Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.BZ

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

Why are you tearing them down?

-Get the fuck out of my face. -Innocent people were kidnapped.

[foreign language]

-All right, I think that's good. -Have a good day.

Fuck you, fuck you, and burn in hell.

Bring them home! Bring them home!

When I see people tearing them down,

I don't understand.

It's not something political.

These people are being exploited

to get support for a genocidal war against Palestinians.

(somber music)

This is about 75-plus years

of a settler colonial state.

♪

It's hard for me to think about this individual

ripping down this poster

and going home and feeling good about what they did.

The whole purpose of putting those was to agitate.

It was to rile people up.

Those people who've ripped down posters of hostages

reveal themselves to have no humanity.

(applause)

(siren wailing)

You're ripping down posters of kidnapped Jewish babies

in your little Yasser Arafat scarves.

Make no mistake, the posters are propaganda.

Of course they are. It's a trap.

And you're willingly walking into the trap.

(crowd yelling)

♪

(tearing noise)

♪

(street noises)

(news anchor) We start with news that broke

over the weekend on Saturday,

marking a dark day in the history of Israel.

The Islamist militant group Hamas launched

a surprise attack on Israel.

(reporter) Under the cover of the missiles,

a large-scale infiltration began,

as Hamas militants crossed by land, sea, and air.

The gunmen tore through the streets,

leaving a trail of casualties behind.

At least 1,200 Israelis are said to have died.

(Liam) On the evening of October 6th,

I was actually on a friend's couch.

(soft music)

My cousin Sharon lives in Nir Oz,

which is only a mile away from Gaza.

(she laughs)

(Liam) So, usually, everyone checks up on her

to see if she's okay.

Sharon was not answering her phone.

And I heard also at the same time

that my cousin Danielle, who is Sharon's sister,

was visiting for the weekend.

(all) Mazel Tov!

Yeah, we kind of just sat around watching the news,

desperate for information,

waiting and trying to be hopeful.

...in Southern Israel, but what is more concerning

is these infiltrations of militants,

and we are hearing harrowing reports from Israeli civilians

who have been barricading themselves

in their bomb shelters, in their safe rooms,

going on the airwaves, calling, pleading, begging for help.

I kept telling my brother,

"Oh, it's okay, there just isn't, um...

there just isn't service within the mamad (safe-room)."

I...I had to make myself believe that everything was okay.

♪

And then, we got the horrific voice note.

And that was the last voice note that she sent to her family.

♪

(Liam) I was just scrolling on TikTok,

and I came across this video

of what looked to be Israelis on a tractor

with Hamas terrorists around them,

bringing them into Gaza.

(shouting)

♪

(Alana) When I spotted her in the video,

I had no doubt in my mind that it was her.

Sharon was just here, in New York,

and she came to my home,

and I did her hair in my kitchen,

and so, it was really a fresh memory

of her hair and the back of her head.

Six of my family members were taken hostage by Hamas.

It was...

♪

It's really hard to put into words, um...

In a way, I think I...

I just tried to not think of the worst.

Tonight, dozens of Israelis who lived in these communities

are still missing and believed to be kidnapped.

(Alana) My family is honestly...

I know people say this,

but the warmest, most loving, funny, kind, generous.

-And who's this here? -That's Amelia.

Right before was Danielle, um...

They're babies, I mean, they're children.

Like, what can I say?

They're beautiful, and they're funny,

and they're silly little kids, you know?

Like, look at her,

she's making a little heart with her hands.

(Liam) That's Sharon right there.

(Alana) Sharon and David and the twins.

(interviewer) Liam, what would you say

to the people holding your family hostage right now?

Those terrorists?

(Liam) These are human beings,

and I'm begging them to please release them.

Please.

(traffic noises)

I started to spot these posters around, um,

to see that other people cared about them,

without even me asking them to care about them, was...

something that really helped me get through

every day since October 7th.

It meant, like, the world to me,

uh, to see that people cared.

(soft, tense music)

♪

♪

♪

♪

(television reporter) During the raid, some fighters

also took Israelis as hostages.

Literally dragging people across the border with Gaza,

including a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair.

(shouting, screaming)

♪

♪

♪

We are here at 95th and Lex posting these.

(dramatic music)

(tape stretching)

♪

♪

The posters are popping up on street corners across New York

and other cities around the world.

They show Israelis who have gone missing

or are being held hostage.

