Less than three hours ago, I was sitting in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, watching 47 minutes of footage from the Hamas massacre on October 7, together with a small group of specially invited evangelical leaders.
The images, as expected, were jarring, disturbing, horrific.
Little children in their pajamas, butchered in their own beds, covered in blood.
The corpses of young women, shot in their crotches.
Victims with their hands tied behind their backs, now charred with fire.
Others burned beyond recognition.
Bloody image after bloody image for 47 minutes.
CCTV footage of a woman cowering on the floor, trying to hide from Hamas bullets. Then bodycam images from those same terrorists as they carry out her lifeless body.
Cell phone video footage of young, female Israeli soldiers, huddling together on the floor as they try to find refuge from the murderers who caught them unaware early in the morning. Are they safe here? Should they try to run somewhere else and hide? The next footage shows their bullet ridden corpses as their murderers celebrate.
And on and on it goes, moving on to the Nova music festival, as the young partygoers flee for their lives. Then the corpses, shot and mutilated by explosives. Then the IDF drone shot later in the day with scores of cars laying destroyed on the side of the road. The young people were slaughtered before they could flee.
A woman lies dead on the ground, obviously raped before she was killed, The first responders talk with an Israeli 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 butchered in cold blood.
In all, we saw videos and still images of 139 slaughtered Israelis, representing roughly 10 percent of those killed by the Hamas terrorists on October 7.
But there was something more disturbing still, something that ran through all the footage, which was compiled by the IDF from CCTV footage, body cams of the terrorists, social media posts of the terrorists, footage shot by first responders, and the cell phones of the victims.
It was the constant, incessant, exuberant shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” meaning, “God is great,” that rang out in virtually every segment of the footage.
Along with the sound of gunshots and the mutilated bodies, this was the one constant: Allahu Akbar!
A terrorist stands over the body of a slain Israeli soldier, then he takes out his knife and cuts off the soldier’s head – I saw this with my own eyes – shouting praises to Allah as he does. This is worthy of celebration. Praise Allah!
The murderers gun down one family member after another as the unarmed civilians run for their lives on the kibbutz, shouting praises to Allah as they mow them down. What a glorious day!
Then, as the terrorists bring the bodies of the Israelis back into Gaza, dead or alive, they are thronged by massive crowds, all with cell phones in hand to record these victorious moments, all of them shouting “Allahu akbar.”
This is sick.
This is demonic.
This is twisted.
This is evil.
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!”
Instead, they were no different than the Nazi butchers who by day slaughtered whole families, including babies and little children, then by night returned home to care for their own wives and babies and little children.
This is depravity.
And when it is done in the name of religion and the name of God, it is even more demonically depraved, especially as a young terrorist tells his excited parents on the phone, “I killed 10 Jews with my bare hands! God is great! Kill, kill, kill!”
What made today’s events all the more real was that outside the Israeli Embassy there is a non-stop, incredibly loud protest blanketing the streets all around the entry to the embassy. (I tried to talk with a few of the protesters, but they refused.)
The protests go on 24-7 and have been going on since an American soldier set himself on fire in front of the embassy one month ago in protest of the war on Gaza.
Outside, on the street, the Hamas butchers are the heroes and the IDF soldiers are the face of evil.
Outside, on the street, Hamas committed no atrocities and the footage we saw was all fabricated.
The sound of sirens outside the embassy was almost deafening, so we heard it in our ears the entire time we watched the video inside the embassy, which was almost fitting.
This is Israel’s existential reality. In a fight for its very existence, the whole world condemns it, and now, even America stabbed Israel in the back by refusing to veto the latest UN Security Council edict.
Towards the end of the video, with the sound of the protester sirens blaring and while looking at a totally charred body that reminded me of a Jewish corpse being burned in a Nazi crematorium, I could feel the frustration my people live with every day. First, there were decades of Holocaust denial. Then, even while Israeli bodies still smoldered and fresh blood was caked on the walls, even as the demonic butchers smiled and celebrated and posted the evidence of their barbaric deeds on social media, the October 7 deniers began to raise their voices.
Together, as people of conscience and those who love and fear God, we must shout all the more loudly: Never forget! Never again!
And may God – the real God – deliver both the people of Israel and innocent Palestinians from the evil of Hamas.
