The first anniversary of the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel is approaching, and not a day since has passed when the consequences and after-shocks of that terrible day have not been felt around the world. More than any other event in living memory, it has polarised and divided people everywhere.
Eight weeks after the attacks, I was invited to the Israeli Embassy in Wellington to watch the 47 minutes of footage compiled by the Israeli Government called “Bearing Witness”. It represents only a fraction of the 150,000 video clips collected by Israel from webcam footage, phones, security cameras and other recording devices that were operating that day.
The Embassy invited approximately 60 people from New Zealand media to attend - 12 of us accepted. I have set out below what I saw - it is not intended to be partisan but simply an account of what happened that day and my impressions as an observer.
Did watching “Bearing Witness” alter any of my opinions? Yes, it did.
I expected to see men, women and children slaughtered but the level of hatred and barbarity was incomprehensible. Often the mutilation continued after the victim was killed as if that were only one stage in a process that would continue until what was left was unrecognizable. We saw 139 killings or bodies but in many cases the bodies were so disfigured or burned that they ceased to look human.
At the viewing we were joined by an American forensic pathologist who now lives in New Zealand but who volunteered to travel to Israel in the days following the attack to help identify the bodies. She recounted to us that DNA testing was conducted in order to match body parts with the correct bodies as often parts of different victims had been mistakenly bagged together.
It does, I think, at least partially explain Israel’s ferocious response in the year that has followed the attacks. In my view, anyone in the Israeli government or military who viewed that footage would conclude that they face an immediate existential threat. Their enemies do not simply wish to take territory or wage a war - killing was not enough. Their enemies that day wished for the elimination of every Jewish man, woman and child until nothing remained but dust. That was the point that I did not fully appreciate until I saw this footage.
I was immediately struck by the clarity of the high-resolution Go-Pros and cameras that the attackers used. The video starts as the wire fence is cut and utes drive through - the camera pivots to a boy sitting at the back of one of them - he’s fresh-faced and relaxed, looking no more than 18 or 19 years old.
Most of the attackers do not wear military kit. Some are young, others look like they are in their 40s. As the utes drive through the fence it is around 6:30am and it is a crystal clear, still Mediterranean morning.
Gunmen stop along the roadside and begin shooting people in cars before moving to a kibbutz. It is still and quiet - one of the gunmen’s bodycams records a family dog walking up to him. The dog stands about 10 feet away looking curiously at the men that have entered the kibbutz. Moments later a single gunshot interrupts the calm and the dog falls to the ground.
Gunmen continue to move through the kibbutz passing BBQs, children’s bikes and swings. Some houses are set alight, in others the gunmen peer through the windows and shoot people as they sit in their living rooms.
At the Be’eri kibbutz, a house security camera records a father running out of his house with his two sons across their courtyard to a small outhouse. Out of nowhere, a gunman appears and throws a grenade into their hiding space. Seconds later there is an explosion and the father falls into the entrance, dead.
The two sons, maybe 8 to 10 years old, are taken out by the gunman, bloodied and in shock from the outhouse back to their kitchen. One has lost an eye and cannot see but is comforted by his brother.
“I think we are going to die” says one boy as he tends to his brother’s wounds.
I’m not sure that the gunman knew that he was being filmed by the home security system. He nonchalantly leans against the kitchen bench with his gun resting across his chest. The boys pay him no attention as they frantically try to process what has happened. Their conversation is heartbreaking.
“I want my mom” says the youngest.
“You can’t see?” says his brother as he begins to cry.
“Why am I alive?”
The gunman simply looks at them perhaps thinking about whether he should kill them or not. He takes a drink from their fridge, quenches his thirst and leaves without saying a word.
The mother is then seen running into the courtyard towards the outhouse, closely followed by a kibbutz security guard. She sees her husband’s body and falls to her knees. The security guard tries to pull her away but she won’t leave. He stands behind her, lifts her up and carries her away.
In another scene, a dead man is lying prone on the ground. An attacker takes a garden hoe and hacks the head from the body with repeated strikes. In the next scene, a man calmly bends over and uses a large knife to remove the head of a dead IDF soldier before walking off with it. There are too many images of young children in their pyjamas to count - mostly shot in the head or the chest.
There are communications back to Hamas commanders - one instructs the gunman to “bring the body back to let the people play with it”. In others, gunmen are calling their parents to boast of the number of Jews that they had killed. In other scenes bodies are taken back to Gaza as trophies to hundreds of people celebrating in the streets with mobile phones in their hands.
The scenes from the music festival are apocalyptic. It starts with people dancing and enjoying themselves as gliders are seen in the horizon. Before long, hundreds of people are running across fields to escape gunfire. Some hide and are shot. A group of girls hide before gunmen walk into the room. In the next images, they are all sitting against a wall with their faces bloodied, alive but totally unresponsive and clearly in shock as the camera pans across them. They are loaded into utes and driven away.
The carnage from the music festival is difficult to describe. Many people are shot or burned beyond recognition. A first responder is seen moving slowing through the bodies asking for any sign of life - there is none. By nightfall there is a temporary morgue filled with bodies.