(television reporter) Posters of the hostages taken

by the Hamas monsters

are plastered just about everywhere.

(television reporter 2) Little Raz might be from Israel,

but her photo and story is reaching

all corners of the city,

along with hundreds of others who are now missing.

(mournful music)

♪

I couldn't focus on my day-to-day at all,

or anything mundane.

Um, it was immediately action.

I took off from my job,

so I wasn't really doing anything else,

other than thinking about this conflict, my family.

I began to put up these posters

basically every day throughout New York.

It kind of became my mission.

♪

(horns honk, distant siren wails)

♪

(Nina) I learned about the poster campaign

fairly early on.

The hardest ones to see were the children,

the Cunio twins,

the Bibas babies,

and the one that really hit home on a very personal level

was Noya Dan.

Noya was autistic,

and that was personal,

because I have a son who's autistic.

I just remember thinking, "Oh, my God!"

And I had the same thought her mother apparently had,

which was, "Thank God she was with her grandmother.

Thank God she was with someone who loved her,"

even in that worst of all possible circumstances.

(dark music)

I went from the sort of "Oh, my God" horror

to, "Okay, you can't sit there and curse the darkness.

What are you gonna do?"

♪

One of the things that I was so curious about,

uh, seeing the posters go up all over the place,

is why it was that people spontaneously were doing this.

♪

The effects of post-traumatic stress disorder

are sometimes mitigated if, during a trauma,

someone takes action.

And I think this is one of the reasons

why people felt instinctively

that they needed to do something.

♪

Even people who had never met

those people who were taken hostages,

they are all re-enacting

that first action that family members and friends were doing,

which was, "We are looking for our loved ones.

We're trying to find them.

Does anybody know where they are?"

♪

I really didn't do much in regards to hanging posters.

I...I barely had energy to eat or shower.

(sentimental music)

On October 7th, after my mom woke me up that morning,

I just saw, I couldn't even tell you

how many people posting, "Come Home, Omer."

I don't think my body was ready or meant

to feel that amount of pain or grief.

Omer had been taken hostage. I grew up with Omer,

so, even though we didn't talk frequently,

the bond was still very prevalent.

(boy) So, what's your theme?

(Julia) I think we should do a pirate theme for "Arrgh" C.

(Omer) That's gonna be a "no" for me.

♪

(Julia laughs)

(Julia) I was grieving, which was a very strange thing

to kind of grieve a person that is still alive.

And I was so grateful for the people who'd put up posters.

It made me feel less alone.

Like, it reminded me of all of our memories,

'cause in all the pictures, he's smiling,

which is very on-brand for him.

♪

And then you realize why you're seeing his face,

and it just kind of

takes the floor out from under you every time.

♪

(protestor) Avigail was taken as hostage all by herself

after both of her parents were murdered,

and her siblings stayed alive only because

they, uh, stayed in the closet for almost 10 hours.

We got to know her as a three-year-old,

but today, she's already four years old.

And, as surreal as it is,

we know that when she'll come out,

we want her to know that we celebrated her birthday.

(all) ♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday, dear Avigail ♪

♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪

-Bring them home now! -Bring them home now!

(chanting continues)

(grim music)

♪

(protestor 1) Mr. Secretary, you can bring them!

(protestor 2) Guterres, we ask you to save our children!

-May I? -Yes, you may.

♪

-How do you... -You just hold it, just...

Well, first of all, I want to say

that I have enormous respect for your pain.

If I was prime minister...

♪

namely, of Israel today,

my main priority would be the release of hostages.

(distant explosions)

(news anchor) The skyline of Gaza shrouded in smoke

as Israeli strikes pummel residential buildings...

(explosion, shouting)

...mosques that the Israeli military said

housed Hamas command centers,

and tunnels long suspected

to be smuggling routes for weapons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed

to destroy the ability of Hamas and Islamic Jihad

to govern and carry out military attacks,

an effort he warns will be long and difficult.

(murmuring, faint birdsong)

(woman) A thousand kidnapped Palestinians!

A thousand kidnapped Palestinians!

(solemn music)

There was a large gathering through Midtown,

through the rain,

New Yorkers taking to the streets.

This was a unity march of sorts.

It did feature pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian supporters,

a peaceful protest, but there were over 100 arrests,

but things did remain peaceful.

♪

(protestor) Yesterday, 14 of my family members were killed

in the church bombing!

(crowd chanting) Stop bombing Gaza!

Stop bombing Gaza!

