Kneecap manager and former Irish diplomat: 'Israel probably killed most of the civilians on October 7'

Dan Lambert made the comment on Twitter, where most of his recent feed is devoted to Israel-Palestine.

Mr Lambert is a former diplomat, having served as advisor to Ireland at the UN in 2013/14, and before that in the Conflict Resolution Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin.

He wrote: “Israel likely killed the majority of civilians on October 7th.

"Furthermore they knowingly and purposefully put out false horrific claims to justify their slaughter to come.

"It's critical for people to understand the depths of their propaganda and evil. It's terrifying.”

Later he posted a quote from a woman who said of an Israeli spokesman: "You will be remembered no differently than the officers of the Third Reich".

The reference to Israelis killing most civilians linked to a Twitter thread from the campaign group Electronic Intifada, which spoke of an Israeli military protocol called the Hannibal Directive (which in essence says that it is preferable to kill Israelis rather than have them taken captive), and which dismissed reports of “mass rape” on October 7 as a "hoax”.

A report into the killings of October 7 by Human Rights Watch (HRW) – titled ‘I Can’t Erase All the Blood from My Mind: Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel’ – said “815 of a total of 1,195 people killed were civilians”, among them “at least 282 women and 36 children”.

It stated: “Across many attack sites, fighters fired directly at civilians, often at close range, as they tried to flee, and at people who happened to be driving vehicles in the area.

"They hurled grenades and shot into safe rooms and other shelters and fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at homes.

"They set some houses on fire, burning and suffocating people to death, and forcing out others who they then captured or killed. They took hundreds hostage for transfer to Gaza or summarily killed them.”

The HRW report also makes reference to an earlier UN report (by the the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel) detailing acts of butchery by Hamas, including beheadings of women and, in one case, a 12-year-old girl.

In Nir Oz, for example, the UN report stated that at least one Thai worker "was subjected to an attempted decapitation as well as hacking upper body parts with a hoe while he was still alive", while in Be’eri, one 80-year-old man had his fingers severed by Hamas before being killed.

It added: “In relation to rape and other forms of sexual violence, the commission concludes on reasonable grounds that perpetrators committed sexual violence on 7 October in southern Israel, including at the Nova festival, on Road 232, at the Nahal Oz military outpost, and at kibbutzim Re’im, Nir Oz, and Kfar Aza.”

Since October 7, much of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed, and the same UN commission last month reported that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

It found it responsible for “imposing a total siege, including blocking humanitarian aid leading to starvation; systematically destroying the healthcare and education systems in Gaza; committing systematic acts of sexual and gender based violence; directly targeting children; carrying out systematic and widespread attacks on religious and cultural sites; and disregarding the orders of the International Court of Justice”.

It is unknown how many Gazans have been killed, but the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs this week cited Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry as giving a figure of 67,183.