That was one of the most difficult hours I’ve ever spent, and I can’t encourage you enough to endure what I did.
I’m talking about “Screams Before Silence,” the new Oct. 7 documentary hosted by former Meta/Facebook chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg and directed by Anat Stalinsky, best known for the Israeli TV series “Sovietzka.”
Consisting mostly of interviews with the survivors — some of whom also spent time as hostages — the movie also features devastating and uncompromising looks at the aftermath. Perhaps most upsetting are the smartphone videos, often cut into the interviews, showing you exactly what the victims experienced as the missiles rained down and Hamas terrorists went on their violence/murder/rape spree.
The film’s focus is on the sexual violence committed by Hamas during its terror invasion of southern Israel. It took nearly two days to drive out the invaders, during which they murdered about 1,200 Israelis (nearly all civilians), committed an unknown number of rapes, and took 240 hostages. Maybe as many as half of the hostages have since been released in a few exchanges for Hamas criminals. Most of the rest are feared dead.
“The booms of the rifles — they are getting closer to us, we understand that. We’re waiting for them. It was like that,” one woman said. “We’re sitting and waiting for what will happen.”
Another victim told how there was no shelter to be found. “We literally sat on the children with our backs to the door to protect them. Then we heard yelling, ‘Al Yahud! Al Yahud! [The Jews! The Jews!]’ They were here. They were in our house.”
Another young woman’s story was when I had to take my first break:
My Dad, he made a quick decision and took the rail guard from my sister’s bed and stood here at the entrance [she points to the bedroom doorway] with the rail guard, like this [poised and ready to hit anyone coming through]. And then they shot at the door. You can see that the bullets went through here [gesturing to bullet holes and shattered glass]. And… and that was it. They came in and shot Dad right away. I saw him… taking his last breaths. His arms were up and like… just a second before that he’d been sitting here and I didn’t say goodbye to him or hug him or kiss him, and…
…and that’s when Hamas led the women and children out single file. One of the girls fainted out and, when her sister couldn’t revive her with water, Hamas shot the passed-out girl in the face. The young lady telling the story — the one who got her little sister the water — appears to be in her teens.
Shortly after, a Hamas video shows her and her mother being taken away in a car. “Mom, they’re going to rape me now,” she remembers saying once they reached the Gaza Strip. “They’re going to torture me.”
It was then that I had to take my first break, not even 15 minutes into the film.
This is what the protestors on American campuses are either denying or supporting. If they knew the truth, would it make a difference? I don’t know, but Stalinsky and Sandberg deserve your help getting it out there.
“Screams Before Silence” has a brief runtime of 56 minutes, but it took me nearly three hours to watch it on an unbusy Sunday afternoon. Frequent breaks — not to mention a few tissues — come highly recommended.
But do watch it. And encourage others to as well.
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