The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas gunmen from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Photo: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Israel’s government on Thursday showed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defense ministers graphic images of dead children and civilians, saying they were murdered by Hamas terrorists as it builds support for its response.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also released on social media a picture of a dead infant in a pool of blood and the charred body of a child, part of an apparent effort to stoke global anger against the Gaza terrorists over Saturday’s attack.

Blinken, who flew into Tel Aviv earlier on Thursday, told reporters he was shown photographs and videos of a baby riddled with bullets, soldiers beheaded and young people burned alive in their cars or hideaways.

“It’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way,” Blinken told a news briefing. “Images are worth a thousand words. These images may be worth a million.”

Netanyahu has vowed to annihilate Hamas following its deadly assault on unsuspecting Israeli communities on Saturday, which killed more than 1,300 people, the deadliest attack on Israel since it was founded in 1948.

The Israeli air force has launched intense bombing raids on Gaza over the past five days and is massing tens of thousands of troops along the border ahead of a possible ground invasion.

Gaza authorities said more than 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, including children, have already been killed and more than 6,000 wounded. A land invasion in the densely populated territory could send the toll much higher.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant played a video to his counterparts at NATO’s Brussels headquarters that he said showed horrific scenes from the surprise Hamas attack.

“Children were tied up and shot. Yes, I repeat, children, tied up and shot,” he told fellow ministers by video link according to a text of his address sent to Reuters.

In a message on the social media site ‘X’, Netanyahu’s office released what it said were “horrifying photos of babies murdered and burned by the Hamas monsters”.

It added: “Hamas is inhuman. Hamas is ISIS,” comparing the Palestinian group to the Islamic State, which was notorious for its brutality and gory execution videos.

The images of the dead infants were included in the video played to NATO.

“They were horrific pictures of the attacks and the victims of the attacks,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters, saying it “confirmed the brutality of the attacks”.

The White House said it had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the images.

Hamas has denied its terrorists harmed civilians, falsely accusing Israel and the West of spreading false reports to incite violence against Palestinians.

Deputy Hamas chief Saleh Al-Arouri said the group’s terrorists had only aimed to attack the Israeli military and had been surprised by the swift collapse of army units. “The plan was to target the army’s Gaza team and fight occupation soldiers only,” Arouri said in quotes published by Hamas.

The video shown to NATO, apparently taken from a mix of social media published by Hamas and unidentified phone videos, showed the bodies of scores of dead civilians, as well as the body of an Israeli soldier in uniform with his head missing.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after the NATO meeting on Thursday that Washington was not placing any conditions on its security assistance to Israel and expected Israel’s professional military to “do the right things”.