Journalists who attended an IDF screening of a 45-minute-long montage of Hamas murdering, torturing and abducting Israeli civilians have told of the horrors with which they were confronted.
The lengthy compilation, pieced together from material recorded by Hamas gunmen on bodycams and smartphones, was shown by the IDF to a closed pool of journalists in Tel Aviv yesterday.
One Breitbart journalist said audience members began weeping as they sat in their chairs, while others whimpered ‘make it stop’ after a matter of minutes.
‘There is no moment of redemption in the footage,’ he said.
‘After the video was done, we were allowed to go outside to retrieve our equipment… I had to sit down. I leaned against a wall and cried.’
Another journalist for The Atlantic said some audience members were heard retching and heaving – a violent, involuntary response to the level of evil and gore on display.
‘I certainly hope I never see any of the extra footage again,’ he wrote.
By all accounts, the footage was stuffed with clip after clip 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.
Others were decapitated with knives – and one pour soul was partially decapitated with a garden hoe as he lay cradling a bullet wound in his stomach.
And one young girl was seen hiding under a desk, waiting as the terrorists decided what her fate would be. Moments later they decided to gun her down from point-blank range.
The full unedited footage will not be shared with the public, Israel says, unless all of the families of those killed within view it and give permission, meaning it is unlikely the whole clip will ever be released to the world.
But the IDF did publish a new snippet of footage captured from the bodycam of one Hamas gunman during the terror group’s ruthless October 7 attacks.
Hundreds of journalists attended the horrendous screening in Tel Aviv
There were reports of journalists weeping, gasping and retching at the footage
The full unedited footage will not be shared with the public, Israel says, unless all of the families of those killed within view it and give permission
Hundreds of journalists and photographers from media companies all over the world yesterday attended the screening of a film of assorted footage showing the extent of the horrors committed by Hamas
This 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
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.
According to descriptions from journalists who attended the private screening, one clip showed the moment a Hamas terrorist threw 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 – either due to shrapnel from the grenade blast or 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 portable toilets, but all were found and either gunned down, or savagely beaten before being taken hostage.
Meanwhile, in an audio clip, a Hamas gunman is heard bragging to his family about ‘killing 10 Jews’, having stolen the phone of one of his victims.
In the call recorded by the victim’s phone, the terrorist chillingly boasts that he ‘is a hero’ after murdering Israelis with his ‘own hands’.
His parents, who do not have similar levels of enthusiasm, beg him to come back to Gaza, but their son tells them he is committed to ‘victory or martyrdom’. The latter turned out to be the end result.
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 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 said.
‘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
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
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
Israel has refused to let up on its brutal bombing campaign of Gaza even as Hamas released two elderly Israeli women snatched in the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, suggested Israel had no intention of curbing its strikes, declaring: ‘We want to bring Hamas to a state of full dismantling.
‘We are well prepared for the ground operations in the south,’ he added, referring to a much-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces.
‘Troops who have more time are better prepared, and that is what we are doing now.’
Hamas has repeatedly offered to release hostages on the condition that Israel stops its bombing campaign of Gaza, which is believed to have killed more than 5,000 Palestinians since October 7.
But Israel has refused to negotiate, launching as yet unsuccessful raids across the border in an attempt to rescue hostages and declaring Gaza will continue to face the bombs until all hostages are released.
The IDF claimed it hit more than 400 militant targets in Gaza overnight and killed dozens of Hamas fighters, including three deputy battalion commanders.
The forces said one of the targets hit was a tunnel which allowed Hamas to infiltrate Israel from the sea and Hamas command centres in mosques.
But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that more than 120 Palestinians were killed in the overnight strikes, including at a coastal refugee camp.