Toronto Film Festival Cancels Israeli Oct 7 Film

The organizers of Toronto’s International Film Festival have become the latest apologists for Hamas, cancelling a film about an Israeli’s heroic actions in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023, because of concerns that doing so would violate copyright of Hamas terrorists who filmed their rampage.

When Hamas terrorists rampaged through Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023, they filmed themselves massacring and kidnapping residents of the small Israeli village.

Over a quarter of the kibbutz’s 400 residents were murdered or taken hostage on October 7.  Terrorists filmed many of their crimes and broadcast them live online. In some cases, they stole their victims’ phones and posted themselves murdering and kidnapping Jews on their victims’ own social media accounts.

Take the case of Noam Elyakim, a 46-year-old resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz. On the morning of October 7, 2023, Noam was hosting his daughters – 15-year-old Dafna and 8-year-old Ela - in his home, as well as his girlfriend Dikla Arava and her 17-year-old son Tomer when Hamas terrorists burst into his home. After shooting Noam in the leg, the Hamas terrorists began filming their interactions with the traumatized family.

Speaking in English, the terrorists took Dikla’s id card and filmed it. They promised Dikla and Noam that they won’t harm their children. In Hamas’ video feed, the family sits together on a mattress; blood pools on the floor from Noam’s leg wound. Hamas fighters then force the family out of the house, demanding that Noam walk on his injured leg. Noam, Dikla, and Tomer were later found dead. The terrorists kidnapped Dafna and Ela, bringing the terrified children to Gaza, where they made further social media posts featuring the children. (Dafna and Ela were released over two months later during a November 2023 ceasefire.)

This horror - and Hamas terrorists’ eagerness to film and broadcast it - was repeated over and over again. When journalists from the Associated Press were invited to view a compilation of video clips filmed by Hamas as they carried out the October 7, 2023 attacks, the agency described the footage as: “includ(ing) a photo of a burnt baby. It showed gunmen shooting the dead bodies of civilians in cars, militants in the process of beheading a body with a hoe, burnt corpses thrown in a dumpster.”

Journalist Leslie Roberts describes the compilation of Hamas footage of their attacks as “chilling.”  “It’s hard to watch. But it must be shown. The Hamas filmed video I saw showed terrorists shooting randomly as young people fled for their lives through the fields, and firing into the portable toilets lined up at the (Nova) festival site, where dozens of festival-goers had taken refuge. They shot through the structures one at a time, as screams from inside were audible.You can see the fear in the eyes of the young festival-goers as some are taken hostage, thrown into the back of the pickup trucks while their abductors celebrate.  It’s horrifying to watch and horrifying to imagine what those kids suffered.  It also shows the joy the terrorists took in doing so.”

The victims of Hamas’ rampage deserve to be remembered and to have their stories told.

The Banned Film

The Toronto International Film Festival had the chance to help audiences more fully understand what took place on that terrible day by screening the new movie The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, by Canadian film director and producer Barry Avrich. It tells the story of retired Major General Noam Tibon, and his wife Gali Mir-Tibon, who headed out to rescue their son and daughter in law and grandchildren on October 7.

The festival has now cancelled the screening, citing both fears of an ill-defined “protest” that might occur if they dare show an Israeli film, and concerns that showing clips in the film that were taken from social media posts and bodycams of Hamas terrorists might violate the rights of the terrorists, who posted their grisly footage online but did not give the festival organizers explicit permission to use their damning films.

Producer Talia Harris Ram, who worked on the film, noted that the festival’s concerns are groundless: “There’s no legal problem with showing these clips, which were already streamed live on October 7.  From an intellectual property standpoint,” she noted, “they are clearly in the public domain.”

October 7 Heroism

The film tells the incredible story of Noam Tibon and his wife Gali Mir-Tibon.  On the morning of October 7, 2023, their son Amir Tibon, his wife Miri, and their two young daughters - Galia, three and a half, and Carmel, one and a half - were at home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.  They were awoken by mortars launched from nearby Gaza and soon heard the sounds of gunfire outside their modest house.  They dove into their safe room.  They could hear Hamas terrorists right outside their house and the sound of gunfire as their neighbors were murdered.  “I understood the situation,” Amir recalled. “I prepared to die.”

