O Consulate General of Israel In Sao Paulo This Wednesday 1st was presented to a group of journalists, including the report of Estadaoa 44minute video with images of the terrorist attack in Hamas against in the south of the country on October 7th. The images were shown uncensored. These are explicit scenes of the atrocities committed that day. Most of them were spread on social media by victims, Hamas itself and witnesses. Unreleased footage from security, traffic control and home cameras was also shown.
Presented at a time when the conflict between Israel and Hamas is taking place within the United States Gaza Strip, the images trigger repulsion. When asked about the purpose of sending the images, Israel’s Consul General in São Paulo, Rafael Erdreich, said that the video was intended to combat misinformation and speech that denies or downplays the scale of the attacks on September 7th.
According to Erdreich, the video was released at this point in the conflict because there was a rise in denialism, which, without his assessment, was contributing to the rise in global antiSemitism, including in Brazil. “Hamas is behind all the denialism that is happening. “So it’s important to see this video to show what happened,” he said. If we don’t report what happened, we won’t be able to deal with this problem.”
Hamas men near a barbed wire fence, in images released by the group after the attack on the 7th. Israel compiled images and showed them to journalists. Photo: AlQassam Brigades via Storyful/New York Times
On October 23, the same video shown in São Paulo was shown to journalists in New York. The images were also shown to the Israeli press.
The following report contains violent content
The images begin with armed Hamas fighters shooting at cars and people in open fields as they invade Israel. The date October 7th and the time appear on the images captured by surveillance cameras. The attack began around 7 a.m.
As the terrorists enter the kibbutz and reach an electronic music party near the Gaza border, more people are murdered in the videos. Many are shot at close range.
A surveillance camera captures a man and two boys dressed only in their underwear fleeing to a bomb shelter near their home as air raid sirens wail. As they enter the bunker, Hamas members lurking there appear and fire a grenade. The man appears to be dead.
In the next cut, the two boys appear to be at home in despair amid the attacks. They scream for their mother. Everything is monitored by an armed man who searches the house’s refrigerator.
The video also includes recorded audio of a conversation between a Hamas member in Israel and his parents in the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli government, the call was made from an Israeli victim’s cell phone and was recorded by an application. “I killed ten Jews with my own hands!” the man shouts to his parents. The voice on the other end of the line sounds like a cry and asks the man to return to the Gaza Strip. He doesn’t seem to be listening as he repeats the deaths he committed.
In other videos you can see victims gagged and with their hands tied behind their backs, terrorists celebrating the attack, bodies being brought to the Gaza Strip and greeted euphorically by a few dozen people. Babies and children appear dead and charred, and the victims appear to lie covered in blood among piles of corpses.
Since the attack on the 7th, Israel has declared war on Hamas and promised to eradicate the group. According to Hamas officials in Gaza, the offensive resulted in more than 8,000 deaths. The figure is disputed by Israel. Since the confrontation over the siege of the enclave began, it has become increasingly difficult to confirm events in Gaza through independent sources.
The origins of the conflict go back a century and the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians has been at a standstill for more than a decade. A United Nations (UN) calls for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and other militant groups in the region. “From the beginning, civilians have borne the brunt of the current fighting. The protection of civilians on both sides is of the utmost importance and must be respected at all times,” the UN President said. Antonio Guterres.