The Israeli military screened more than 40 minutes of raw footage of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on civilians Monday, pushing back against what it describes as false narratives about the horrifying atrocities.
Video was culled from dead Hamas fighters’ body cameras, Israelis’ cellphones and social media posts and security footage, military officials said. They showed the gruesome montage to 170 journalists on a military base just outside Tel Aviv, according to The Wall Street Journal. Similar footage had been shown to a group of foreign correspondents last week.
The compilation started by showing groups of pickup trucks loaded with Hamas gunmen driving unimpeded along Israeli highways, shooting civilians as they passed their cars, BBC News reported. Cheering Hamas gunmen shot civilians on the road, stalked kibbutzim pathways and killed parents and children as they huddled in their homes. Besides bodies, they left behind blood-soaked floors and bullet-ridden doors — at least one with a key still in the lock — and buildings turned into rubble.
Home cameras inside one kibbutz caught a father rushing with his two young pajama-clad sons into a bomb shelter, only to be killed by a Hamas grenade before their eyes seconds later. The bloodied and shocked children rushed back to their house, one of them apparently missing an eye, as a Hamas gunman walked in, raided the fridge for a drink, and left while they wept and one boy screamed, “Daddy is dead!” and asked repeatedly, “Why am I alive?” The Israeli military spokesman showing the footage said he did not know the boys’ fate.
In other images, a Hamas militant strives to behead, using a garden hoe, one of 30,000 Thais who live in Israel and work on farms, the Atlantic reported.
Further clips show numerous people braced for their own slaughter, some bound and gagged, others cowering with guns trained on them. A group of young women is also seen huddling in fear before being executed, the Atlantic reported.
“We are making a collective memory for the future. It will define who we are,” the Israeli military’s top spokesman, Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, said at the screening.
One Hamas terrorist excitedly called his parents from an Israeli victim’s phone, crowing that he was a “hero” who had “killed 10 with my bare hands,” and bragging, “their blood is on my hands.”
The initial incursion saw more than 1,000 attackers flood into Israel from the Gaza Strip, officials said. More than 1,400 people were killed and more than 220 taken hostage. Four have been returned, with officials working to secure more releases.
Documents shared with journalists at the screening show that the attackers were given explicit instructions to murder civilians, take hostages and mow down any captive who seemed “problematic” or threatening, NBC News reported.
With Gaza health officials putting the Palestinian death toll at more than 5,000 under unremitting Israeli shelling, some narratives are emerging that make a direct comparison between that and what Hamas wrought in Israel earlier this month.
“We see that some of the channels are trying to compare what Israel is doing and what those vile terrorists are doing,” Major General Michael Edelstein, a former IDF Gaza division commander, said after the screening. “I cannot understand anyone who compares. And after what we have shared with you, you should know it.”
With News Wire Services