(chanting continues)

♪

When I was putting up these posters,

it would spark a lot of conversation.

People cried to me and I cried to them

on the middle of the street.

And then, also, negative comments from people.

This man came up to me

and told me that if I really cared about,

you know, children,

I would be putting up posters of Palestinian children.

And then I said, "This is my cousin's daughter.

She is captive in Gaza. She's a hostage."

Um, and he told me

that she looks like a white colonizer.

♪

(overlapping chatter)

♪

-Stupid assholes! -What?

(Nina) Whole families and babies have been living

in fetid tunnels underground,

being malnourished, getting sick,

living with untreated wounds.

You know what their crime was?

Being at home with their families.

It's a war crime.

If we don't protest war crimes, what on Earth do we protest?

Answer me that.

Answer me why 3,000 Palestinians have lost their lives.

(Nina) The civilian deaths in Gaza are a tragedy...

-They're innocent! -Are these the same...

(Nina) No, no, no, hang on a second, stop!

Not all... excuse me, ma'am...

♪

The idea of putting up posters of kidnapped human beings

to call attention to them as propaganda?

Fine. Sign me up.

Sign me up. Absolutely.

I'll join that propaganda campaign

any day and twice on Sunday.

They need to come home.

(overlapping chatter)

♪

(Alana) At this point, I don't have a reaction.

I just want to get them home.

That's all I think about,

all...all we want is for them to come back,

and we want the world to come with us,

to...to help us to bring them home.

They are my sisters, I grew up with them.

I went to Israel every summer of my life.

Sharon and Danielle are my sisters.

♪

(Liam) I was putting the posters up

in Washington Square Park,

and as I'm walking there,

I saw these two women walk past me

and kind of give me a face.

Hey, what are you doing? What are you doing?

-I'm tearing this down. -You're taking down...

-That's my cousin. -Girl...

-That is my cousin. -Girl...

(Liam) Do you want her to die?

Do you care about her? Her life?

She's in the hands of terrorists right now.

Seeing it in... live, in real time,

it's a feeling that I...I can't really describe,

an anger that I've never even felt before in my life

against another human being.

♪

(Julia) I remember the first time I had seen

that posters had been ripped down.

I'd walked down into the Union Square subway station,

and both walls when you enter

were lined with all of the hostage posters,

and the left wall was all torn down.

Omer's poster had been ripped in half,

like, right down the center, um,

and I...I started digging through the papers

to try and find the other half.

These two women came up and started

putting them all back up again.

At the time, I genuinely thought it was just

some crazy person, some bigoted person.

I didn't realize it was

the start of a much bigger thing.

(woman) What are you doing?

Why are you ripping it?

-This is disgrace! Look! -You are disgusting!

♪

(indistinct)

(man) I don't...I don't give a fuck.

Get the fuck out of here. You're a scumbag.

(man) Why are you taking those down?

Uh...

♪

(she chuckles)

(man) Why are you laughing? That's not funny.

♪

(woman) Why are you ripping them down?

-Woo! -That's what I'm talking about!

Yeah!

(woman) Hey, why are you taking this down?

Why are you doing that?

♪

(woman) Would you like to tell me your name?

Would you like to share what you're doing?

♪

(spits)

(man) Why are you ripping down posters?

Karine, can I ask you, there's been on social media

and frankly, on news broadcasts,

uh, a lot of videos of individuals

who have been tearing down signs,

many of these taking place in New York City,

of Israelis presently being held hostage in Gaza.

There have been some tense, um, confrontations

that have taken place there.

Is the White House's view

that these actions should be condemned,

the pulling of... the pulling down of them,

or that that's a form of peaceful protest?

(Karine) Look, I... I've sort of, kind of seen

the reporting here and there.

I think it was from last week, right?

(journalist) There have been, like,

30 million videos that have gone around...

(Karine) No, I know; I hear you. I hear you.

I'm just not going to...

We're not going to... I'm not going...

(journalist) Is that peaceful protest to pull that down,

or should you not be doing it?

(Karine) I'm just not going to go into, uh, specifics

on that particular thing.

(Rabbi Sarna) A colleague of mine at NYU, Jonathan Haidt,

has been writing and speaking about the way

an increased use in social media,

particularly among the young,

has reinforced a moral binary.

When you go on social media, you either see the viewpoints

that reinforce your own viewpoint,

or you see the most absurd version of the other side.

And there is no more gray.

