Hamas booby traps included bomb planted in child’s backpack: Israel

Booby traps planted by Hamas terrorists in Israel included a bomb disguised in a child’s pink backpack in the hopes it would kill an innocent victim, the Israeli military said Sunday.

Haunting footage posted online by the Israeli Defense Forces showed a soldier unpacking a child’s seemingly innocuous, colorful, heart-and-star-adorned school bag found laying in a field.

Inside were explosives set to go off if someone tried to pick it up.

“The bag was booby-trapped, containing a remote-activated explosive device—weighing 7 kg,” the IDF wrote.

“Hamas purposefully chose to booby-trap a child’s backpack with the hope a well-intentioned civilian would pick it up.”

The IDF said the insidious device was just one of many located in Israel that were left behind by Hamas in hopes of killing more Israelis after the terrorists murdered more than 1,400 people on Oct. 7.

Some of these traps also have been found to have been rigged onto the bodies of the dead, including Canadian-Israeli mother Adi Vital-Kaploun, 33.

Last week, the IDF found that the body of Vital-Kaploun, who was shot in front of her two boys, was booby-trapped to explode if anyone tried to move it, her friends told the Globe and Mail of Canada.

“They found the body under the firstborn’s bed — with bombs,” said friend Dina Zaslacski.

“They put bombs all over her body, and her dad was in the house. Thank God he didn’t open the door,” she said tearfully.

Hamas’ use of booby traps has also stoked fears that its more than 200 hostages could be loaded up with explosives set to go off in encounters with Israel’s impending invading force into Gaza.

Bruce Hoffman, an expert with the US Council on Foreign Relations, issued such a warning in mid-October when discussing the hostages’ likely location scattered throughout Gaza’s sprawling underground tunnel network.

“These places and perhaps even the hostages themselves will likely be laden with traps,” Hoffman warned in a grave briefing Monday. “This is a challenge of a magnitude that has never been faced before.”