Corpse Math: Who Brought 140 Extra Bodies to the Nova Festival?

A representative for the IDF's Chief of Staff claims that 220-230 people were killed at the festival and that the rest of the 364 corpses were "brought" there

The 364 deaths attributed to Hamas’s attack on the Nova Festival on October 7th, 2023, taken in isolation from the rest of the events that day, constitute the single deadliest mass casualty event in Israel’s short history. This status has invited close scrutiny and attention; nonetheless, the true source of many of the Nova deaths remains an open question. Early reporting suggested that an IDF combat helicopter arrived at the party during the fighting and killed some of the festival-goers, and documents and IDF testimonials demonstrate that the Hannibal procedure was invoked in at least some parts of Israel to permit the killing of hostages taken by Hamas—including at the Re’im army base, which was a very short distance from the festival. I touched on these and other points regarding the Nova Festival in my Substack post from April suggesting Israel intentionally provoked and exploited the October 7th attack to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Future dispatches from Nuts & Boltzmann et al. will strengthen and extend that argument, with special attention paid to the Nova Festival, but in this post, as a prelude, I want to focus on an outright bizarre Israeli news item I haven’t seen discussed in English anywhere else.

Earlier this month, a report in Hebrew from the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan) added an entirely new dimension to questions surrounding the origins of the Nova Festival deaths. The article provides excerpts from a transcription of a discussion between Israeli police officers and Ido Mizrahi, a representative of the IDF’s Chief of Staff who was assigned to investigate the IDF’s conduct regarding the Nova Festival. A Google translation of the entire article is reproduced below, but here is the extremely weird exchange I want to highlight for you:

Chief of Staff Representative : The first bullet fired in the Nova area, not in the compound, was at 09:10. At that time, they overwhelmed the area of ​​the axis, massacred everyone who was still on the axis , because there are quite a few vehicles there, the only force they were unable to overwhelm was Oron Solomon, his son, and a few other policemen with whom they were sitting behind the tank. There is also the incident of the tank, which was still moving around there, this is also a bizarre incident. Basically, from 09:10 the whole thing opened up, they were able to enter the compound and they massacred in the compound, 220-230 bodies came out of it. That is the order of magnitude that we evacuated from the compound itself, associated with the party a little less. In other words, a lot of bodies during this 24-hour period were dumped in this area, I have no idea why

Police Officer : What you're telling us is that some of the bodies found there didn't belong to the party?

Police Attorney : As if they were brought there

Representative of the Chief of Staff : They were brought

I first came across this surreal nugget using an AI dubbing service to translate a couple of Hebrew TV clips that Kan tweeted about the story (thank you to researcher Nicholas Rodelo for assisting with that). Because voice transcription for Hebrew is still a bit rough around the edges, and because Israelis sometimes use idioms I’m not familiar with, and because it just sounds so batshit, I was worried I might be misunderstanding what the IDF Chief of Staff representative was trying to convey in that exchange. But the above translation seems unambiguous: only 220-230 bodies were initially recovered on the Nova Festival grounds, with others “brought” or “dumped” there by unknown actors in the subsequent 24 hours.

Having absorbed this, a litany of new questions presents itself. Who did that? Why did they do that? When did they do that? How did they do that? Does this mean that the rest of the 364 people who supposedly died at the Nova Festival were actually brought there later? Does this mean something like 140 of the corpses that ended up on the Nova Festival grounds are of completely unexplained origin? None of these questions have been answered. Somehow this extremely unusual exchange has not merited a single mention in the English language press. To repeat, the IDF officer assigned to investigate the Nova Festival has publicly implied that he doesn’t know the origin of more than a third of the corpses at the party. You almost certainly haven’t heard about that until this moment. Why?

The Nova Festival has served as a cornerstone of Israel’s year-plus long genocidal media frenzy. Potent imagery and stories from the party have saturated social media and provided fodder for high profile, heavily advertised films and exhibitions that have etched a series of lurid, broadly incorrect narratives into the public consciousness and historical record. For every picture you’ve seen of a child in Gaza pulverized beyond recognition, a typical American has seen five pictures of piles of dead Israeli ravers. So, while it’s utterly unclear why 140 mystery corpses materialized on the Nova Festival grounds, it’s crystal clear why major media outlets don’t seem to be mustering their considerable resources and deploying their estimable gumshoes to chase this one down. The first rule of atrocity propaganda: never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Moving on from that—what else is there to say? 140 Mystery Corpses At The Nova Festival—the Hebrew news report also contains an important confirmation of something that was already strongly suspected. During the meetings held between heads of Israel’s security state on the night of October 6th in response to unusual Hamas activity in Gaza that suggested an impending attack, the Nova Festival was explicitly discussed. They decided it was probably fine. No need to let the party organizers know.