There's only a fine line that separates

between the colonized and the colonizer,

the oppressed and the oppressor.

And within this worldview,

any violence inflicted on the oppressed is a crime,

and any violence inflicted against the oppressor

is freedom fighting.

Seeing these faces

is the ultimate challenge to that binary view.

(dark music)

♪

(Julia) It's very painful,

and there's a lot of anger.

But I...I wouldn't say I'm surprised.

♪

I think a lot of younger people,

my generation in particular,

you know, we grew up on social media,

and I...I don't like blaming Instagram for everything.

But, you know, I'm very... I'm guilty of this, too.

If I don't like what someone's saying,

I just unfollow them,

and I don't have to see it anymore.

(woman) ♪ Into the trash you go ♪

♪ Ceasefire now and free Palestine ♪

(man) What is your reasoning? I want to hear it.

My whole reasoning is that my people have been

getting slaughtered in Palestine for years...years.

I haven't seen a single poster about my people.

I haven't seen a picture

of my friend's grandmother who got slaughtered.

I haven't seen a picture of his family

that got kicked out of their house.

I haven't seen shit for my people.

So, when I see shit for this, I don't...I don't feel for it.

I don't fuck with it.

How would you feel if people were posting shit about police

when shit was happening?

You know how that is, that's not fair.

The Israeli military said today

it struck over 450 militant targets

in the past 24 hours.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry says

more than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed,

and the humanitarian crisis continues.

Al-Qassam Brigades has fired a large barrage of rockets

from Gaza towards Tel Aviv,

reportedly intercepted by the Iron Dome,

and this is being described

as one of the largest barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv

since October the 7th.

The fact that those rockets are still being fired

is showing that Hamas still is going strong,

and they're trying, certainly, to send that message

that nothing so far has been able

to quash their capabilities.

(reporter) Israel is expanding its battle against Hamas

with tanks on the ground and more strikes from the sky.

The death and destruction is widespread.

Buildings in the Gaza Strip

obliterated into nothing but rubble.

Hospitals are flooded with Palestinian patients

and forced to treat the injured outside.

Do you think that genocide against Palestinians

-is justified? -It's not genocide.

Actually...

(woman) They came into my people's country

and they murdered us.

Have you heard about colonization?

Have you heard of that? I don't think you have.

Go colonize somewhere else!

Fuck Israel! Fuck you!

Fuck your propaganda!

(tense music)

(man) Why are you taking those signs down?

Where are the Palestinians?

(man) So put your own sign up!

(man 2) Who took any Palestinians?

(woman) Do not put signs over our posters!

Your posters are propaganda!

(woman) What do you mean, they're propaganda?

They're using my life for propaganda.

(woman) They are not.

Let's put up...

Let's put up the 3,000 kids that were killed in Gaza.

(man) You...you can do it!

(woman) Please stop ripping posters down.

These are innocent civilians in Israel.

Fuck you, fuck Israel.

(man) Why did you put your mask on? You're embarrassed?

You're ashamed of what you're doing?

(man 2) You're supporting genocide and ethnic cleansing.

♪

(Aaron) The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been

one of the most divisive political issues

in the United States,

on college campuses and elsewhere,

and so, it wasn't surprising to see

both that people were putting up these posters,

and that others had a visceral reaction to that,

uh, and were tearing them down.

The act of putting up a poster

is an act of expressing a viewpoint.

Now, when someone else comes along

and rips that poster down,

that's really akin to a heckler's veto, right?

It's people deciding what others are able to see

and what speech and views they're able to listen to.

(pensive music)

♪

(Elisha) I think that the hostage posters

have a real presence

that not a lot of objects do,

that only a photograph can have.

♪

You see photographs of people staring out at you,

and they're there.

♪

I remember the first time I saw a ripped poster.

Someone had really just

slashed the face of Qaid Farhan al-Qadi,

the Bedouin guard of Kibbutz Magen.

♪

I couldn't look away, at that point.

I decided to document it. I had an old camera.

(shutter snaps)

You'd see spray-painted hostage posters.

You'd see feces, occasionally,

and this really disturbed me...

burned hostage posters.

Every variety of someone's violence against the hostages.

And it was...

demoralizing.

♪

There's a certain kedushah,

there's a certain holiness to the hostage posters.

So, what if I collect all the remnants

and keep them?

♪

So, very quickly, I start developing a collection.

♪

I'd never considered

how powerful an image on the street could be.

