Inside a Secret Exhibit About the Israeli Hostages

"Despite already knowing what came to pass that day, I still found myself shocked to my core and chilled to my bones in a way I have felt only once before: on a visit to Auschwitz."

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You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

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This is a guest essay by Gemma Frenchman.

Ten days ago, I was invited to “Voices From the Tunnels,” a recreation of the Gaza tunnels where 136 hostages are being held, preceded by a viewing of the 43-minute footage from October 7th.

There was something poignant about making my way to the disused warehouse in East London, where Jewish history is woven into the local tapestry, and where so many of our ancestors began their life in Britain.

It has taken me 10 days to get my thoughts together. I have tried to write so many times. I feel guilty that it has taken me this long to share my experience, because the hostages and victims do not have the luxury of any delay.

Ten days. That is less than 10 percent of the number of days the hostages have been held captive in Gaza, 136 innocent hostages held in the most despicable conditions: underground, in darkness, deprived of basic human needs, with terrorist captors abusing them for 118 days. That is nearly a third of a year. Can you even imagine?

I cannot imagine being ripped from my bed, from a party, from my life. I cannot imagine one of my kids or parents being ripped from their life either. Of course I cannot. Because it is barbaric. It is other-worldly. It is not anything we should have to even contemplate outside the realms of a movie we may choose to watch. It certainly is not an experience to be lived in 2023 in any country. 

I know many have seen some of the brutal evidence from that brutal day. I had certainly seen much of it. But viewing a 43-minute film of consecutive, consolidated, uncensored footage from multiple sources including Hamas body cams, victims’ dash cams, rescue workers’ cameras, victims’ mobile phones, first responders’ phones, public television, home security cameras, IDF base cameras and more, unedited, with the sound, on a large screen, in a cold, dark warehouse, was a different experience entirely. 

The 20 or so of us watching held our breath, gasped, cried, screamed — and some walked out before the end of the film. In the darkness, I could see heads shaking in disbelief, bodies tense, hands covering faces and strangers holding hands. Some looked away. I was frozen.

Despite already knowing what came to pass that day, I still found myself shocked to my core and chilled to my bones in a way I have felt only once before: on a visit to Auschwitz. 

It was like watching the most violent video game or horror film set in a dystopian world. We watched and hoped the “good guys” would arrive to save the day. They did not. There were no “good guys” to the rescue on October 7th. There were heroes and angels doing heroic things, like ferrying party-goers back and forth during the attacks, but there were no “good guys” descending en masse to restore order. There was just endless medieval brutality.

Forty-three minutes is a long time. But it’s only a tiny fraction of the hours and hours of barbaric attacks that Israeli residents of 30 towns experienced on October 7th. Hours and hours of the most sadistic, savage, ferocious crimes, celebrated by the perpetrators in the most evil of ways. The celebrations of the terrorists and of spectators on the streets in Gaza are almost the worst scenes in the footage. Almost. It is impossible to understand the celebrations.

It is also near impossible to digest that these crimes were carried out by boys and young men. Terrorists with evil in their eyes, in their voices, in their actions. Boys and men who were born into a world where killing Jews and destroying Israel was made their life’s goal from the start, as we have seen in their schoolbooks and curriculum.

Boys and young men who could have had a different life and celebrated other successes like good school results, winning a football match, or getting their first paycheck. 

After the film, we walked down several meters of staircases, deep underground, to see some recreated Gaza tunnels. The engineering is astonishing. A whole city beneath a city. Created by and for terrorist activity. Funded, partly, by the West as we now know. Supported by humanitarian organizations which knew the score.  

There were several rooms set up based on descriptions from the returned hostages. 12-year-old Eitan Yahalomi was taken from his home and forced to watch Hamas footage of their heinous crimes on a loop for the 52 days he was held in Gaza. Siblings Maya and Itay Regev were shot at the music festival, taken hostage, and operated on without anesthetic in Gaza, with Maya’s foot incorrectly reattached.

Filmed hostage testimonies played on screens in the tiny, dark rooms. It is unfathomable that this could have happened on any scale in our world.

You must start or keep talking. Do not let anyone deny October 7th. Do not let anyone tell you it was a day of resistance. None of us knew such evil still existed. These are modern-day Nazis with the same goals.

Is anyone else thinking about the hostages? Aside from us, I mean. Walking through Tottenham Court Road tube station on my daily commute in London, I look around at my fellow commuters and wonder how many of them are thinking about the 136 innocent hostages, some of whom are no longer alive, all of whom have been or are being psychologically, physically, and sexually abused by terrorists.

I wonder how many of my escalator companions are scuttling to work knowing that the world is upside-down, that we are in the midst of a global humanitarian crisis, and that we are just beginning to unpick the disaster that will show the world’s largest organizations to be utterly antisemitic and complicit in the rise of antisemitism and the desire to destroy the planet’s only Jewish state. 

But the hostages have got to be top of the priority list. I want to scream on the escalators: Bring Them Home.

And our job? To talk about the hostages. There are 136 of them. Keep saying that number. Keep wearing the number of days since they were taken on a sticker on your lapel. It’s 118 today. Almost the same as the number of hostages. 

Innocent hostages ranging from one to 84 years old, from five religions, and 30 countries. We know that the hostages who are still in Gaza are being abused, psychologically, physically, and sexually by their captors. 

There is no single doubt in my body or mind that Hamas must be eliminated to protect the world from any and all future October 7th’s, in Israel or anywhere on our planet.

If you, or someone you know, would “like” to see the footage, please contact us and we will connect you to the team of heroes who is uncovering more evidence and testimonies each day and working hard to educate the world.

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