Politic?: The Deadly Details of October 7

An armed Hamas terrorist leads a man at the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel on October 7, where terrorists from Gaza massacred hundreds of people. (SOUTH FIRST RESPONDERS / AFP)

A more recent, intensive investigation by Israeli authorities has concluded that the original estimate of the numbers of Israelis killed at the music festival near Kibbuz Re'im, on October 7 was vastly understated. Including the 17 police officers that were killed among the 4,000 festival-goers, the full death toll is now held to be 364. Additionally, 40 people attending the festival were taken hostage among the 200 abducted from other border areas.

The investigation also came to the conclusion that the festival occurrence was not known by the invading terrorists. Police based their conclusion partially after questioning captured terrorists and because no maps were found on the bodies of terrorists that were killed that would have directed them to the event, unlike others where maps were found where massacres took place in towns and kibbutzim to direct the terrorists to their targets.

It was only, the police finally understood, when police began dispersing the music festival partygoers in light of the wider Hamas invasion that the terrorists realized a major event was happening in the Re'im area, leading them to head toward the music festival. It has taken Israeli authorities that long to piece out the events as they occurred and the figure coming closer to the total death count.

Israel updates its statistics any time new information is tabulated; reducing the numbers to reflect reality, or, in this instance, adding new numbers as data is acquired.

In contrast, Hamas 'authorities', such as the Gaza Health Ministry, immediately publishes gross figures of casualties and deaths not only on supposition, but in a deliberate plan to inflate numbers of their dead to elicit more rage and sympathy from its wider public internationally. Their counts are not carefully derived through a real tabulation of the dead, but through an invented number calculated to fit its mantra of a ''genocide' being perpetrated by Israel on Palestinians.

An armed Hamas terrorist walking around the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel on October 7, where terrorists from Gaza massacred hundreds of people. (SOUTH FIRST RESPONDERS / AFP)

"After analyzing the footage, experts suggest that her injuries do not align with those typically sustained in airstrikes."
"The observed wounds appear more consistent with bullet injuries, and there is also an indication that she may have suffered from injuries related to a fall from a height."
Israel Defense Forces

The remains of 19-year-old Cpl. Noa Marciana were recovered by the IDF from the Gaza Strip, discovered near the the Al Shifa Hospital. She had been abducted on October 7 from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where she was posted as a lookout. Her body was discovered by troops in a building next to the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, and brought back to Israel for identification.

Hamas released a video of Cpl. Marciano that the IDF spoke of as "psychological terror". The video dated from four days earlier where she is seen and heard to identify herself and her rank, and stating the names of her family members. That view of Noa Marciana faded to a scene of her lying dead. The video stated that she had been killed in a Gaza airstrike by the IDA.

She had, added the IDF, died while in captivity. "She told me she was in a protected space and that there had been an infiltration... She said that she had to end the call. I didn't hear shots or screams. Half an hour later, I sent her a message, but she didn't reply", explained her mourning mother, Adi Marciano, of the last conversation she had with her daughter, the morning of October 7.

The International Red Cross has been denied access to any of the estimated 240 captives that are being held in Gaza. It is known that among the captives there are those held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as by Hamas.

The IDF had recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, age 65, from a building near Al Shifa Hospital earlier in the week. She had been abducted from Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7. She was murdered by Hamas, but the IDF did not state the method of her death.