Not before the hostage posters.

♪

We just want to be seen.

I can find something very intellectual to say about it,

but I'd really just rather say that we want to be seen.

♪

And they want to be seen.

Why would you rip down posters of hostages?

Because it is perpetuating a completely false narrative

that the Israelis are the victims,

of which I do not promote, uh, any violence

towards any innocent human being,

regardless of their background or beliefs.

And those people that have their pictures on those posters,

I do not know them,

and I do not wish anybody who is innocent

any type of harm.

It is more of a symbolic gesture,

because it is pathetic propaganda

that they are putting into,

uh, civilian areas that we are living in,

and they're perpetuating this narrative

to keep subconsciously...

Why don't you answer my questions?

Why you would rip down

posters of people who've been taken hostage?

All due respect to anybody who is suffering,

uh, the loss of people that they love,

which many people around the world

are currently suffering from, but there's always a spotlight

on a specific demographic of people,

because, apparently, just like George Orwell would say,

"Some people are more equal than others."

(director) I reached out to several people

who took down the posters...

-Hm. -...but they declined

to be interviewed.

I have prepared some answers based on their statements,

so I would love for you to read some of them,

and then respond, if you would like.

"In our last conversation,

I begged my grandfather to stay safe.

The very next day, an Israeli bombing took his life.

I loved him so deeply and my heart is bleeding.

These posters that portray Israelis solely as victims

are just about rallying more support

for the Israeli government,

not about advocating for their return.

As if this whole thing started on October 7th.

In Israel, these posters might pressure the government

to make deals they wouldn't otherwise consider.

But here in the U.S., our role is mostly about deciding

whether to send more military aid to Israel.

So, these posters aren't really about

bringing the hostages back.

They're about pushing for more destruction."

♪

I actually think this is an interesting critique.

You know, what is...

what is the U.S. posture toward Israel,

toward the Palestinians,

toward military conflict in that part of the world?

What is the solution?

Are there solutions?

I mean, this could be the basis of an actual conversation.

But you can't have that conversation

just by tearing down posters, or, frankly,

just by putting up posters.

(man) Excuse me, why are you taking those off?

Why are you taking those off?

Because it's causing the conflict to be worse.

(man) No, it's not.

By you taking this off, you know what it does?

It shows that Jewish victims are not okay.

My friend is one of those people,

and you're taking them off?

And that's sad, but I don't see how that helps the conflict.

(man 1) It's war propaganda.

(man 2) Tell the world

how you can't hold two thoughts in your head.

You can only care about some people,

but because they're Jews,

they don't deserve your sympathy.

I am not anti-Semite. I am pro children living.

(man 2) You're not anti-Semite?

It's propaganda, because you're not gonna find them here,

so I don't know why you put 'em up.

-Why are you doing that? -I don't want your cousin

to get killed by IDF bombs.

-Please call the police. -It's dishonest, man.

It's dishonest that kids were kidnapped out of their beds?

No, man, that's not what I'm saying.

So, what is dishonest about the kidnapping poster?

It was kidnapped, right?

It's propaganda to justify the murder of...

So, were kids not kidnapped out of their beds?

Oh, please.

(soft music)

(Chen) I grew up in Israel.

I live in New York for the past 30 years.

My kids grew up here.

They have friends from all kinds of religions, colors, like...

It's a diverse society,

and I love it.

Since October 7th,

every morning, I will arrive to work

and hang the poster outside.

And every day,

people would come and tear the poster.

-(tearing noise) -Why are you doing this?

(Chen) Please don't touch it. It's private property!

It's private property!

There were a lot of pro-Palestinian rallies

right down the block from my store.

(crowd chanting) Intifada, Intifada!

-Long live the Intifada! -Long live the Intifada!

They started to target my store every single day.

Excuse me, private property. Can you please stop?

What's your name?

She's ripping off our sign.

I'm sorry, it's private property.

-Okay. I don't give a shit. -Okay, you done?

You should be ashamed of yourself!

(Chen) Shame on you!

I'm putting the posters every day,

and I'm gonna keep putting them.

I had to close earlier.

Uh, we had to lock our door.

It wasn't...it didn't feel a safe environment.

The police suggested

that maybe if I move it from the window,

the Star of David,

it won't cause so much, um, negative attraction

to our store.

I refused, because I said, the day I have to remove

the Star of David from my window,

it's the day I move from this country.

