An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg

Scenes of indescribable horror in which infants and babies were slaughtered — with some beheaded — in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists were reported by international media on Tuesday morning.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took dozens of foreign reporters to witness the site of the massacre on Tuesday. Charred homes stood in the background as smoke wafted in the air and the bodies of dead civilians and terrorists still littered the ground.

The journalists, under the protection of dozens of Israeli soldiers, toured the site with cameras rolling.

“It’s not a war,” Gen. Itai Veruv, head of the IDF’s Depth Command, told reporters. “It’s not a battlefield. You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists kill them … It’s a massacre.”

The scene recalled some of the darkest chapters in Jewish history. Israeli officials have called Hamas’ surprise invasion of Israel over the weekend — in which Kfar Aza was one of the hardest hit areas — one of the largest massacres of Jews since the Holocaust.

“It’s something we used to imagine from our grandfathers, grandmothers in the pogrom in Europe and other places,” Veruv said, according to Reuters.

A reporter with i24 News said that one witness recalled seeing the mutilated bodies of babies. Up to 40 babies, she said, had been murdered by Hamas terrorists. That number has not been independently verified by The Algemeiner.

Israel‘s embassy in Washington said the death toll from the weekend Hamas attacks had surpassed 1,000, while the IDF has put the figure at over 900. Regardless, the death toll dwarfs all modern Islamist attacks on the West except for 9/11.

The victims were overwhelmingly civilians, gunned down in homes, on streets, or at an outdoor dance party. Scores of Israelis and some foreigners were captured and taken to Gaza as hostages, some paraded through the streets.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to hammer the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the fiercest air strikes in its 75-year conflict with the Palestinians.

Additional reporting provided by Reuters