Video: Emergency responder recounts horrors he saw after Hamas attack | CNN
Here, Landau is described as the “Southern Commander of ZAKA”
Mondoweiss:
ZAKA is not a trustworthy source for allegations of sexual violence on October 7
Yossi Landau’s Inconsistencies:
Scandal-stained Israeli ‘rescue’ group fuels October 7 fabrications - The Grayzone
During an October 31 Senate hearing on Israel’s war in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered his rationale for rejecting a ceasefire. Summoning as much emotion as a dour Democratic Party operative could muster, Blinken conjured up a gruesome scene intended to illustrate the savagery of Hamas, and the impossibility of negotiations with such an organization: “A young boy and girl, 6 and 8 years old, and their parents around the breakfast table,” Blinken intoned. “The father’s eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed.”
The Secretary of State concluded, “That is what this [Israeli] society is dealing with.”
Though Blinken did not state the source of his disturbing claim – and was not prompted to do so by any senator – it matched testimony delivered by Yossi Landau, the head of operations for the southern Israel region of a religious “disaster victim identification” organization called ZAKA. Indeed, Landau has rehashed various forms of the story Blinken referenced since October 12, detailing how Hamas militants viciously mutilated and killed a 6 and 8 year-old child and their parents in Kibbutz Beeri before dining in their home.
Despite the presence of multiple potential witnesses inside Be’eri before ZAKA arrived to collect dead bodies, independent testimony corroborating Landau’s claim has yet to surface. Further, there are no recorded deaths of siblings around the age of 6 to 8 in Be’eri on October 7. Any record of a young child killed in the manner Landau described is similarly nonexistent, as are photos of the murdered family he described. In fact, the only siblings anywhere close to this age range who died in the community on that day—12-year-old twins Liel and Yanai Hetrzroni—were killed by Israeli tank shelling.
We can determine conclusively that the scene as described by Blinken is factually impossible. There are are only 3 families of 4 killed on October 7, and none match this description..
The story of Hamas militants enjoying a pleasant morning meal after chopping an entire family to pieces was not Landau’s only contribution to the media blitz. He was also personally responsible for “confirming” the bogus tale of Hamas beheading babies in kibbutz Kfar Aza – a contrivance which President Joseph Biden promoted against the advice of his aides. As CBS News reported on October 11, Landau said he “saw with his own eyes children and babies who had been beheaded.”
An Israeli army spokesperson took Landau’s claim and ran with it, declaring that “a senior official in the Israeli coronary service” had confirmed the allegation of beheaded babies. In fact, ZAKA is a religious service with no coronary qualifications.
Further reporting by Misbar disputes this account as well, and shows an instance where Israeli News Media used a video from a Mexican cartel killing juxtaposed with Landau’s interview.
This account closely mirrors the lie told by Haim Weissberg at Shura Military Morgue.
Yossi also claims to have seen 20 children shot and burned in piles (See i24 interview at 4:45). This is patently false as as the total number of children killed on October 7 in Kibbutzum was 15 and many were not burned with their hands tied behind their back.