Israel has released a new snippet of unedited footage taken from the bodycam of a Hamas gunman amid the ruthless October 7 attacks on unsuspecting civilians.
The clip showed how the gunman, brandishing his AK-47 assault rifle, ordered a pair of Israelis driving slowly along the road to stop their car.
Without giving the driver a second to comply, the gunman immediately starts blasting bullets into the vehicle from mere feet away, and the passengers can be seen recoiling from the rounds in the cabin as the car rolls past.
The release of the footage was announced by government spokesman Eylon Levy to counter what he says is a ‘Holocaust denial-like phenomenon’ amid backlash over Israel’s airstrikes of the Gaza Strip.
The brief clip was just one tiny part of a 45-minute-long compilation of unedited footage Israel’s officials showed to a pool of journalists at a military base in Tel Aviv this morning.
That footage will not be released, Israel says, until all of the families of those killed within view it and give permission, meaning it is unlikely the whole clip will ever be seen by the public.
But journalists who attended the screening spoke of the utter horror with which they were confronted.
The clip showed how the gunman, brandishing his AK-47 assault rifle – ordered pair of Israelis driving slowly along the road to stop their car
Without giving the driver a second to comply, the gunman immediately starts blasting bullets into the vehicle from mere feet away
The civilians are seen lying motionless in the cabin with all the windows shot out and bullet holes riddling the doors
Hamas terrorists descended on several vehicles attempting to make an escape
Dashcam footage from inside the car shows how the windscreen was shattered and the car rolled to a stop, its occupants gunned down from near point blank range
‘The IDF has been collecting footage from bodycams taken by Hamas death squads as they rampaged through the communities in southern Israel, butchering everyone in sight,’ government spokesman Eylon Levy said
The lengthy complication pieced together material recorded by Hamas gunmen on bodycams and smartphones, as well as smartphone and dashcam footage of their victims.
Journalists who attended the screening said many viewers began crying when presented with the footage, which included clear recordings of civilians being shot, stabbed, tortured and burned.
Their corpses were arranged for all to see – bound, gagged and riddled with bullet holes and knife wounds.
In one clip, a Hamas terrorist throws a grenade at a father and his son. The blast kills the father, who pitches forward into the turf, while the young boy is covered in his blood.
The child is dragged inside and forced to sit next to his brother, whose eye is a bloody mess after being subjected to horrific torture.
One of the boys sobs: ‘Why am I alive?’ as the ruthless terrorists stand over the body of his father.
Another dark chunk of footage showed how unsuspecting IDF soldiers were beheaded with their headless corpses left splayed in the streets, while a contingent of female soldiers were incapacitated by a grenade before being shot at near point blank range.
The journalists also shared they witnessed scenes of sheer panic, terror and devastation at the Nova music festival, where more than 250 civilians were slaughtered.
Some victims hid in skips, others in portaloos, but all were found and either gunned down, or savagely beaten before being taken hostage.
Speaking last night, Levy told of the IDF’s decision to show journalists the horrendous footage in all its unedited gore.
‘The IDF has been collecting footage from bodycams taken by Hamas death squads as they rampaged through the communities in southern Israel, butchering everyone in sight,’ Levy began.
‘I can’t believe I’m saying this… As we work to defeat the terror organisation we are witnessing a Holocaust denial-like phenomenon evolving in real time as people are casting doubt on the magnitude of the atrocities Hamas committed against our people and in fact recorded in order to glorify this violence.’
In previously released footage, Hamas gunmen tear away a chair in front of a desk behind which injured female soldiers are hiding so they can get a clear shot
In the dying moments of the video, one shooter raises his rifle and fires several more shots at the bloodied women from mere feet away
Hamas gunman is pictured storming Israeli positions on October 7
One Hamas terrorist is seen holding his lighter to house plants and hanging ornaments in an Israeli that quickly set ablaze before they made their exit
In another clip, Hamas gunmen are seen shooting dead a dog before raiding houses
Hamas gunman is seen taking a civilian hostage after shooting many others in cold blood in previously seen footage. has requested unedited, unseen footage from the Israeli government press office
Levy’s statement comes as part of Israel’s response to backlash over its incessant bombing of the Gaza Strip which is thought to have killed more than 5,000 Palestinians since October 7.
This morning, Israel’s Defence Forces published what they claim is proof of Hamas rocket launch sites nestled among mosques, schools and nurseries in Gaza.
A series of satellite images, shared on the IDF’s official website and social media accounts, shows what they claim are launch pits dug into the ground right next to the civilian structures – something Israel says backs up their claims that Hamas is using the Palestinian people as human shields.
Two alleged launch sites were located a stone’s throw away from each other, one in the garden of a mosque, and another mere feet away from a kindergarten.
A third was seen across the road from a UN building in Gaza and a fourth was located opposite the Manfaluti Secondary School for Boys.
Geolocation of the images provided by the IDF confirmed the locations given were correct, and analysts pointed out that previous satellite images taken in September did not show any launch sites – suggesting that they would have been recently constructed.
