NR | 36m | Documentary | 2025
During the filming of this documentary, psychologists specializing in youth trauma were always present, in case the interview subjects needed their services. It is easy to understand why, because what they endured was so inconceivably cruel.
Hamas showed no regard when they took children-hostages during their Oct. 7 terrorist campaign. However, these young survivors wanted their testimonies to be heard, so they sat down with dancer-influencer-activist Montana Tucker to bear witness in Asaf Becker’s short documentary, “The Children of October 7.”
Fighting anti-Semitism (probably better termed “Jew-hatred”) and championing the young victims of Hamas terrorism might have cost Tucker some followers, but it reflects her deeply held values, as the granddaughter of Jewish maternal grandparents who survived the Holocaust.
Tucker considered this project an extension of her Holocaust remembrance efforts. Perhaps, even more importantly, Tucker is a sensitive listener, who quickly establishes a rapport with young people, as viewers easily see throughout this documentary.
The eyewitness accounts they share with Tucker are truly harrowing. For instance, Rotem Matias, a mere 16-year-old on Oct. 7, hid beneath his mother’s dead body for several hours. She shielded him from the barrage of bullets Hamas sprayed throughout their “safe room,” which, tragically, was not safe enough.
Matias noticed he had also been shot in the stomach. Yet, somehow, he found the strength to carry on because, as he explains, wasting his parents’ sacrifice on his behalf would have been “disrespectful.”
Similarly, Yael Idan, a shockingly young 11 years at the time, witnessed the murder of her beloved older sister Maayan. Forced out of their insufficiently-safe room, Idan and her parents were tormented by Hamas kidnappers, who broadcast their sadism over her mother’s Facebook page.
Ultimately, Yael was left behind, but her father Tsahi was abducted. During the filming, hope persisted he might still be alive, but his remains were subsequently released in late February.
Eitan Yahalomi worried greatly for the health of his wounded father Ohad, while they were both held simultaneously but separately as Hamas’s hostages. The younger Yahalomi was released as part of a hostages-for-imprisoned-terrorists swap, but his father died during his captive ordeal.
From the teen’s description of the conditions he endured in Gaza, it is only too easy to understand how his weakened father perished. When not confined to solitary isolation, young Yahalomi was forced to watch violent recordings of the Oct. 7 murders. His sporadic meals consisted of one piece of pita bread and perhaps a slice of pickle.
Frankly, the savagery documented in this film would cause severe emotional distress for adults much older than the children interviewed by Tucker. For instance, Ella Shani, 14 years old that day, revisits her late father’s house with Tucker, where she sees for the first time the blood-stained spot in the attic where he was executed.
Crimes Against Humanity
It is vitally important to understand these young survivors want to explain what happened to them, to help “process” their pain and hopefully attain some closure. They also want these crimes against humanity permanently entered into the public record, so they cannot be denied later.Viewers see the proof, like the chilling footage of Hamas terrorizing the Idan family, which they themselves recorded and disseminated.
Hamas’s apologists continue to deny the crimes the terrorists so documented. “The Children of October 7” remains scrupulously nonpartisan and nonpolitical. The mere act of documenting these acts of terror provides a rebuke to the extremists hoping to obscure or even justify the carnage, for ideological reasons.
Tucker and Becker simply let the youthful survivors speak for themselves. Hopefully, young people around the world will listen. Becker and Tucker could have easily collected considerably more survivor’s accounts, but “The Children of October 7” was deliberately kept short. The film is meant to appeal to the TikTok generation, who have been alarmingly susceptible to propaganda in general, and particularly with respect to Israel and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
The resulting film is haunting. It is a documentary that needs to be seen because ignoring these horrors constitutes a form of complicity. It is quite remarkable to watch Tucker create an atmosphere of trust in which the survivors feel sufficiently comfortable to offer their devastating oral history.
These are horrific atrocities that are deeply unsettling to face, but the assembled survivors will make you remember, through the honest power of their words. Very highly recommended.
