JERUSALEM, undefined — A year on from Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, unsubstantiated claims about the number of children killed have maintained traction, whereas an AFP tally established that 37 minors died, including two babies.
Social media posts in Hebrew, French, or English have claimed dozens of babies were killed by the Palestinian Islamist movement, some of them decapitated or mutilated, and one even burned alive in an oven.
During the onslaught on Israel on October 7, 2023, Hamas led attacks across southern Israel that saw the militants murder civilians en masse and take hostages, as they burned homes and targeted communities with a variety of small arms and rockets.
The exact details of some of the atrocities, however, remain disputed. Some of the claims made by Israeli officials and shared online in social media are not backed by publicly available data or records.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself stated, at the United Nations in New York on September 27, that "they burned babies alive" during Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023.
According to an AFP tally based on data from Israeli authorities, only two children under the age of five were confirmed killed during the onslaught.
Nine-month-old Mila Cohen was shot dead with her father in their shelter in Beeri near Gaza, while her mother survived.
At Nir Oz, the body of two-year-old Omer Kedem Siman Yov was found burned, along with those of his sisters, five-year-old twins Shahar and Arbel, and their parents.
The fate of two other children under the age of five -- Ariel and Kfir Bibas, four years and nine months old at the time of their abduction from Kibbutz Nir Oz with their parents -- remains unclear.
Of the minors who died as a result of the October 7 attacks, there were 13 children under the age of 13, according to the AFP tally.
Forensic investigations
The death of twins Liel and Yanai Hetzroni, 12, received extensive coverage in Israeli media.
They were part of a group of 13 people taken hostage by militants and later found dead in a house struck by an Israeli tank in Beeri.
The army said "most of the hostages (in this group) were killed by the terrorists," but doubts remain.
It took over a month, with archeologists searching through the ashes of the burned house, for authorities to confirm Liel's death.
In total, 10 minors were killed at Beeri on October 7, and 10 others were taken captive to Gaza, AFP's tally showed.
At Kibbutz Nir Oz, the body of 13-year-old Noya Dan was identified on October 18 along with that of her Franco-Israeli grandmother, Carmela Dan, with whom she had spent the night.
In the neighbouring kibbutz community of Kfar Aza -- one of the areas hardest hit by the attacks -- two teenagers, Yonatan and Yiftah Kutz, aged 16 and 14, were shot dead along with their parents and older sister, Rotem, 18. No family member survived.
10 Days
During the one-year commemoration ceremony organised by the families of victims of October 7, the story of the Kafshiter family left a particularly strong mark on viewers.
Eight-year-old Aline Kafshiter and her five-year-old brother, Eitan, were killed with their parents by an anti-tank rocket fired at their car as they returned from a camping trip in southern Israel.
Their grandmother recounted how she learned of their deaths one by one over the course of several days apart.
Six Bedouin children aged between five to 15 and a 12-year-old Jewish boy were also killed on October 7 by rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel.
The youngest victim officially recognised was a newborn who died 14 hours after her birth, following an emergency cesarean section performed on her pregnant mother, who had been shot.
The other minors killed by Hamas commandos died in kibbutz communities, on Zikim Beach north of Gaza. A 17-year-old girl with severe disabilities was killed at the Nova festival, where her father had taken her.
Of the 251 people abducted on October 7 and taken to Gaza, 37 were under the age of 18.
All of the child hostages were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in November, except for Ariel and Kfir Bibas.