When Howard Libit watched the raw footage from the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, what stood out to him the most was the glee from the terrorists as they murdered, mutilated and kidnapped people in southern Israel.
“They were laughing,” Libit said. “They were excitedly calling relatives. They were sharing it on social media. That kind of depravity and joy and killing innocent people is beyond me.”
Libit, the executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, watched the footage for the first time on March 4 at a film screening organized by the BJC, The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore and the Embassy of Israel.
This footage, also known as “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre,” is a compilation of videos from the Hamas attack, primarily put together from footage that Hamas itself took and shared on social media, as well as from security cameras. It was produced by the Israel Defense Forces’ Spokesperson’s Unit.
The film is the same 45-minute footage first screened to a group of international journalists in Israel in October, amid denial and questioning that the Oct. 7 attack was as bad as it was, or even that it happened at all. According to reports, many of the journalists at this initial screening were horrified by what they saw in the footage.
“It was too much,” Roxane Runel, a reporter for a French television channel who attended that initial screening, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I knew coming here that the hardest thing for me would not be the images but the sound, because you can close your eyes if the images are too much.” Runel stepped out of the screening early.
The film has since made the rounds at different screenings for politicians, journalists, Hollywood executives and others.
Two screenings of the footage were held at The Associated offices on March 4. About a dozen people came to each one. Those invited were a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish community and business leaders in Baltimore.
“There was a lot of stunned silence,” Libit said. “It was a very difficult experience for everybody.”
According to Marc B. Terrill, president of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, the embassy and the IDF had initially reached out about organizing the screening for Baltimore leaders.
Terrill said he wanted to put these screenings on to provide people of influence an opportunity to bear witness and to get a greater understanding of the facts. There’s a difference, he said, between just reading a headline and seeing the violence yourself.
This was Terrill’s first time viewing the footage. Terrill said he had planned on attending both screenings and, while he did speak at both, he was unable to watch twice. It was just too horrible, he said.
“The most emotionally debilitating aspect to witness was the celebratory nature and gleeful ease of the inhumanity,” Terrill said. “Violence is awful. The nature of the acts of Oct. 7 took violence to a whole new, despicable level.”
After the screenings, Terrill received multiple calls from attendees who expressed how disgusted they were by what they had witnessed.
“The common theme with all those conversations post viewing the film was just the lack of viewing the person who was on the end of the violence as being a human being, and just the brutality and the inhumanity and the gleeful celebration took everybody aback,” Terrill said.
The Associated’s screening was invitation only, and it was a decision that Libit thought was a good one, as the controlled setting allowed organizers to provide additional support to attendees, he said.
For example, an Israel Defense Forces soldier was there at the screenings to talk about her experience. The organizers also arranged for trauma counselors from Jewish Community Services to be available for attendees, and they provided contact information for the counselors after the screenings.
Libit said it was likely there would be more screenings in Baltimore in the future.
“What happened on Oct. 7 — the reports of all the slaughter of innocent civilians, all of the depraved actions — it’s all real,” Libit said. “Those who deny it are lying to you. It’s just as bad as those who deny that the Holocaust happened. The videos that we saw — it’s beyond what I imagined.”
