Yeah, this. As previously stated, I personally know of one murdered 11 month old girl from the Cohen family in Kibbutz Be'eri. Plus we have the confirmed deaths of the entire Siman Tov family with 3 small children (a 4 year old and 6 year old twins) in Kibbutz Nir Oz. We also know of the abductions of the Bibas family (with a 9 month old baby and a 3 year old), the Asher family (with a 3 year old and a 5 year old), and the Shoham family (with a 3 year old and an 8 year old).
So there is no question that babies and small children were wounded, abducted, and killed. The only question now is how many and how. As for how many: 40 does not actually seem unreasonable considering the mass amount of deaths that occurred and the fact that these areas were indeed home to a large amount of small children, as other kiwi friends above have broken down with demographic info. I guess we’ll have more exact figures as time goes on. As for how: Yes I highly doubt there were mass decapitations, but a few would not be surprising or unheard of (in fact some of the graphic videos from the first day did show at least one IDF soldier beheaded IIRC), and also since I know of one throat cutting incident, I agree with the other poster above who said it’s very possible that people observing the crime scenes saw the slit throats and thought they looked like decapitations which became a game of telephone.
Regardless, babies and small children definitely suffered death, kidnappings, and immeasurable trauma. What’s the obsession with getting goreporn of it?