For someone who had witnessed the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack, in front of his own eyes, I had prayed to Prabhu Ram, that I hope I never see a sight like this again.
It has to be nothing but my sheer misfortune that I saw similar visuals again. On Thursday the Israeli Consulate in Mumbai held a screening of the raw footage it had collected from various sources including the body cam of Hamas terrorists who killed Jews in cold blood on October 7, in Israel. The footage included those shot on dashcams of the Hamas Terrorists’ vehicles and their bodies. It also had CCTV footage of streets, homes, kindergartens, hospitals, and social media posts by victims.
The video starts with the one that was shot on the body cam of the Hamas Terrorists entering Israel through the border fencing, the first audio of the video is the Islamic Chant Allahu Akbar, throughout the video this chant is the most one gets to hear.
One of the first bullets fired as seen in the video is towards an ambulance. The terrorists deflated the tyres of the ambulances, they then killed a dog and then started shooting at anyone and everyone who came in their way.
One of the videos that moved many in the small gathering watching the footage of these gruesome terrorist attacks was where a father was trying to protect his two sons, and he was killed by the Hamas terrorists, who threw a grenade towards him while he was escaping. The youngest son had lost his vision in one of the eyes, blood oozing out of various parts of the bodies of both siblings.
After that, the terrorists enter their home, open the fridge and ask them whether the transparent-looking liquid is wine. One of them then drops it and takes a soda bottle from the fridge and drinks it. All this while the siblings are crying out loud saying Daddy is Dead, the eldest brother cursing himself for being alive and for not being able to save his father and his brother and the terrorists were enjoying this sight.
The IDF managed to trace a call recording of a Hamas terrorist who used the victim’s phone, to call his parents. The terrorist was boasting that he killed 10 Jews bare hand, and was making a call from his victim woman’s phone moments after killing her and her partner. On the other side of the call, his parents were heard praising him and his cowardly act of killing innocent civilians.
One of the radio communications that was intercepted by IDF shows handlers telling terrorists to send them videos of them playing with the heads of the victims, and carrying bodies to the square and hanging them. They wanted bodies to be paraded. Women were paraded, faces of dead Israeli soldiers were stomped by plain-clothed civilians. Videos, and pictures of hacked bodies were shared by terrorists with their own family members including women.
The dead and mutilated bodies shown in the footage reminded me of the scenes at GT Hospital in Mumbai, and Nariman House in Mumbai where Kasab and his fellow terrorists sponsored by Pakistan had carried out a similar attack.
The bodies of the babies, the selective targeting of women, the killings and the burning of homes, all of these were caught on camera. In many videos retrieved from the Bodycams of Hamas terrorists, it was clear that these terrorists knew every minute detail of the homes of their victims. They were carrying every piece of equipment needed to get in the house, including small knives that can easily cut the protective nets on the windows giving them an easy pass inside.
The terrorists who attacked a kindergarten walked in as they had a map in their head which told them which side to go. They were all well-fed, well-trained and well aware-of what they were doing. The terrorists didn’t spare any Jew and an Israeli whom they saw, they killed dogs, burnt vehicles and chased men and women, actually, they hunted innocent Jews. The attack at the Music festival, the video showing the aftermath was a real horror, bodies strewn all over, between fridges, between stalls and piled bodies, it was nothing but a nightmare.
I am sure many who signed up to see these videos were praying it ended soon, it made me feel that I had witnessed at least a thousand killings but when it ended, the message read that the videos showed only 138 deaths, not even 10% of the total killings that took place on October 7 in Israel.
When it ended, everyone had lost their voice, we all had gone numb including the Consul General of Israel, who had only tears to offer to us.
One of the security officers at the consulate after the video told me he belonged to one of the places that was attacked on October 7. I told him I could totally relate to what he was going through because in 2008 it was my home Mumbai which was attacked and I stood a witness. The Israeli officer told me that he hopes this is never repeated again. I told him, I had hoped the same in 2008, and now when I saw this footage, I cannot assure anyone whether we will see an end to this terrorism.
Author: Varun Singh
The author is a Mumbai-based journalist covering the city and the state’s politics for close to two decades. He tweets from @singhvarun