During a meeting with Jewish community leaders this afternoon, President Joe Biden confirmed reports that Hamas beheaded children in Israel following various international press reports of 40 children killed by the terrorist group.

“It is important for Americans to see what is happening. I have been doing this for a long time. I never thought that I would see, have confirmed, pictures of terrorists beheading children,” Biden said during a White House roundtable with Jewish leaders. “Downplaying Hamas’s atrocities and blaming the Jewish people is unthinkable.”

However, hours later, a spokesman for the White House itself denied Biden's previous statements, clarifying to The Washington Post that the statements were based on information not independently corroborated.

“A White House spokesperson later clarified that U.S. officials and the president have not seen pictures or confirmed such reports independently. The president based his comments about the alleged atrocities on the claims from Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports from Israel,” read the WaPo’s live coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The globally reported news that Hamas had murdered babies in Israel was born out of a report from an i24 News reporter, who, during a visit to kibbutz Kfar Aza, said that an Israel Defense Forces commander informed him that they had found the bodies of about 40 babies, some of whom had been decapitated.

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Editor’s note: this article, in the first instance, had only covered Biden’s initial statements and was published under a different title than the current one.