Video of Hamas atrocities being shown to Jewish organizations and Hollywood celebs

Israel fights ‘massacre denial’ by widening audience for graphic film of Oct. 7 attacks

By Beth Harpaz, The Forward

Published November 7, 2023

Courtesy of Israeli Consulate

Invitation for a screening of “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre,” a compilation of graphic footage of the massacres carried out by Hamas.

A 43-minute film documenting atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 is getting a wider audience with screenings for Jewish organizations and Hollywood celebrities.

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The American Jewish Committee said it was providing the venue for an invitation-only screening Tuesday in New York at the behest of the Israeli Consulate. The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia is planning a screening for Thursday. And Israeli actor Gal Gadot organized screenings in New York and Los Angeles for heavy hitters from the entertainment world.

The Anti-Defamation League said via email that it was working with “several partners” to “support the screenings. Measures are being taken to help those in attendance process what they will be bearing witness to.”

The film, Bearing Witness to the October 7 Massacre, was put together by Israel Defense Forces. While some of the footage came from Israeli security cameras, much of it was shot by Hamas gunmen themselves on cellphones, GoPros and bodycams as they carried out the attacks.

“Why did they film their sadistic violence?” Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, asked rhetorically as he addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Oct. 27. “They filmed it in order to terrorize the Israeli public, to release these videos and put fear in the hearts of citizens of Israel.” Erdan then held an iPad up to show the room one of the more gruesome scenes from the footage: a Hamas fighter attempting to decapitate a Thai agricultural worker with a garden hoe.

The film was first shown in its entirety in Tel Aviv to members of Israel’s Knesset, followed by screenings for journalists and others in Israel, London and New York. The Israeli Consulate did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the expanded schedule for screenings.

Unspeakable horrors

The graphic footage includes unspeakable horrors: bodies with limbs askew at impossible angles, a child shot in the eye screaming, “Why am I alive?” after seeing his father gunned down, a Hamas militant calling his parents to boast, “I killed 10 Jews with my own hands.”

The IDF originally planned to withhold the footage out of respect for the victims and their families. But as propaganda began to crop up denying what had happened, officials decided to show the film to counter that misinformation.

“We all know about Holocaust denial,” Erdan told journalists at a screening in New York. “We are starting to see a phenomenon of massacre denial.”

Hamas gunmen killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attacks on kibbutzim and at a music festival, and took 240 others hostage. They murdered children in front of their parents, set fire to homes, raped and tortured victims, and paraded captives to cheering crowds in Gaza. Israel responded by bombing Gaza in a campaign that Gaza health officials say has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, and reduced wide swaths of the 25-mile-long territory to rubble.

Queries sent to more than a dozen Jewish organizations in the U.S. turned up no other scheduled screenings beyond the AJC, the museum in Philadelphia and Gadot’s.

Beth Harpaz is a reporter for the Forward. She previously worked for The Associated Press, first covering breaking news and politics, then as AP Travel editor. Follow her @literarydj or email [email protected].

This article was originally published on the Forward.