Hamas Video Shows Militants Beheading Israelis in October 7 Attack
CNN host and longtime news anchor Jake Tapper took to social media platform X on Wednesday to repost video evidence first aired on his segment, The Lead, of a Hamas member actively decapitating victims of the October 7 massacre.
In the footage, a Hamas fighter is captured by a Kibbutz Nir Oz security camera using a knife to saw off the heads of slain Israelis. The use of decapitation as a weapon of war is a frequently observed tactic utilized by the Islamic State, an extremist Sunni armed group and self-proclaimed transnational caliphate that once controlled a massive swath of territory spanning Iraq and Syria.
“Evidence of beheadings, cementing an Israeli view that Hamas is now akin to jihadi groups like al-Qaida and ISIS,” CNN reporter Matthew Chance explained.
Chance added that Hamas’ use of beheadings, torture, and sexual violence against their captives mirrors that of the Islamic State and its well-documented history of inflicting similar terror on prisoners.
Today, the group’s activities primarily revolve around mass-casualty terrorist attacks across the Sahel, South Asia, and the rest of MENA.
Although Hamas’ ideology is not becoming more akin to the Islamic State’s, Peter Neumann, Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, says that the Palestinian terror group’s wartime tactics are undoubtedly evolving and becoming more radical.
“Ideologically, it is not becoming more like ISIS, but tactically and strategically, it is,” Neumann told Chance during Wednesday’s show.
