I just did a search re >nova music festival< and the following wikipedia entry entitled Re’im music festival massacre came up in the results, in which it says the following:

“It took place in the western Negev desert,[8] approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) from the Gaza–Israel barrier, near kibbutz Re’im.[6][18] The line-up included artists well-known in the psytrance scene, such as Astral Projection and Man With No Name.[17] The organizers switched to the site only two days before, after the original location in southern Israel did not work out.[20]”

And this:

“The musical festival was one of the first targets of Hamas’ surprise attack against Israel in the early morning hours of 7 October 2023.[18] Israeli security services investigations have found it unlikely that Hamas had advanced knowledge of the festival, citing, among other evidence, that the festival had been planned to run until Friday, October 6 and was only extended to Saturday the prior Wednesday.”

And yet in a Guardian article on October 9th it says the following:

The Supernova music festival, billed as “a journey of unity and love” with “mindblowing and breathtaking content”, began at around 10pm on Friday, just hours after the end of Israel’s week-long Sukkot religious festival.

So why would the Israeli security services say “….that the festival had been planned to run until Friday" etc, as quoted in the wikipedia entry.

All very odd!

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Allan Howard replied on

And near the end of the Guardian article it says:

Many family members of those attending the party headed to a missing persons centre at a police station near Ben Gurion airport on Sunday. Relatives were told to bring items, such as toothbrushes, that could contain DNA.

That’s Sunday the 8th of October!

Asa Winstanley

Asa Winstanley's picture

Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who lives in London. He is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada and co-host of our podcast.

He is author of the bestselling book Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2023).