The invitation to the press said “The Israel Defense Forces will screen the ‘Bearing Witness to the Oct. 7th Massacre’ footage at 1:30 p.m.” on Friday, with the warning that “the footage is extremely graphic and violent, including videos of murders filmed by the terrorists.” The host was IDF Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler, an Israeli Air Force fighter pilot who studied in the U.S. and was formerly the IDF’s international spokesman and who has returned to duty since the Hamas attack.
Smartphones were collected from people in the conference room on the East Side, as no audio or video recordings of the 45-minute presentation are allowed. The reason that the IDF has not released or broadcast the compilation is at the request of the families of the 1,400 murdered victims and the thousands more who were injured, as well as the hundreds of hostages dragged into Gaza. However, viewers could take notes and write about it any way they choose.
The same video was shown to the international press in Tel Aviv, as well as at the Israeli embassy in Washington last week. Journalists and government officials have been the audiences. Shefler said that the IDF will show it to anyone who wants to see it.
Then the blinds were drawn and the room was darkened. On the black screen the letters explained that the following video and audio was collected from captured cell phones and GoPro cameras and dashboard cameras in the vehicles used by some of the 3,000 Hamas terrorists who invaded southern Israel from Gaza that early Saturday morning. Some of it was from Hamas social media that the IDF verified. Other portions were from Israeli sources like traffic control cameras, CCTV and home security systems.
Shefler, who stayed in the room to answer questions, said the video depicts the deaths of around 130 people, but that was less than 10% of the people intentionally murdered on Oct. 7 by the Hamas terrorists. He said that viewers were free to describe any of the images or sounds. We will not do so. Plenty of others in the press have written of the video.
It is gruesome and upsetting and horrifying, but this was not like a traffic accident that causes drivers to slow down to look. It is scene after scene of Jews being killed for being Jews, like the snuff film of Al Qaeda’s 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed killing another Jew, Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal. And it is exactly what Hamas wanted. They wanted these murders to be glorified.
During the Holocaust, the Germans wanted to keep their murders of the Jews a secret to not panic the population. Hamas wants to cause panic and fear.
Because of Hamas, Arabs in Gaza are now dying also. The deaths and injuries in Gaza caused during the Israeli counterattack on Hamas are harrowing and any normal human will recoil. Every Palestinian child or adult killed or wounded is a tragedy. But while Israel regrets the death of innocent Palestinians, Hamas revels in dead Jews. The difference is that Israel is trying to avoid civilians, while Hamas sought to kill civilians. If Hamas had Israel’s weapons, every Jew in the country would be dead. There can be no more Hamas.