During the 47 minutes there is almost no verbal interaction with the victims - they are routinely called dogs or worse as they are shot, and their bodies abused. There is both joy from the gunmen and an evident visceral hatred towards their victims which is difficult to comprehend.
October 7 and Israel’s response will undoubtedly be debated for a lifetime. Hopefully we will live to see a peaceful resolution to this most intractable of conflicts.
Lawyer and writer Philip Crump explores political, legal and cultural issues facing New Zealand. Sometimes known as Thomas Cranmer. This article was published HERE
The Embassy invited approximately 60 people from New Zealand media to attend - 12 of us accepted. I have set out below what I saw - it is not intended to be partisan but simply an account of what happened that day and my impressions as an observer.
Did watching “Bearing Witness” alter any of my opinions? Yes, it did.
I expected to see men, women and children slaughtered but the level of hatred and barbarity was incomprehensible. Often the mutilation continued after the victim was killed as if that were only one stage in a process that would continue until what was left was unrecognizable. We saw 139 killings or bodies but in many cases the bodies were so disfigured or burned that they ceased to look human.
At the viewing we were joined by an American forensic pathologist who now lives in New Zealand but who volunteered to travel to Israel in the days following the attack to help identify the bodies. She recounted to us that DNA testing was conducted in order to match body parts with the correct bodies as often parts of different victims had been mistakenly bagged together.
It does, I think, at least partially explain Israel’s ferocious response in the year that has followed the attacks. In my view, anyone in the Israeli government or military who viewed that footage would conclude that they face an immediate existential threat. Their enemies do not simply wish to take territory or wage a war - killing was not enough. Their enemies that day wished for the elimination of every Jewish man, woman and child until nothing remained but dust. That was the point that I did not fully appreciate until I saw this footage.
I was immediately struck by the clarity of the high-resolution Go-Pros and cameras that the attackers used. The video starts as the wire fence is cut and utes drive through - the camera pivots to a boy sitting at the back of one of them - he’s fresh-faced and relaxed, looking no more than 18 or 19 years old.
Most of the attackers do not wear military kit. Some are young, others look like they are in their 40s. As the utes drive through the fence it is around 6:30am and it is a crystal clear, still Mediterranean morning.
Gunmen stop along the roadside and begin shooting people in cars before moving to a kibbutz. It is still and quiet - one of the gunmen’s bodycams records a family dog walking up to him. The dog stands about 10 feet away looking curiously at the men that have entered the kibbutz. Moments later a single gunshot interrupts the calm and the dog falls to the ground.
Gunmen continue to move through the kibbutz passing BBQs, children’s bikes and swings. Some houses are set alight, in others the gunmen peer through the windows and shoot people as they sit in their living rooms.
At the Be’eri kibbutz, a house security camera records a father running out of his house with his two sons across their courtyard to a small outhouse. Out of nowhere, a gunman appears and throws a grenade into their hiding space. Seconds later there is an explosion and the father falls into the entrance, dead.
The two sons, maybe 8 to 10 years old, are taken out by the gunman, bloodied and in shock from the outhouse back to their kitchen. One has lost an eye and cannot see but is comforted by his brother.
“I think we are going to die” says one boy as he tends to his brother’s wounds.
I’m not sure that the gunman knew that he was being filmed by the home security system. He nonchalantly leans against the kitchen bench with his gun resting across his chest. The boys pay him no attention as they frantically try to process what has happened. Their conversation is heartbreaking.
“I want my mom” says the youngest.
“You can’t see?” says his brother as he begins to cry.
“Why am I alive?”
The gunman simply looks at them perhaps thinking about whether he should kill them or not. He takes a drink from their fridge, quenches his thirst and leaves without saying a word.
The mother is then seen running into the courtyard towards the outhouse, closely followed by a kibbutz security guard. She sees her husband’s body and falls to her knees. The security guard tries to pull her away but she won’t leave. He stands behind her, lifts her up and carries her away.
In another scene, a dead man is lying prone on the ground. An attacker takes a garden hoe and hacks the head from the body with repeated strikes. In the next scene, a man calmly bends over and uses a large knife to remove the head of a dead IDF soldier before walking off with it. There are too many images of young children in their pyjamas to count - mostly shot in the head or the chest.
There are communications back to Hamas commanders - one instructs the gunman to “bring the body back to let the people play with it”. In others, gunmen are calling their parents to boast of the number of Jews that they had killed. In other scenes bodies are taken back to Gaza as trophies to hundreds of people celebrating in the streets with mobile phones in their hands.
The scenes from the music festival are apocalyptic. It starts with people dancing and enjoying themselves as gliders are seen in the horizon. Before long, hundreds of people are running across fields to escape gunfire. Some hide and are shot. A group of girls hide before gunmen walk into the room. In the next images, they are all sitting against a wall with their faces bloodied, alive but totally unresponsive and clearly in shock as the camera pans across them. They are loaded into utes and driven away.
The carnage from the music festival is difficult to describe. Many people are shot or burned beyond recognition. A first responder is seen moving slowing through the bodies asking for any sign of life - there is none. By nightfall there is a temporary morgue filled with bodies.
