How Hamas Targeted Jewish Families

 by Eileen F. Toplansky

In the preface to S. Ansky’ s book titled The Enemy at His Pleasure, Joachim Neugroschel writes that “[h]istorians of the twentieth century in Europe may well decide to name it the age of slaughter.”

Fast forward to October 7, 2023 where Jewish babies were burned alive in ovens; women’s breasts cut off and flung about; and gang rapes of men and women occurred. 

How does one stop from vomiting at these sights and smells?  How does one deal with the fact that Israel incessantly battles this barbarism? How does one understand that the smokescreen term of Islamophobia is crippling the Western world from defending itself against pure evil?

Notwithstanding the enemy’s propaganda, the abject prevarications about the Oct 7th atrocities in Israel by Hamas have been meticulously documented in the 298-page report titled Silenced No More.

In addition, the report titled Kinocide Report: Exposing the Weaponization of Families on October 7, 2023 documents investigations spanning 10,000 photographs and videos, 430 testimonies and interviews, and more than 1,800 hours of footage, including footage recorded by the actual terrorists! 

The reports were authored by the Civil Commission on Oct 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, an organization founded “to document, research and raise international awareness of the war crimes and gender-based violence committed by Hamas and their collaborators against women, children and families during their brutal attack on Israel on October 7th.”

The family unit has always been the bulwark of a society.  It is why the profoundly immoral and wicked perversity of evil shown by Hamas on October 7, 2023 must be exposed. Sexual mutilation intertwined with massacre was filmed by Hamas for all to see.

Headed by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, a 2024 Israel Prize laureate and expert in human rights and international law, “the Commission documents, researches, and advocates for victims, giving them a voice and challenging the denial of these atrocities [emphasis mine]. Its archive serves both as a memorial and a vital historical record.”

The 80-page report “highlights the systematic and targeted assault on families during the October 7, 2023, attacks when Hamas launched a widespread assault on Israel’s civilian population, resulting in the deaths of over 1,200 people and the abduction of more than 250 individuals into Gaza.” 

Gunmen were instructed to behead victims and cut off their legs.

“The plan was to go from home to home, from room to room, to throw grenades and kill everyone, including women and children.”

 

Moreover,

​“The report exposes the deliberate targeting and exploitation of families, including brutal murders in front of loved ones, the abduction of entire families, and the forced separation of parents and children. It sheds light on this often-overlooked aspect of the attack, revealing the extreme brutality inflicted on family units [emphasis mine].

Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy writes “[i]t was a fear so existential that I often say that October 7 was the day we lost our basic sense of security -- the ability to feel safe and protected, in our homes, in our communities. We were thrust into a horror that defies comprehension; it was real, visceral, celebrated -- broadcasted for the world to see.”

“It took months of documenting the crimes committed against women and children -- witnessing the horrors with our own eyes -- reviewing countless testimonies and other materials, mainly shared by Hamas, to begin to understand that what we were witnessing was a crime that had not yet been defined. A crime without a name.

“We began to identify the deliberate and systematic targeting of families: parents murdered or executed in front of their children, children abducted or killed in the presence of their siblings and parents, family members violently torn from one another, entire homes destroyed and burned with families trapped inside. We found ourselves almost physically unable to witness the crimes. This was no random act of violence; it was a calculated, strategic assault on the very concept of family [emphasis mine].

In fact,

“The attacks were designed not just to kill, but to shatter families, to exploit and destroy the foundational emotional bonds that give us strength, and to do so in the most horrifying ways imaginable to magnify suffering. Even family pets were not spared.

Added to this horror was the fact that Hamas engaged in further humiliation by turning their evil deeds “into a spectacle on social media, often exploiting the victims’ own personal accounts -- serving as a haunting reminder of their torment, now etched into the public domain, ensuring their pain endures for generations.”

Family homes, once sanctuaries of love and safety, turned into sites of terror.

Beyond documenting the events of October 7, the report analyzes the legal framework identifying these acts as a new international crime.

Therefore, the “report is more than a chronicle of the horrors of October 7. It is a call to action. It demands that the world recognize kinocide as a unique crime.” Kinocide is “acts deliberately committed with the knowledge that they will likely lead to the destruction of a family, familial relationships or the disintegration of family units.”

Ergo, [t]hese acts are characterized by the exploitation of familial bonds to exacerbate suffering, or committed against family members in front of or in the presence of other members of their family.”

Moreover, “[t]he acts must also be carried out as part of a widespread or systematic attack, where the perpetrator is aware of the context and implications of this overarching attack on families.’

These acts may encompass but are not limited to:

• Killing of family members.
• Inflicting serious bodily or mental harm on family members.
• Torturing family members.
• Committing acts of sexual violence, including rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, or enforced sterilization against family members.
• Separating family members by force or the threat of force.
• Hostage-taking.
• Broadcasting or disseminating any of the above acts or their effects on family members.
• Committing other inhumane acts of a similar nature.

Hence,

• ​“Evidence demonstrates at least six consistent patterns of abuse, including violence in the presence of family members, the annihilation of entire families, and the use of social media to broadcast abuses, amplifying the psychological trauma.”
• ​“Families were subjected to profound harm, with perpetrators transforming safe familial spaces into sites of terror and destruction.”
• ​“Hamas utilized victims’ own social media accounts to share violent acts, exacerbating the emotional and psychological trauma of surviving family members and expanding the reach of the attack’s harm beyond its immediate victims. This form of digital violence persists, amplifying the long-term impact on affected communities and individuals.”

It is critical to understand that ​“[t]he family unit, a foundational pillar of human society, was specifically targeted [emphasis mine]. The psychological and societal repercussions of these attacks are singularly destructive and protracted, rippling through communities and society at large.”

Authors of this report assert that kinocide, denoting the weaponization of families and the exploitation of familial bonds is a distinct form of violence. They maintain that ​“[n]aming this phenomenon is essential for addressing it effectively, bringing justice to victims, and fostering healing and recognition.”

Moreover, “[t]he report advocates for the integration of kinocide into international criminal law as a crime against humanity, a war crime, a form of genocide, and a form of torture.”

Consequently, “[n]aming a historically unrecognized phenomenon is essential to addressing it effectively.  Identifying and naming kinocide serves as a powerful tool for ensuring justice and accountability, [and] empowers victims by providing them with the language to encapsulate and describe the harm that they have endured and articulate their suffering, and offers them validation and a path to healing.”

In essence, “[v]iolating the family unit and disrupting or destroying familial bonds -- which constitute the most primary relationships that support one’s physical, emotional, moral, cognitive, and social needs” needs to be urgently addressed.  Because “the weaponization of families is neither new nor unique to the October 7 attack... it is time [to] recognize kinocide or the deliberate targeting of families as constituting a new form of international crime.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/11/How%20Hamas%20Targeted%20Jewish%20Families/