Yesterday, I sat with a small group of evangelical leaders in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., watching 47 minutes of footage from the Hamas massacre on October 7. Though ours was not the first group to be invited to view these images over the last six months, the mounting pressure from some American politicians for Israel to stop defending itself or pressing its charge against Hamas in Gaza has made the publicity campaign all the more important as the war goes on.

The images, as expected, were jarring, disturbing, horrific.

Little children in their pajamas, butchered in their own beds and covered in blood.

The corpses of young women who’d been shot in their crotches.

The charred remains of people with their hands still tied behind their backs. Others burned beyond recognition.

Bloody image after bloody image for 47 minutes.

The Victims

• CCTV footage of a woman cowering on the floor of a building, trying to hide from Hamas bullets. This was followed by bodycam images from those same terrorists as they carried her lifeless body outside.
• Cell phone video footage showed young female Israeli soldiers huddling together on the floor as they tried to find refuge from the murderers who’d caught their village unaware early in the morning. Are they safe here? they ask. Should they try to run somewhere else to hide?
• The next piece of footage shows their murderers celebrating over the women’s bullet-riddled corpses.
• And on and on it went, moving from young partygoers at the Nova music festival fleeing for their lives to footage taken from an IDF drone later in the day showing scores of cars lying destroyed on the sides of the road. The festival goers were slaughtered before they could flee.
• The corpse of a woman who was obviously raped before she was killed lies on the ground while first responders talk with her mother on the phone. Is this her daughter? Can they find any tattoos on her? Does the victim have a name?
• Then the body bags, one after another, each one containing the remains of a human who was butchered in cold blood.

In all, we saw videos and still image of 139 slaughtered Israelis, representing roughly 10 percent of those Hamas terrorists killed on October 7.

The Perpetrators

But there was something more disturbing still, something that ran through all the footage, which the IDF compiled from footage captured by victims and first responders, as well as terrorists’ body cams and social media posts: It was the constant, incessant, exuberant shouts of “Allahu Akbar!”(meaning, “God is great”). Along with the sound of gunshots and the sights of mutilated bodies, this was the one constant.

• A terrorist stands over the body of a slain Israeli soldier, Then he takes out his knife and cuts off the soldier’s head, shouting praises to Allah as he does. This is worthy of celebration. Praise Allah!
• The murderers chase unarmed civilians across the kibbutz, shouting praises to Allah as they mow down one family member after another. What a glorious day!

Then, as the terrorists bring the bodies of the Israelis back into Gaza, dead or alive, throngs of people with cell phones in hand to record these victorious moments, circle around — all of them shouting “Allahu akbar!”

This is sick.

This is demonic.

This is twisted.

This is evil.

Competing Views of Reality

But there was something else that struck me. It was the smiling, even radiant faces of the butchers. In another setting, you would think they looked friendly, even kind. What nice young men! But in reality, they are no different than the Nazi butchers who slaughtered whole families, including babies and little children, by day, then returned home to care for their own wives and children at night.

This is depravity. And when it is conducted in the name of religion and the name of God, it is even more demonically depraved.

What made these images all the more important was that outside the Israeli Embassy, there is a nonstop, incredibly loud anti-Israel protest that has been going on since an American soldier set himself on fire in front of the embassy a month ago to protest the war on Gaza.

On our streets, the Hamas butchers are considered the heroes and the IDF soldiers are the face of evil. On our streets, people believe Hamas committed no atrocities and the footage the people in my group saw was all fabricated.

The sound of sirens outside the embassy was almost deafening; we heard it seeping through the walls the entire time we watched the video inside the embassy, which was almost fitting.

This is Israel’s reality. Even as the nation fights for its very existence, the whole world condemns it, and now, even America is stabbing Israel in the back by refusing to veto the latest edict from the UN Security Council, which on Monday approved a case-fire resolution through the remainder of Ramadan on a 14-0 vote. Ramadan, of course, being the Muslims’ holy month of fasting and prayer to the god the Hamas butchers praised with every atrocity they committed on Oct. 7.

By the end of the video, I could feel the frustration my Jewish brethren live with every day. First, there were decades of Holocaust denial from people who claimed the systematic murders of six million Jews never happened. And yesterday as I personally watched video evidence of Israeli bodies smoldering near walls sprayed with fresh blood, while demonic butchers smiled into the camera and posted the evidence of their barbaric deeds on social media, the October 7 deniers raised their voices.

As people of conscience who love and fear God, we must shout all the more loudly above that din: Never forget! Never again!

And may God – the real God – deliver both the people of Israel and innocent Palestinians from the evil of Hamas.

 

Dr. Michael Brown is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. He is the author of more than 40 books, including Can You be Gay and Christian?; Our Hands Are Stained With Blood; and Seize the Moment: How to Fuel the Fires of Revival. You can connect with him on Facebook, X, or YouTube.