‘Since the beginning of the war, the Hamas terrorist organization has been exploiting civilians and civilian sites such as kindergartens, schools, and mosques for the purpose of firing rockets at Israel. Hamas deliberately fires its rockets at Israeli civilians,’ IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
The presence of rocket launch sites at the locations provided could not be independently verified.
It also comes as Israel declared it has evidence of Iranian ‘involvement’ in the Hamas terror attack,
Major General Michael Edelstein, a veteran commander working with the Israel Defence Forces’ southern command, pointed to the ‘well trained, well equipped’ gunmen as he made the claim – but refused to elaborate.
‘I cannot elaborate too much but you can understand what I mean. Not just about equipment but more than this,’ he said.
Israeli warplanes continued to strike targets in Gaza throughout the weekend and into Monday morning, as well as two airports in Syria and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used by militants.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Monday that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its withering bombing campaign more than two weeks ago.
An aerial view of what the Israel Defense Forces say is a Hamas rocket launch site, in the vicinity of a kindergarten, in a location given as Gaza in this handout image released October 22, 2023
An aerial view of what the Israel Defense Forces say is a Hamas rocket launch site, in the vicinity of a mosque. The mosque is located a stone’s throw away from the kindergarten
A third alleged launch site was seen across the road from a UN building in Gaza
A fourth site was allegedly seen next to a pair of schools in Gaza
A rocket is launched from the coastal Gaza strip towards Israel by militants of the Ezz Al-Din Al Qassam militia, the military wing of Hamas movement
Alarm has surged about the spiralling humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack that, Israeli officials say, killed more than 1,400 people who were gunned down, stabbed or burnt by the Islamist militants. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages.
Thousands of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed and more than one million people displaced in the territory that has been under siege and largely deprived of water, food and other basic supplies.
About a dozen trucks carrying desperately needed aid – the third convoy in three days – arrived inside Gaza from Egypt on Monday through Rafah, Gaza’s only crossing not controlled by Israel.
The United States, which has brokered the entry of the aid convoys, has vowed a ‘continued flow’ of relief goods into Gaza, even as UN aid agencies have said far more is needed.
Fighting raged unabated overnight, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed again that Israel would ‘erase Hamas’ and as a full-scale ground invasion loomed.
Gaza’s Hamas-controlled government media office said that ‘more than 60 were martyred in the raids’ during the night – including 17 in a single strike that hit a house in Gaza’s north – and at least 10 others were killed in new strikes early Monday.
The Israeli military said it had hit ‘over 320 military targets in the Gaza Strip’ in the past 24 hours.
It said the targets ‘included tunnels containing Hamas terrorists, dozens of operational command centres’ as well as ‘military compounds and observation posts’ used by Islamic Jihad, another militant group.
Rafah resident Mohammed Abu Sabalah said he had returned home from the local mosque after dawn prayers Monday and that ‘a quarter of an hour later there was a bombing’.
‘We couldn’t see anything because of the thick smoke,’ he said, adding that ‘we thank God that we’ve emerged safe and sound’ with ‘only a few windows and doors destroyed’.
Buildings are reduced to rubble and smoke fills the air in Gaza City, 23 October 2023
Members of the al-Zanati family killed following an Israeli strike, are taken to a waiting vehicle to be driven to a cemetery for burial in Khan Yunis
A view of the damage after Israeli airstrikes hit Ridwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on October 23, 2023.
Palestinians look for survivors of the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Rafah on Monday, Oct. 23, 2023
Israeli forces are massed near the Gaza border, and smaller units have already carried out limited incursions, targeting Hamas and hoping to rescue hostages, whose number Israel now puts at 222.
In one such operation, a 19-year-old Israeli soldier was killed and three others wounded, the army said, adding that the tank operation had aimed ‘to dismantle terror infrastructure… and locate missing persons and bodies’.
In Gaza, where thousands have been wounded, the health ministry issued a statement saying ‘citizens are called upon to immediately go to hospitals and blood bank branches to donate blood’.
Alarm has grown about the dire needs of the 2.4 million civilians trapped inside the 40-kilometre (25-mile) long coastal strip that was already blockaded and impoverished before the war.
Children killed in an Israeli air strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis were Monday laid to rest in a makeshift grave, while in Rafah men were filling plastic jerrycans from containers with now scare safe drinking water.
US President Joe Biden brokered the passage of aid convoys with Egyptian and Israeli leaders in talks last week – but the United Nations estimates Gaza needs about 100 trucks of relief goods every day.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said Sunday’s delivery of food, water and medical supplies was ‘another small glimmer of hope for the millions of people in dire need of humanitarian aid.
‘But they need more, much more.’
Israel has rejected the entry of fuel into Gaza, fearing Hamas could use it for weapons and explosives.
This has sparked warnings that soon Gaza’s ambulances, hospital incubators for infants and water desalination plants will soon stop functioning.