Gruesome footage of October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel shown at Raleigh screening

"It is incredibly tough to watch," said Anat Sultan-Dadon, the Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern United States.

Community and faith leaders were invited to a private screening Monday showing a compilation by the Israeli military of 45 minutes of footage from body cameras, cell phones, and security cameras of the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7th, 2023.

"It is incomprehensible what human beings are capable of, what kind of hate and indoctrination can teach a human being to commit such atrocities, such crimes against humanity," Sultan-Dadon said.

The Israeli Consulate asked viewers not to show the videos publicly due to the graphic and disturbing nature of the clips.

One security camera video shows a father and two sons running to hide in their home, dressed in only underwear, before a grenade is thrown at them. The boys survive and run back into the house, covered in their father's blood, screaming: "Why am I alive?"

"We are already seeing deniers of what happened," Sultan-Dadon said. "This happened. This was planned. This was executed in the most horrific way. Babies were targeted, children were targeted [and] women were targeted. There was rape, mutilation, murder, burning alive... All of this happened."

As the screening began, protesters gathered outside holding signs and singing, including Emerson Goldstein with Jewish Voice for Peace.

“We don’t want the grief and fear that certainly will come from this film, that came from those events, to justify an escalation of violence an ongoing genocide that’s happening in Gaza in our names," Goldstein said.

Israeli officials say about 1,200 died in the attacks on October 7th. Now, more than 100 hostages are believed to still be in captivity by Hamas, including Keith Siegel, a Chapel Hill native.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health, an agency run by Hamas, says nearly 23,000 Palestinians have died over the past three months from Israel’s offensive.

"Hamas is intentionally placing their population, their civilians in harm's way, cynically thinking that the more casualties on their side, the more it will serve their distorted goal against Israel," Sultan-Dadon said.

Mark Davidson, the executive director of Voices for Justice in Palestine, a Durham-based non-profit, says he is skeptical of information from government channels during times of war.

"Even if it could be shown that everything in this video is legitimate, it still does not justify the horrific destruction and death that has been rained down on the Palestinian people in Gaza," Davidson said.