The Israeli government has released video footage exposing the brutality of the Hamas attack on October 7. The move comes after influencers and journalists on the left and right have been downplaying the severity of the assault.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy explained that the release of the footage is intended to counter a “Holocaust denial-like phenomenon.”
Several journalists, including Unherd’s David Patrikarakos, attended a briefing in Israel where the footage was displayed. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he noted that the footage revealed deeply disturbing scenes in which Hamas terrorists butchered and tortured Israeli civilians.
I’m in #Israel 🇮🇱 for @unherd as war with #Hamas intensifies. Follow me for updates from the ground. This am I attended a session where Israel is releasing “raw footage” of the 7th October massacres. Devices were banned from the initial session. Here is my report. THREAD pic.twitter.com/n40VkZLGTb
— David Patrikarakos (@dpatrikarakos) October 23, 2023
One clip showed Hamas operatives breaking into an office, questioning an Israeli man hiding under a desk about the Quran, and then shooting him to death. Gen. Edelstein of Gaza command noted that the terrorists “came to kill and burn civilians” and that even though he had fought Hamas for years, he “never thought they’d be this violent.”
Here’s another incident:
A man in his underpants & his two children, also in underpants run screaming. Hamas enter, they throw a grenade & kill the father. The take the 2 kids - covered with their father's blood - into a room.
"Daddy's dead," s[c]reams one. "It's not a prank. He's really dead."
The journalist includes several other incidents in his thread on X.
On one hand, the footage is a powerful tool in Israel’s arsenal when it comes to combatting misinformation and disinformation intended to smear the Jewish state while running cover for Hamas. For anyone teetering on the edge of disbelief about the horrors of Hamas’ attack, these videos may provide a distressing wake-up call.
Still, it is worth noting that there are many members of the chattering class who are dead set on downplaying or discrediting the reality on the ground. Instead, they are perpetuating narratives intended to cast a negative light on Israel. These are not good-faith actors. For these folks, no amount of footage showing how evil Hamas is will change their minds because, at the end of the day, they want to believe what they believe.
Some of these individuals could be operating from a place of antisemitism. There has been plenty of that going around over the duration of the war. These people are taking the opportunity to demonize Israel no matter what it does. From where I sit, it was part of the effort to deceptively claim that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombed a hospital in Gaza City.
On the other hand, others are motivated by an effort to shill for the Palestinians and Hamas. These people are averse to allowing the truth to prevail when it comes to what is happening in the region. They will eagerly report on the deaths of Palestinian civilians. But when it comes to Israelis, they are nowhere to be found. This reality was readily apparent after Hamas terrorists bombarded an Israeli hospital multiple times without the mainstream elite media bothering to give the issue any attention.
What is truly unfortunate about this is that people are far more concerned about maintaining political narratives than about trying to make sense of this conflict. They do not care about the people on the ground suffering on either side of the issue. They are prioritizing politics over humanity. While Israel might have gained some ground in the messaging battle, it is clear that it has plenty of enemies in positions of influence.
