Place beyond words: Herald views footage of merciless Oct. 7 Hamas killings

“Why am I still alive?”

A young boy helplessly cried that out after his father had just been killed in a kibbutz by marauding Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

Death, at that point, was the only escape.

It’s one of a series of heart-wrenching clips compiled by the Israel Defense Forces viewed by the Herald Monday in a downtown Boston office along with other journalists. In about 43 minutes of footage, you see “138 murders,” said Ambassador Meron Reuben, consulate general of Israel to New England.

It’s not the social media snippets making the rounds. It’s graphic, unsettling, and turn-away carnage that shines a light on just how unforgiving the terrorists were. Many tried to hide, but they died. The Hamas killers were armed with what appeared to be newer assault rifles and plenty of hand grenades.

Yes, babies were killed and burned. Women were tortured. A group of about a dozen teenage girls were cornered. A man had his head chopped off by a Hamas terrorist using a heavy-duty hoe. The terrorists were gleeful — with one using an Israeli woman’s cellphone to call home to Gaza to proclaim: “Your son is a hero!” His shocked father and crying mother on the other end of the line didn’t seem to grasp what was happening.

The Israelis were trapped. They were shown no mercy and had no chance of escaping from the gunmen who showed no remorse.

The IDF estimates that 1,400 civilians and troops were killed that day in the surprise attack — most were civilians. Another 240 were kidnapped, and roughly 6,900 were injured, according to the IDF.

College presidents and deans confronting pro-Palestinian protests on campus from Harvard to UMass could soon be invited to watch the video, Reuben said when asked by the Herald what he would say to protesting students.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it,” he said of the video. “Those who are doubting what happened should think again and understand this time it’s different.”

That’s what comes across in the video. From the tranquil kibbutz scenes to a rave packed with young revelers, the victims had no idea what awaited them. Music was softly playing in homes and a friendly black Labrador Retriever, tail wagging, greeted the first terrorists only to be gunned down on the spot.

The estimated 3,000 Hamas killers and others who joined in the border ambush that day were hellbent on inflicting as much pain as one man could do to another. The footage of this attack illustrates one overriding reality: fight or die.

“This is the first time the state of Israel has shown pictures so the world understands what we are facing,” Reuben said, adding too many have become “desensitized” by violence in movies. “This is not a movie set.”

He stressed he “would like” protesting college students to see what happened to their contemporaries to add balance to their thinking. The rave where so many young adults were killed and captured was a killing field.

The Israeli soldiers rushing to that scene could be heard in the audio from their body-camera video praying, pleading for someone, anyone, to still be alive among all the dead bodies behind Coca-Cola pop-up stands.

“Anyone alive?” a soldier says.

“Anyone, please!” another added.

The video was less than 10% of the killing that day. The Herald was asked to be careful not to describe any particular killing too closely — hostages are still alive — but with Hamas pledging to invade again this video is a chilling warning.

The footage taken from dash cams, body cameras, closed circuit TV, cellphones and social media is disturbing in its brutality.

A driver coming upon the invading Hamas fighters guns his engine in reverse only to be mowed down in a hail of bullets; terrorists pull into neighborhoods in pick-up trucks filled with fighters. An ambulance had its tires shot out, one more cruel calculation … box cutters were used to rip open screendoors … a kindergarten is targeted … a burned body of someone who couldn’t crawl away fast enough … and rivers of blood in every frame.

“College students should see this,” Reuben repeated.

“Israel is fighting for its very existence. There’s no question about it,” said Grand Rabbi Y.A. Korff, chaplain for the City of Boston. The Herald called seeking insight after seeing such a dark video.

“There’s a place beyond words,” author Jerzy Kosinski wrote in his Holocaust tale “The Painted Bird.” That should be the title of this video.