Here’s the story:

---

The Nova investigation revealed: the senior officer's recordings of the dramatic hours the night before the massacre and the morning of the attack

When did the police first become aware of terrorist infiltration? When was the first shot fired at the Nova party complex? And did the matter of holding the party come up in the security establishment's assessments of the situation on the night of October 6? The answer to this was revealed in an exclusive recording of a meeting between representatives of the police and a representative of the Chief of Staff

Author: Ayala Hasson

11:27 | December 2, 2024

The IDF's investigation into the "Nova" party was revealed today (Monday) on the "Seven" program with Ayala Hasson. In exclusive recordings, the Chief of Staff's representative, Lt. Col. Ido Mizrahi and the person responsible for the investigation of the Nova massacre, revealed the dramatic hours the night before the massacre and the morning of the attack, In front of Superintendent Amir Cohen, the commander of the southern district of the police and police officers, including the legal advisor of the district.

The conversation about the assessment of the situation before the massacre - and the decision to hold the Nova party

Representative of the Chief of Staff : There was a concrete assessment of the situation the night before the event . When the assessment of the situation was finished, the decision was made, and again I did not sit in on the conversation and I did not investigate the night, but no decision was made there to evacuate the party . We knew that the party took place, it moved on to its second night And she was already there, and then they asked, we continue the procedure

Police officer : Does the party come up in the conversation?

Representative of the Chief of Staff : Yes, it comes up in the conversation like the other things

Police officer : At night the party came up during the conversation and they didn't say anything?

Representative of the Chief of Staff : Continue, they have not changed a decision and how to do it

Police officer : Yes, but you say night, let's explain what night is, are you talking about October 6?

Representative of the Chief of Staff : Yes,

Commander of the Southern District : So, on October 6, the party was on the table

Representative of the Chief of Staff : A conversation like all things, not a one-point assessment of the situation for this party

The commander of the southern district : Wow, this is new to me, we are not surprised, but it is new to us, because in the end they decided to do a situation assessment only in the morning

The police fought in several locations and did not understand - where is the IDF?

The commander of the southern district : We all made decisions without knowing that there was a discussion at night, without knowing that there was a situation assessment, without realizing at all that there was a fear of infiltration, without knowing the story of the tequila

Police officer : You look at the Nova alone. This is a bad view of the army. Nova is in the concept that there is a war in all the systems of the south and we in Nova are already fighting at home, in Sderot, in Ofakim, when there are still no terrorists in Nova

Police officer : Netiv Hatara, Yachini, Kfar Gaza. Therefore, as soon as the troops gave the order to disperse, they went and equipped themselves to fight. So there are the bulk who stay there 27 and fight, and they all fell. And there is the part that went to fight in the horizons or somewhere else, which is natural. As a commander I would obviously take them out to fight

The commander of the southern district : We understand that the army is there when a tank arrives at 8:00, 8:30

Police officer : 08:20

Southern District Commander : The tank is found and I understand that the army is fighting there

Police officer : I'm sure we brought him, he doesn't know if he sent the Nahal brigade

The commander of the southern district : It's not that we didn't involve the military authorities, we are in a complete campaign, we understand that we and the army were fighting for the lives of civilians. I don't understand in these moments that there is no army, I don't understand that we are alone, I don't understand that my warriors have now fought in all the arenas

The bodies "brought" to the party complex - and the first bullet shot

Chief of Staff Representative : The first bullet fired in the Nova area, not in the compound, was at 09:10. At that time, they overwhelmed the area of ​​the axis, massacred everyone who was still on the axis , because there are quite a few vehicles there, the only force they were unable to overwhelm was Oron Solomon, his son, and a few other policemen with whom they were sitting behind the tank. There is also the incident of the tank, which was still moving around there, this is also a bizarre incident. Basically, from 09:10 the whole thing opened up, they were able to enter the compound and they massacred in the compound, 220-230 bodies came out of it. That is the order of magnitude that we evacuated from the compound itself, associated with the party a little less. In other words, a lot of bodies during this 24-hour period were dumped in this area, I have no idea why.

Police Officer : What you're telling us is that some of the bodies found there didn't belong to the party?

Police Attorney : As if they were brought there

Representative of the Chief of Staff : They were brought

At the Nova party, hundreds of revelers were murdered, dozens were kidnapped and countless young people were injured physically and mentally. The exclusive recordings in which the representative of the Chief of Staff revealed information to the surprised police representatives, highlighted the Nova Massacre as a dramatic part of the October 7 disaster, and one of the greatest tragedies in the country's history.

IDF spokesman's response

"The IDF takes seriously any leak that could damage the investigation process. It is even more serious that precisely from a closed show to a limited forum in the police, who trust in the observance of the law, a recording is leaked, which is a serious injury to bereaved families, who have not yet been shown the investigation."

"In cutting the situation that the Chief of Staff carried out on the night of October 7, the Nova Party did not come up. The investigation has not yet been concluded. The leak does not constitute a summary of the investigation. When it is concluded, it will be presented first to the families of the bereaved and the families of the abducted, and then to the public