Three weeks after coordinated terrorist strikes by the Hamas group on October 7 in Israel, the Israeli Embassy in Delhi held a screening of the videos reclaimed from the site of the attacks as proof of the brutality and mayhem wreaked by Hamas militants on that day. The screening, to which about 20 members of the media, including The Hindu, were invited was part of similar viewings for media held in Tel Aviv, New York, Brasilia, Beijing and Paris, in order, said officials, to prove the veracity of the Israeli government’s description of the violence on October 7.
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“Since day one of the attacks, there were claims that [what we were saying] was fake,” said Israeli Ambassador to India Naor Gilon. He said there was an ongoing debate in Israel about whether to show the videos publicly or not, given the need to respect the dignity of those who died but said that the government had decided on the limited access screenings to show that Hamas was “not just a terror organisation but it was [like] ISIS [Islamic State]”.
The videos screened at the embassy pieced together in chronological order how the Hamas attackers left Gaza on Saturday, October 6 in the early morning at 6.30 a.m., cutting through the “Iron wall” boundary built by Israel, disabling cameras there with coordinated bomb explosions and then proceeded on the highway, stopping motorists and shooting them at point-blank range. They then show footage from the ‘bodycams’ or ‘go pro videos’ that the militants strapped to themselves, documenting their own movements through a number of ‘Kibbutzim’ or Israeli communes. Much of the video has already appeared on social media and the Internet, but officials at the screening said some of it that was recovered from the bodies of dead militants had not been released publicly.
Gruesome scenes
In the communes, the terrorists are seen shooting the tyres of ambulances to prevent them from leaving, shooting a dog that crosses their path, before entering the homes of residents and killing men, women and children indiscriminately. One video shows a gunman using a small lighter to set fire to drapes outside a house, other uses boxcutters to cut through a screen window and enter another house. The video included CCTV footage that showed a father running with his sons into a safe shelter, only to be killed by an explosive thrown in behind them. The children are seen crying, as a gunman opens a fridge looking for water, drinks some cola and then leaves. A gruesome scene follows of the Hamas fighters trying to behead with a garden implement the body of a man who was shot to death, chanting religious slogans, in the manner seen in the past in videos released by al-Qaeda and IS. There are also several videos taken by Israeli first responders who entered the scene of the carnage several hours later, to find dozens of bodies bathed in blood or burnt, and several children, including infants killed while asleep.
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A separate set of videos shows the gunmen attacking the Tribe of Nova Music Festival in Re’im near the border, chasing festival goers across fields and shooting at them indiscriminately while loading others, many of them wounded, onto trucks to take back to Gaza as hostages, where they are seen being welcomed by some residents. In all, Israeli officials said 1,405 Israelis were killed that day, 5,400 injured, and 245 taken captive, of which five have so far been freed.
Israel’s move to screen the video was also seen as a way of countering some of the growing criticism from the United Nations and humanitarian agencies of its military operations on Gaza, and last week the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, which India had abstained from. The screening came on a day there were more calls for Israel to stop its aerial bombardment, after an airstrike on the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp in the middle of Gaza left dozens dead, taking the death toll of Palestinians in the past month to more than 8,800, at least 3,500 of which are children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Internet chat groups for the international media run by Palestinian officials have also shared dozens of videos showing the destruction in Gaza, overflowing hospitals, and bodies of children killed in the bombing.
