‘Pure evil does exist’: Las Vegans react to video of attack on Israel

A Las Vegas church served as the venue Thursday for the exhibit of a shocking video showing civilians and soldiers being brutalized by members of the Middle Eastern terrorist group Hamas during a surprise attack in Israel on Oct. 7.

The 47-minute video was a compilation by the Israel Defense Forces of mobile phone, body and dash camera footage and social media posts from both Hamas and victims of the terrorist incursion in Israel, according to Amit Mekeel, the county’s deputy counsel general for the Pacific Southwest.

Mekeel, who was present at the screening, was insistent that to protect the families of some 1,200 Israelis killed, and for legal reasons, that no specifics of the graphic violence and killings of men, women and children, and evidence of sexual assault on women and girls, be mentioned in this story.

After the video, several people interviewed were visibly shaken over what they had seen.

“I really don’t know what to say because it was really so awful,” said Denise Fanning, 59, of Las Vegas, who had to remain in her car for a while afterward to compose herself. “It was horrific. I just had to come outside. It’s unendurable what people went through.”

“People who can do that type of stuff to another person, I can’t even fathom,” said Charles Trim, 38, of Las Vegas. “That was a clear vision of the fact that pure evil does exist.”

“I can tell you,” said David Chesnoff, 68, a Las Vegas attorney who just recently visited Israel, “as a student of history, the things I saw in that film are as bad as anything that happened during the Holocaust.”

“If it had happened in America, it’s like after 9/11,” he said. “We had a response. And that’s what the Israelis have to do.”

The Israel army, in the current Israeli-Hamas war in the neighboring Gaza region, “has only one goal: dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization’s military and administrative capabilities,” according to the IDF’s website.

The video was shown at the Fervent Calvary Chapel, 4295 N. Rancho Drive.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382.