Warning: extremely difficult text to read below.
Last night I surrendered my phone and signed a waiver. And then I sat with a small group and an Israeli military attaché and we watched the 45 minute compilation of Hamas videos from October 7th.
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It’s the same compilation that was shown yesterday in the USSenate, & two days ago to Congress.
It won’t be shown widely, out of respect for the dignity of the murdered & their families.
But I was asked to share my impressions and I’ll try to live up to that obligation
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Truthfully, I did not want to be asked to come. But I also knew that if I were asked, I would have to go. To bear witness.
We saw the killings of 138 innocent civilians. That’s about a tenth of the total of killings, as well as the rapes, injuries, and looting.
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The Hamas terrorists deliberately used GoPros and mobile phones.
They wanted their crimes recorded, to continue to terrorize.
Here are my initial thoughts:
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1. The joy, the gleeful laughter, the depraved happiness over killing Jews.
The exclamations of celebration over death and pain.
The callousness, inhuman pleasure and amusement over slaughtering innocent lives.
The shameless brutality.
These are monsters.
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They can never be reclaimed. They can never be forgiven.
2. The systemized, organized, methodical approach to killing. Go back and shoot this person in the head. Make sure those girls are dead. The organization of mass killing.
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3. The Gazan ‘innocent civilians’ who came over the border in the 3rd wave that morning, to loot, rape, kill, & capture bodies, live & dead, for Hamas rewards.
The joy of the ‘innocent civilians’ who rejoiced in the streets as hostages & bodies were paraded in the streets.
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The cheering.
The spitting and kicking and beating.
The hate.
The cruelty.
The social acceptance of kidnapping and killing Jews in Palestinian society.
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I’m trying to keep busy today.
I’ll meet with a therapist shortly. I’m still trying to process everything that I saw. It’s not something that you can analyze easily.
There are images seared into my brain that haunt me now.
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The two boys seeing their father killed, watching as a terrorist takes a bottle of coke out of their fridge.
The tortured and raped young girl with her underwear around her ankles, joints bent backwards.
The girls screaming.
The terror.
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The burned bodies, wrists tied behind their backs.
Mutilated corpses.
The first responder trying to find live bodies and realizing that everyone, everyone around him was killed.
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As I walked out of the screening room there were Israelis in the corridor, just hugging people who were walking out crying.
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