He phoned his father Noam, a retired Israeli Major General, at his parents’ home in Tel Aviv.  Noam and Gali didn’t hesitate: Noam grabbed his pistol and they ran to their car and started driving south, towards Kibbutz Nir Oz. Along the way, they encountered a pitched battle between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers. Three Israelis fell in that firefight.  Noam ran out of the car, grabbed the gun and helmet of one of the fallen soldiers, and began fighting, ultimately vanquishing the terrorists in that spot.  Two of the Israeli soldiers were wounded and Gali drove them to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Noam continued south on foot and soon met up with another retired general who was also trying to help.  Noam got a ride to Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he immediately joined the soldiers and civil defense forces battling terrorists in the kibbutz.  Going house to house, Noam and others checked each structure for terrorists before allowing the traumatized survivors to emerge from their safe rooms.  Finally, at 4pm, ten hours after entering their safe room, the Tibon family emerged to survey the wreckage of their town and the bodies of their murdered neighbors.  “That was the first time we cried,” Amir explained.

It beggars belief that any film festival would ban this work out of a misguided fear that showing it might somehow offend Hamas murderers.  Surely it is the victims of Hamas’ attacks - not Hamas terrorists - who deserve our sympathy and concern.

Whitewashing Hamas’ Culpability

The Toronto International Film Festival organizers are not the only ones treating Hamas as a legitimate entity.  Despite the fact that the United States, the European Union, Britain, and other countries categorize Hamas as a terrorist organization, some artists, activists and journalists insist on treating it with kid gloves, quoting its officials, repeating its talking points - and now worrying that Hamas terrorists own the copyrights of videos they made of their own crimes.

While Hamas’ orgy of raping, torturing, pillaging, killing, and kidnapping was still happening on October 7, 2023, media outlets around the world began the process of treating Hamas as a journalistic partner.

The Associated Press, CNN, Reuters, and The New York Times all published photos from “journalists” who just happened to be present when Hamas fighters invaded Israel and massacred Israelis.  After accusations that they were complicit in Hamas’ attacks, news outlets protested loudly: Reuters issued a statement insisting it coincidentally “acquired photographs from two Gaza-based freelance photographers” who just happened to be “at the border on the morning of Oct. 7 and with whom it did not have a prior relationship.”

One of Hamas’ photographs even won a prestigious media award. After Hamas terrorists murdered 22-year-old Shani Louk at the Nova music festival in Israel, they brought her body back to Gaza.  A photo of her partially naked body on the back of a truck back in Gaza - with a Hamas fighter draping his leg over her naked torso - won the “Picture of the Year” competition at the prestigious Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism.

It’s profoundly wrong that Hamas was able to carry out the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust - and nevertheless has been able to shape the media coverage of their attacks.  Hamas’ assault was so brutal that it might have seemed at first that their own pictures damned them in the world’s opinion.  Any group that could murder men, women, the elderly, and young children and kidnap hundreds of people would surely earn the world’s opprobrium.  Yet in the nearly two years since Hamas’ attack, it is Israel - not Hamas - which has been vilified as evil.

Rehabilitating Hamas

News outlets routinely cite “Gaza’s Ministry of Health" - that is, Hamas’ - statistics about casualty figures and aid delivery as if the information that Hamas provides is somehow trustworthy.  As recently as July 2025, BBC News CEO Deborah Turness inaccurately informed BBC staff to treat Hamas’ “political” spokesmen as trustworthy sources of information.  The BBC also has reported on Hamas claims that it is Israel, not Hamas, which is an obstacle to ceasefire negotiations; other news outlets have routinely followed suit.

Toronto International Film Festival’s shameful kowtowing to Hamas’ supposed photography copyrights is part of this wider trend to treat the terror group as a reasonable partner.  It is not.  The victims of Hamas - both in Israel and in Gaza - deserve to know the truth about this brutal terrorist group. And the film festival should reconsider their abhorrent decision.

Update

Apparently the uproar caused by the festival’s initial decision to remove the film has made an impact.  On Thursday, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey and Barry Avrich, the film’s director, issued a joint statement announcing that the screening was back on, saying that “both TIFF and the filmmakers have heard the pain and frustration expressed by the public.”

“We have worked together to find a resolution to satisfy important safety, legal, and programming concerns. We are pleased to share that The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue will be an official TIFF selection at the festival this year, where we believe it will contribute to the vital conversations that the film is meant to inspire,” they said.

“Both TIFF and the filmmakers have always been committed to presenting diverse perspectives and a belief in the power of storytelling to spark and encourage dialogue and understanding,” the statement added, revealing that the documentary will premiere on August 20.