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BEARING WITNESS - On October 7, 2023, the world watched in horror as over 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the nation’s history. It was a massacre that stunned millions—yet for others, it registered as just another headline in a cycle of distant violence.
But that distance disappears the moment you see Bearing Witness.
This is not a traditional documentary. There is no narration. No commentary. No music to guide your emotions. Only footage—raw, unfiltered, and real. Compiled from bodycams worn by Hamas militants, videos captured by victims themselves, dashcams, and security cameras, the film doesn’t tell you what to think. It doesn’t have to. The images speak for themselves—and they are shattering.
We attended a private screening of the film in Los Angeles. What we saw changed us. It stripped away political abstraction and revealed something more intimate and terrifying: the deliberate slaughter of civilians. The carnage is unthinkable—young people gunned down as they danced at the Nova music festival, homes invaded and turned into execution chambers, women dragged and brutalized, families burned alive. The attackers filmed themselves smiling, celebrating their own cruelty.
And yet, some insist this film should not be shown. They say it’s too graphic. Too political. Too triggering. Some argue it serves as propaganda. Several screenings around the world have been canceled over security threats and backlash. But hiding from horror does not erase it. What happened on October 7 was real. It was filmed. It was celebrated by its perpetrators. And the truth must not be buried just because it’s hard to look at.
We’ve seen this pattern before. History is filled with atrocities that were denied, downplayed, or ignored—not because the evidence was lacking, but because the truth was too painful to face. From the Armenian Genocide to the Holocaust, from Rwanda to Syria, societies have often chosen denial over discomfort. Bearing Witness dares us to make a different choice.
This is not a film about war. There are no soldiers shown in combat. There is no analysis of military operations or political policies. The focus is singular and chilling: the deliberate killing of unarmed civilians. Whether or not you support Israel’s government is irrelevant here. The footage doesn’t ask you to take sides. It asks you to recognize shared humanity. The suffering on screen is not abstract—it’s deeply personal. And that’s what makes it so urgent.
For those of us in Los Angeles—a city with one of the largest Jewish populations outside Israel, and a growing and passionate Palestinian community—this film poses a deeply uncomfortable civic question: Can we recognize suffering, even when it challenges our politics? Can we make space for grief without immediately converting it into accusation?
Yes, the film is traumatic. People have left screenings in silence. Some wept. Others could not speak. That reaction is normal. It’s human. But if the footage is real—and it is—then the pain is not staged. It’s the documented aftermath of a real human catastrophe.
Some argue this is not the right time to show such imagery. But if not now, when? How long do we wait before we allow ourselves to confront the truth? And if we turn away from this, what else are we willing to ignore?
In a time of deepfakes, disinformation, and willful denial, Bearing Witness is a stark reminder that some truths are not up for debate. The film does not exist to comfort. It’s not trying to persuade. It exists to document—to ensure that what happened is neither forgotten nor denied.
To bear witness is painful. But it is necessary. Because once we have seen this footage, we can no longer say, “We didn’t know.”
Watch the trailer.
(Mihran Kalaydjian brings over 20 years of experience in public affairs, policy, and communications. A committed education advocate, he leads academic initiatives in local political forums. He is President of Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure at TCCI.)
(David Alpern, board member of Democrats for Israel LA, champions public education, the arts, and climate action. He advocates for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and believes in civic engagement to advance democratic values.)
