I spent ten days in Israel with the great photographer Nadav Neuhaus. We met people who witnessed 7 October at first hand, as well as former hostages held in Gaza. We also viewed footage shot on the day of the tragedy that had never been broadcast. Everything, absolutely everything, adds up to confirm the extent to which Hamas committed the worst abuses.

On 7 October 2023, Israel experienced the greatest trauma in its history. What the terrorists of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, did was comparable to the worst crimes of the Second World War. In the name of democracy, but also of our humanism and the preservation of our way of life, we must be uncompromising with these Islamists and their supporters. They are not defending any valid cause, except that of wanting to kill freedom.

The pogrom perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October was in no way a “resistance” operation.

It was a large-scale terrorist attack and a crime against humanity.

As historian Alone Pauker, a specialist in the history of the Kibbutz, the collective communities created by socialist Zionists in the last century, points out: “What the terrorists did is comparable to the crimes of the SS during the Second World War”. He knows what he’s talking about, having witnessed the assault at first hand. In his village, 96 people were killed, and a young woman was raped in front of her family before being shot dead. “It’s all the harder because Gazans working in the area gave information to Hamas”.

But make no mistake: the horrors perpetrated by jihadists are not the work of psychopaths. On the contrary, everything seems to have been methodically thought out. This is what two hostages explained to us, detailing the deprivations they had to endure, the lack of food and water. Whole days spent in unventilated rooms, suffocating. And then the fear of the jailers, of being beaten and raped.

One of the hostages gave us an unbearable account of her 51 days in captivity: “When one of the guards took a girl with him, we knew what was going to happen (…). Sometimes they would order us to pray with them and two minutes later they would torture us (…). I’m sure they had orders to behave like that, because everything was regulated, almost systematic”. This former captive also told us about the girls who were forced to shower naked in front of their captors, and to endure real sexual torture at gunpoint.

Back to the Nova festival sites

Yuli is 22 years old. She lives in Tel Aviv and is a reservist in the Israeli army. On 7 October, she was taking part in the Nova festival, 3 kilometres from the Gaza Strip, with her boyfriend Adir. She returned with us to the scene of the pogrom, for the first time since the massacre, in the company of her grandfather, to pay tribute to her friends who were killed.

All around her, affixed to pieces of wood, were hundreds of photos of young people shot dead by Hamas terrorists. Until now, Yuli had never told anyone about the tragedy that befell her. She hesitated before speaking to us. With tears in her eyes, she tells us: “My boyfriend and I arrived on Friday evening. We put up in a tent to sleep. On Saturday morning, at 6.30am, we were woken up by rocket and missile fire. We ran outside. All around us was horror. Hundreds of people were fleeing, screaming. My friend, who was in the Special Forces, told me we had to run. So we grabbed a few things and got into our car. But because of the bombing, we abandoned the vehicle and took refuge in a shelter”.

When the shelling finally stops, Adir and Yuli try to get out. They saw two wounded people near a vehicle. “We rushed to treat them, but we were shot at. Adir ordered me to lie on the ground. One of my friends, Sela, was hit four times by bullets and another, Matan, was shot. So we went back into the shelter. We called the emergency centre, but were told that there were too many people in our situation and that it was impossible to come and help us quickly. So I sent a goodbye text to my family, and to tell my father that I loved him. I also told Adir that I loved him. He replied that he did too. Then he asked me to close my eyes and not watch what would happen when the terrorists entered the shelter (…)”.

Yuli told us that she heard everything that was happening outside: “Screaming, screaming, shooting”. The women were systematically raped, as shown by videos of naked women filmed by Hamas. “Time stopped”, Yuli confesses. “Adir suddenly detached himself from me. He went out of the shelter with other people, to try and fend off the terrorists and save us from the worst. But they had no weapons. So he was killed. Strangely enough, at that point, no more terrorists tried to get into the shelter to attack us. I think they were too busy outside”.

That same day, Eden, aged 30, set off to find her best friend, who had informed her of the attack by text message. On the road leading to the festival site, she discovered mutilated bodies, some dismembered. She agreed to show us a video she filmed on her mobile phone. The images, shot at close range, are unbearable. We wrote about it in Paris Match magazine: It shows the body of a young woman lying next to the wreckage of a car, her face and torso burnt to a crisp, her skirt pulled up over her stomach and her legs spread wide apart. You can clearly see that her panties have been removed. “They shot her in the head. These images are proof of what they did”, said Eden, who has not been reunited with her friend, who was kidnapped by Hamas. The video also shows several charred bodies.

Leave no room for doubt

Despite the testimonies of the victims, which are consistent down to the smallest detail, the confessions of the terrorists and the large number of images that exist, some people in France and elsewhere doubt the veracity of the tragedy of 7 October, while others – including some elected members of La France Insoumise – refuse to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, even though the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States describe it as such.

Like my photographer colleague, I have covered many conflicts. I have seen some horrors. But what has happened in Israel is unique in that the Hamas assassins have attacked a way of life: our way of life. They did it in an organised, quasi-military way, undoubtedly trained by their Iranian godfather, as several jihadists captured by the Israeli army have admitted.

By carrying out this large-scale operation, raping and massacring women, taking innocent civilians hostage, and leaving traces of their crimes, they have sent a deadly message to all Western democracies: “We are capable of destroying you”. That is their dark purpose.

Islamists who admire Hitler

Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has no territorial claims. What’s more, its religious claims have nothing to do with moderate Islam. It wants to establish Sharia law wherever Muslims live. For proof of this, we need only refer to the texts of its Egyptian inspirers, Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, who were advocates of a civilisational and religious war against the Jews and the West, as well as admirers of Hitler.

We can of course criticise the strategy of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu – we even have a duty to do so – just as we must be horrified at the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza. But we must not fall into the trap of these terrorists who pass themselves off as victims and give the impression that they are defending the Palestinian cause. They are not.