During the 47 minutes there is almost no verbal interaction with the victims - they are routinely called dogs or worse as they are shot, and their bodies abused. There is both joy from the gunmen and an evident visceral hatred towards their victims which is difficult to comprehend.
October 7 and Israel’s response will undoubtedly be debated for a lifetime. Hopefully we will live to see a peaceful resolution to this most intractable of conflicts.
Lawyer and writer Philip Crump explores political, legal and cultural issues facing New Zealand. Sometimes known as Thomas Cranmer. This article was published HERE
15 comments:
Thank you for your comments Philip. They are echoed by other witnesses of the footage, and I recommend readers look at Douglas Murray's writings on the matter, or view his reports on YouTube. When the enemies of Israel threaten to erase it from the face of the earth, and then demonstrate the methods they intend to employ, Israel is entitled to take them at their word, and respond accordingly.
Israel showed you a propaganda movie and you believed it?
By deception we shall wage war.
If Israel had a 47 minute snuff video compilation, they'd release it. Think how much desparately need sympathy it would elicit. The fact they don't release it shows it doesn't exist. I think more and more people now realise how deceitful and unscrupulous they tend to be.
Really April!!!!
Only those clouded by fundamentalism would question or dismiss the barbaric acts of the Hamas. We know they want to eliminate the Jews.
This is fact.
As is Israel’s barbarism, torture, murder, rape, imprisonment, bullying & persecution against , displacement of & determination to extinguish the Palestinians - Palestinians who were once living on the same land of the murdered Israeli families. Land the Jews apparently have the right to just turn up & occupy while the Palestinians have no right of return.
The world condemned the Germans for doing the same thing, yet for some absurd reason, Israel is apparently entitled to a free pass.
Both Hamas and Israel are terrorists.
Both deserve international condemnation.
I note from the comments that the Holocaust Deniers are still out in force. What fools they are.
Perhaps AprilGuy would care to explain to us what possible motive the Israelis would have for murdering 1200 of their own citizens. Did they position their operatives on the Gaza side of the fence then film them breaking into Israel to carry out the operation, then disappearing back into Gaza with their hostage. Frankly AprilGuy, it takes HAMAS to create and release a really good propaganda video. Ever wondered how the HAMAS Health Ministry always happen to have a camera on hand when a school/hospital/mosque is allegedly bombed. How come there's always a cute but bloodstained child to take a photo of; always a distraught father carrying what purports to be an injured son into a hospital; always a woman (possibly the same woman - who can tell under those clothes) swearing revenge on the infidels. How come their daily death toll never mentions that a high proportion of the deaths are their own fighting militia - seems only civilians ever get killed there. How come they never mention that HAMAS command and control centres and weapon stores are deliberately placed in schools/hospitals and mosques. All HAMAS claims are designed to be unverifiable by the banning of Western media and all are spoon-fed to the gullible Western press and the useful idiots like you who inhabit protest-land.
For those who say this is all Israeli propaganda, the killing described is consistent with the state of the bodies, which was the "end product". It is also consistent with the way these animals treat each other, as is well documented. It should be remembered that the point of terrorism isn't just to kill people but to create trauma and fear for the living. It is significant that most Palestinians supported it.
As part of my job I visited a house in Auckland. In the back yard there were two German shepherd dogs chained to a wire that ran along the back fence. They were the most vicious dogs I’d ever seen. They were barking and trying to attack me and the owner (who was plainly scared of them.)
I went back to my office and told a dog-loving colleague what I’d seen. She said that keeping them chained to the wire made them go mad.
When I think of the people in Gaza I think of those dogs. Captivity, abuse, provocation will turn dogs and people into monsters.
And yet politicians like, Chloe Swarbrick and Damien O'Connor, condone the Hamas attack. What sick people they are, as too the many amongst us that vote for these truly despicable, deluded individuals.
To All & Sundry - if you read this article and fail to believe, then an I recommend that you use your computer, bring up YouTube and search all the video footage that was compiled by
- any of the independent Israeli news groups
- Douglas Murray, an esteemed English News Journo.
Stay away from anything BBC and/or US Media - the first tends to "sympathize with this incident".
You as the individual, make the decision -
Both Hamas and Israel are terrorists? What planet are you from?
Israeli propaganda, I’m not sure what people are talking about. The footage was taken live from the terrorists when they were committing atrocities.
Fools would readily believe lies, just like how minorities(Palestinians, Maori, Aborigines) are ‘oppressed’ by colonialists(Jews, Pākehās, white Aussies).
I’m sick and tired of watching protests promoting terrorism(how ironic, instead of solidarity and respect of the victims of Oct 7), terrorist supporters are out in full force denouncing colonialists and Jews.
Please verify your propaganda comment. This is insulting to the victims of Oct 7th.
>"...evident visceral hatred... which is difficult to comprehend"
I learned soon during my time in the ME that the most reasonable, rational people there tend to undergo a sudden dramatic change when the Arab/Israeli conflict is mentioned. You can see their blood pressure rising, their lips compressing, their eyes filling with hatred. There is no way there can ever be peaceful existence as long as that mentality persists.
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