(somber music)

And they started to send me, um, direct messages.

♪

I was very determined that they won't break me.

(cell phone notification)

♪

I will keep putting it until they bring them back.

The wall is back.

And if anyone can come help us,

we're planning to do also this pillar.

One night, a huge crowd of pro-Palestinian rally, um,

came from down the block.

(shouting, chanting)

(protestors) Ceasefire now!

Ceasefire now!

(man) Free, Free Palestine!

(protestors) Free, Free Palestine!

(man) This is private property.

(Chen) Stop touching!

This is not how you talk to people!

Not by violence!

(protestors) Free, Free Palestine!

(man) Free, Free Palestine!

(Chen) They tried to break the door,

like banging on the door,

banging on our window.

(banging)

I ran to the back office,

sat on the floor and hide there,

and tried to call the police.

(shouting)

My co-worker yelled to me, "The police is outside."

And I'm like, "What do you mean the police is outside?"

(man) Shame! Shame!

You're a disgrace to your grandparents!

(shouting)

(Chen) Is this how we're safe in New York?

Is this how we're safe here?

I was shocked.

I felt there is no one to protect us.

♪

I decided for the safety of my employees and everyone

to take a little break and stop putting the posters.

I felt defeated and I felt broken.

♪

(man) Fuck...fuck all you Israeli motherfuckers.

motherfuckers.

Get the fuck out of here.

(man) I'm taking it off, bitch, you got a problem with it?

(man) He already threatened me.

Get the fuck out of here. I'll knock you the fuck out.

Get the fuck out of here before I punch you...

(woman) What the fuck?

(woman) Yo! Ow!

(woman) Hey! What...what are you doing?

(woman) What the fuck?

Why did you just come up to me and assault me?

♪

(Liam) My cousin Moran told us, like,

"Please try to go back to your lives."

♪

Before I went to work that week,

that video of my cousin Danielle came out...

♪

which was...

♪

painful to see her look like that

and to see her in that situation.

(Alana) I watched it over and over again,

and I cried,

and I said to myself,

"Well, she's alive.

At least there's that. It's proof of life."

Um... And then I said, "Of course they picked her."

Of course they chose my cousin.

She's strong and she has a voice,

so I wasn't totally surprised,

but there was a sense of relief for sure.

(Liam) We had a sign of life.

It was so scary, though,

and it was almost embarrassing that, like,

the world was seeing my family

in such a horrible, vulnerable situation, uh,

at the mercy of terrorists.

(soft music)

♪

So, I had posters that were, like,

right outside my apartment, that I could see from my window.

And usually they were torn down

within, you know, 12 to 24 hours.

So, I decided to go and get a little security camera

to see who exactly was doing this every day.

♪

It was multiple people that were doing this,

but one guy in particular,

you could see in the footage that he had a knife on him.

♪

This wasn't, like, just someone that was walking by

that decided in the moment to tear down these posters.

This person left their home, or their job, or whatever,

with the mission of tearing down posters

of kidnapped Israelis.

♪

I put it on my social media,

and immediately the video blows up,

gets thousands of views.

Then, there were people that were identifying

the individual on the video, too.

My intention wasn't to cancel these people

or dox these people.

It was just to show the world that...

what's happening to people like me.

(reporter) Dr. Ahmed ElKoussa, a South Florida dentist,

seen here in Brickell taking down posters

of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.

There was outrage over this video,

and Dr. ElKoussa was swiftly fired

from his job at CG Smile.

-You fired him right away. -Right away, without hesitation.

(reporter) Now, the dentist giving his side to the story.

Unfortunately, my video of four seconds

gotten taken way out of context, uh,

as well as the way that my former employer

had portrayed it.

A woman was filmed at an upscale shopping center

removing posters of Israeli children

who have been taken hostage.

She has been identified as a doctor named Zena Al-Adeeb,

and she has now been fired.

One of the NYU students was caught ripping down posters

of Israeli hostages has been identified by her NYU peers

as Hafiza Khalique.

So, do you guys think the school should expel them?

So, after I was filmed tearing down these posters

outside of Tisch Hall, um,

a student at NYU circulated the video on social media, um,

and she was calling for us to be doxxed.

Uh, shortly after, celebrities, public figures,

and Zionist platforms with millions of followers

were sharing our information publicly.

Under the petition that was calling for me to be expelled,

along with the other students,

people said that they are pulling their donations if NYU

does not take disciplinary measures against us.

