The video that shocked the nation: IDF footage of hostage tunnel divides Israel

A nation emotionally drained after 11 months of war and the constant drumbeat of tragic news was confronted with another heart-wrenching revelation on Tuesday when IDF Spokesman R-Adm. Daniel Hagari showed chilling images of the Gaza tunnel where Hamas executed six hostages last month.

The three-minute video clip showed Hagari descending from a children’s room with brightly colored walls and paintings of Snow White and Mickey Mouse in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, 20 meters into the hell where Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino were held and murdered.

“Here is the place in the tunnel where the hostages were murdered,” Hagari said in his unemotional monotone. “Here you see their blood on the floor. Here were the last moments of Hersh, Eden, Carmel, Ori, Almog, and Alex. Here they were brutally murdered. We will learn what happened here. We need to learn very well what happened here.

“It is very hard to survive here,” Hagari continued. “They were heroes, heroes who were killed in cold blood by murderous terrorists who build tunnels under the rooms of children and hide in them with hostages.”

Hagari showed the horrific conditions in which the hostages were held – the low ceiling that made it impossible to stand upright, the cesspool, the bottles of urine, and the lack of ventilation. He spoke of the extreme humidity. He picked up a broken hairbrush, a chess set, a flashlight, AK-47 magazines, and a bullet casing. Amid it all, was also a copy of the Koran.

An empathetic nation watched that video and felt the suffocating heat, smelled the stench, sensed the fear, and heard the cries. As the nation watched the horrific images being broadcast during the 8 p.m. news slot, the October 7 anger welled up again, and the rage again boiled over.

BUT THE anger and rage were directed in different directions. As the harrowing images gripped the nation, a divide over how to respond quickly resurfaced.

Anger directed at the PM

Some directed their anger toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, arguing that if Israel had not stubbornly demanded that it remain in the Philadelphi Corridor, just a short distance from this tunnel, then the hostages would not have been murdered.

They directed their anger at Netanyahu and the government for not jumping at what they believed was a deal at hand. Their conclusion: to prevent the same horrific fate from befalling the remaining hostages, make a deal now.

Those making this argument are going on the assumption – one by no means clear – that such a deal is to be had and that Hamas, which has just upped its demands by adding more names to the list of terrorist murderers it wants to be released, is interested in a negotiated arrangement.

Others, however, directed their anger at Hamas. They highlighted the terrorist organization’s brutality, so evident in the clip, and saw the video as justification for not striking a deal with Hamas, but, rather, using harsher measures against the terrorist organization, including ending the supply of humanitarian aid.

If this is how Hamas behaves, Yediot Aharonot journalist Amichai Attali wrote, articulating this school of thought, then Israel should halt all but essential humanitarian aid – water and flour – to Gaza.

A nation deeply divided over how to free the hostages – by an agreement that would include giving in to some of Hamas’s demands or by continued military pressure – viewed the same grisly video and came to opposite conclusions.

Those in favor of a hostage deal under almost any circumstances saw the video and used it to support their argument about why such an agreement is needed immediately.

The video, they said, just shows how horribly the hostages are suffering, and that everything needs to be done to reach a negotiated agreement, free them, and relieve them of that torture.

Those opposed to letting Hamas dictate the terms of a deal and believing that only more military pressure would ultimately free the hostages saw the video as support for their position: how could a deal be made with terrorists who executed six starving hostages in cold blood after holding them in inhuman conditions for nearly a year?

Each side in this devil’s dilemma found support for its positions in this video, which – before it was made public – was shown to the hostages’ families and the security cabinet.

THE IDF has endless footage from Gaza and reams of documents and seas worth of information that it has accumulated over the last 11 months. It decides what to make public and when.

Behind the IDF's decision

This raises the question: why did the IDF decide to release this video – such a demoralizing video – at this particular time?

Here, too – in lieu of any definitive answer from the IDF – the answer is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Some believe that the IDF merely wanted to reflect reality, to illustrate in a straightforward way to the public the difficult conditions the hostages were held in and the cruelty of their captors.

Others feel that the IDF wanted to show these savage conditions to the security cabinet and then to the public so that it would push the government and Netanyahu harder to consent to an agreement with Hamas.

If a few hundred thousand people on the streets can’t move the government, this argument runs, then perhaps seeing up close the inhuman conditions will convince it and Netanyahu to compromise on their redlines and make a deal.

The idea that the IDF released this video now to press the government to agree to a deal is strengthened by the fact that senior security and IDF officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, have come out – contrary to Netanyahu and the government’s position – in favor of a deal even if it means withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor.

HAGARI, AT the press conference where the video was first aired, said that the video was distributed in English and that he briefed the international media. The reasoning he gave for doing this was “so that the whole world will see Hamas’s evil and know how they are cruelly treating the hostages.”

In other words, the video is a weapon in the ongoing war over world public opinion. The international media extensively covered the footage. But the question is: will it make a difference in what the world thinks?

For instance, the international community’s response to the publication of the video has largely been muted, with only limited official statements from global leaders and organizations.

Moreover, human rights organizations, typically and predictably, were also silent, with neither Amnesty International nor Human Rights Watch weighing in on the revelation.

Ironically, the last communiqué that Amnesty International put out about the war was on September 5, when it said that the Israeli military must be investigated for the war crime of “wanton destruction in Gaza,” saying that the IDF has used “bulldozers and laid explosives to unlawfully destroy agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighborhoods, including homes, schools, and mosques.”

What the communiqué does not mention, of course, is that, often, homes, schools, and mosques in Gaza are built over hidden tunnels 20 meters underneath, where hostages are hidden and executed.

Despite the ample evidence of Hamas’s cruelty from October 7 that the world has seen and been exposed to, US campuses still ring with calls of “Israel is committing genocide,” and the UK has recently banned the sale of certain weapon parts to Israel.

Additional evidence of Hamas’s murderous brutality cannot be expected to tip the scales. The world knows who and what Hamas is, but for a variety of reasons part of the world chooses to simply not care. It’s not that these people don’t see; they see but draw false conclusions. This is what Israel’s public diplomacy apparatus is up against.

“If only Israel had better hasbara,” runs a very familiar argument, if it only had a better public diplomacy directorate, better spokespeople, and sharper talking points, then the current wave of anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism would not be washing up on everyone’s shores.

And while the country certainly needs better hasbara, while it desperately needs bigger budgets for public diplomacy, to blame all the anti-Israel feelings on the premise that Israel’s message is just not getting across is simplistic.

This video is powerful. It is being distributed, at least, in English (it should also be distributed in Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian, and Farsi). Some people will see it, see the enemy Israel is facing, and understand what the country is doing, why it is doing it, and who the enemy is.

Others will see it and still blame Israel.

It is wise that Hagari briefed the foreign press and distributed this video. It is good that this footage is making the rounds around the world. Yet it is not a game changer; it will not change many minds. No one should build up false expectations of its impact, at least overseas.

At home, on the other hand, the video shocked the nation. However, reflecting the deep divide within the country over the issue, people took the shock and used it to justify their preexisting positions.

Those who say Israel must show more flexibility with Hamas used it to show why the government must reach an agreement with the hostages, and those waving the flag of “absolute victory” used it to reveal the face of the enemy and why the country cannot agree to any arrangement that would allow this type of organization to remain in place or give it any chance of regrouping.