Bearing Witness to October 7
It is close to a year since the terror attacks of October 7 occurred and not a day has passed since then when its effects have not been felt around the world.
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.
Thank you for sharing this. Too many of those demonstrating against Israel that I’ve spoken to refuse to believe the atrocities of Oct 7, 2023. Even though it was Hamas’ own cameras that recorded them. They also deny that “from the river to the sea” means “kill Jews.” The depths of their refusal to accept facts is so appalling. And it’s shameful so many “journalists” appear to be among them.
Thanks for this account. Given the pro-Palestine and therefore by extension pro-Hamas leanings on the part of many New Zealanders this article is a timely reminder of the horror that was inflicted. The Greens and others who sport the black and white keffiyah are clearly anti-Semitic and must be recognised as such.