Since the massacre on October 7, journalists have been invited to watch screenings of footage taken from the terrorists’ GoPros, body cams, security cameras and mobile phones in an effort to remind people of what happened. I attended one, although I didn’t really want to watch this deadly film. I knew these images could not be erased from one’s mind and I had read the effect of the screening on some journalists who had seen the footage in Israel.
But much of what we hear from British broadcasters and journalists has been biased against Israel and many supporters of Hamas have been given way to much airtime. Enough, I believe, to shift the status quo and narrative in our country and to make British Jews feel threatened and disillusioned, not just with the media but with their friends and colleagues as well, and with the uncomfortable silences outside the school gates. So it is important that journalists see the film, and I felt that if I wanted journalists to watch these atrocities, I should be there too. This was not fiction, there were no special effects and it was not glorified in any way.
No telephones were allowed during the showing and no families of the hostages were permitted to be in the same building, as its content is considered so traumatic. I wasn’t sure I would be able to sit through the full 43 minutes so I chose the last seat in the back row, where Stephen Fry joined me.
The footage shows groups of men breaking into homes and a kindergarten, shooting dead anyone they see. Multiple shots hit the corpses; the shots keep coming. Bodies fall out of cars, women hide under a table while one of the terrorists tells another to shoot her in the head. Young boys in their underwear run out into the garden with their father to hide. They are followed by a terrorist throwing a hand grenade at them, killing their father. The distraught boys are left in the kitchen with an armed terrorist, their mother hysterical when she sees their blown-up father. The sights of bodies of children and babies are endless, bullets to their chests and heads. The young female soldiers covered in blood, their faces wringed with fear. The head of a young man is held up with glee.
At the Nova festival, body parts are everywhere, people hiding in Portaloos, bodies spewed all over, legs spread apart and girls with their legs splayed open and their private parts on show. Raw phone audio footage is heard, including a young man calling his parents to excitedly tell them he has killed ten Jews. The men are jubilant, relentless and crazed. The excitement as they hoard the hostages onto the back of trucks and the jubilation in Gaza as motionless, half-naked bodies are paraded is barbaric.
The footage raised so many moralistic questions in my head. Where is religion and the upstanding members of their communities to call this behaviour out? Where are their mothers and sisters standing up to say this is abhorrent? Do they support their murderous sons and the rapes they have participated in? Are they too frightened to say anything or are they complicit? What sort of society condones this?
This raw film isn’t about Palestinian civilians whose lives have been rocked by this unrelenting rampage. Their world has also changed, their lives have also been ripped apart. Hamas are responsible for their nation and yet have torn civilian life to pieces. Families have been destroyed along with the safety of women and children. These savages have relentlessly used them for their own gains and publicity.
The film is an abomination on humanity, the most shocking thing I have ever seen. But I believe more people should see this damning evidence: our media, influencers and those who have such strong opinions about Israel.When the screening ended, I was asked what my thoughts were. Anger and sadness were my first reaction. Let’s not forget what caused this war: the most atrocious massacre imaginable, of innocent, peace-loving people.
I left the screening numb. I needed to process what I’d watched. But will it change the way some of the audience think? I can only hope the world wakes up to this hatred and monstrous behaviour.
The hatred being spoken in and around some British mosques is frightening British Jews. Is it not time for police, government and the silent majority of decent British people to wake up to this unwelcome hatred in our country?
