People mourn by the coffins of five members of the Kutz family who were killed in a Palestinian terrorists attack on their kibbutz of Kfar Aza, during their funeral in Gan Yavne town in central Israel, on Oct. 17, 2023. (Oren Ziv/AFP via Getty Images)
The Israeli government screened a graphic and unedited 43 minute compilation video showing atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The screening took place on Oct. 23 at a base in Tel Aviv and was attended by foreign journalists, Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy revealed. It was created from various sources, including body cameras worn by Hamas terrorists, vehicle dashboard cameras, social media accounts, and cellphone videos.
Mr. Levy said in an Oct. 22 post on X, formally known as Twitter, that showing graphic atrocities was to silence the voices of doubt who claim the events did not take place or have been exaggerated.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I can’t believe that we as a country are having to do this as we work to defeat the terror organization that brutalized our people,” he said.
“We are witnessing a Holocaust denial-like phenomenon evolving in real time as people are casting doubt on the magnitude of the atrocities that Hamas committed against our people and, in fact, recorded in order to glorify that violence,” Mr. Levy added.
Israeli army soldiers patrol near damaged houses in kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip on Oct. 18, 2023. (Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
Mr. Levy said in a follow up X post he had watched the whole attack video compilation, although he wished he hadn’t. He said it shows instances of murdered infants, cold blooded executions of adults and children, decapitations, and many other graphic moments.
“We see human ash that the world has not seen since Auschwitz. This was Hamas’s October 7th massacre,” Mr. Levy said.
“This is the evil we are up against. This is the evil Israel will eliminate with the total defeat and dismantling of Hamas for the sake of our people and for the sake of humanity.”
Full Attack Footage Not Publicly Released
So far, the footage of the massacre has only been seen in its entirety by journalists and other key personnel in Israel. The audience in attendance were not allowed to record the compilation out of respect for the dead.
However, a roughly one-minute sample of a roadside attack on an Israeli civilian car has been released to the public and shared on social media.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) an Oct. 23 posted on X a picture with a caption detailing one horrific scene from the Oct. 7 attack video, but said owing to X’s guidelines, they couldn’t show it.
The screening of Oct. 7 attack footage has come amid renewed calls for Israel to halt its military retaliation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip, on Oct. 19, 2023. (Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)
The initial attack by Hamas and ongoing rocket launches from Gaza have left at least 1,400 Israeli soldiers and civilians dead. Ongoing retaliation air strikes on Hamas targets by Israel have reportedly killed over 5,000 and wounded at least another 14,000.
Israel’s military believes that Hamas could bear some responsibility for the deaths in the Gaza Strip, with at least 550 of the terrorist group’s approximately 7,000 rocket launches misfiring and causing casualties in Gaza.
Israel is still urging Gazan civilians to evacuate south of Gaza City away from Hamas locations and hideouts. An estimated 1.2 million people have been displaced in Gaza. Around 200,000 people have also been displaced in Israel. Hamas has been accused of blocking Palestinian civilians from leaving the war zone, along with other acts of violence against its own people.