So, it's clear that, even NYU admits it,

that relevant stakeholders

and people with wealth and power

are the reason why I was suspended.

"It was Saturday night and I was at home watching TV

when my phone started buzzing with messages.

That's when I discovered that someone had filmed me

when I was taking down a kidnapped poster,

and that video made its way to an Instagram account

that decided to name and shame me.

I hoped the storm would pass, but by Monday morning,

emails were flooding my organization's inbox

demanding I be fired, calling me an anti-Semite.

A few days later, I was fired.

♪

Even after I was fired, the direct messages kept coming.

Dozens of emails with death threats

and threats of sexual violence.

All I did was take down a piece of paper

that I believed hurt everyone and stood for nothing."

♪

This is a very disturbing story.

Um, I do think taking down a poster, in and of itself,

should not be a fireable offense.

I think it... it reduces the space

for people to express themselves.

I do think there were instances

where people should have been fired,

people who expressed heinous, violent, hateful views.

But in this instance,

it seems to me that an injustice was committed

against this person who had a right.

I mean, I disagree with how this person

chose to express his opposition, his or her opposition.

And calling the hostage posters

"hurting everyone and standing for nothing,"

to me, is kind of an obnoxious critique and, um...

But people are entitled to be obnoxious.

That's, you know, the privilege of being human.

(man) Hey, look at that, taking all the stuff down.

Nice to meet you!

Now the whole world is gonna meet you.

Hi, hello!

-No, no, no, no, no. -Don't worry about it.

(woman) Okay, you'll be all over the news.

-Don't worry about it. -Going to be all over the news.

What is your name? You're so proud of it.

What is your name? What is your name?

Show your face!

(Aaron) When people disclose

personal information about someone,

when they disclose where they work

in order to encourage others to get them fired

for their speech,

that creates an intimidating atmosphere

where many people are gonna shy away

from speaking publicly.

This is really a continuation of the phenomenon

that's commonly referred to as "cancel culture," you know,

which reliably creates a climate of fear

and self-censorship.

When you know that the price of speaking out on these issues

is as high as losing your livelihood,

you may reasonably calculate

that it's just not worth the cost.

(man) Why do you take them out?

(man) Why'd you tear that flier down?

(woman) Oh, I was just looking at it closer.

(man) Mm-hm.

♪

(reporter) The death toll in Gaza continues to rise.

The U.S. is urging Israel to reduce civilian casualties.

All of this following a breakdown in talks

to release war hostages.

(reporter) The Hamas-run Ministry of Health

says the death toll inside Gaza

now surpasses 15,000 Palestinians.

People were...are calling for a ceasefire.

Netanyahu has said that the ceasefire

will not happen until all of the hostages are released.

At the same time, Hamas has implied

that the hostages will not be released

until there is a ceasefire.

So, already we can see that these groups,

these parties are at loggerheads.

(protestors) Free, Free, Free Palestine!

(reporter) Organizers of this rally called for people

to flood Brooklyn for Gaza,

and that's exactly what they did.

The massive group marched to the Barclays Center,

then the Brooklyn Bridge,

temporarily closing it to traffic

to march across to Manhattan.

We're gathered here today to condemn the ongoing genocide

of the Palestinian people

perpetrated by the Israeli government

and funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

And we will continue to protest,

not just until the siege and blockade ends,

not just until U.S. military funding to Israel ends,

but until Palestine is free.

Somebody that we love grew up in the West Bank, in Palestine.

Um, what's happening to them is not fair.

It just shows how corrupt our government is

and what they're doing to these poor, innocent people

who have never done anything to anybody.

I'm all in favor of peace,

but you got to add "free the fucking hostages."

(protestors) Palestine will be free!

(woman) Free, Free Palestine!

(protestors) Free, Free Palestine!

(cheering)

-We don't want no two states! -We don't want no two states!

-We want all of it! -We want all of it!

I think pressure works,

and you should keep pushing until the dam breaks

and never stop.

This is not enough, okay? Only...

And...and once the ceasefire comes,

an end to the occupation.

I don't feel angered

by anyone sharing and expressing

their solidarity with the Palestinian people,

with the people of Gaza, at all.

Um, I just wish there was...

they had more space for us as well.

They dismissed us.

They dismissed us

for a cause they feel more passionately about,

they feel is more worthy,

instead of being able to hold space

for both people's grief.

(woman) Wow, you really don't care about hostages

and kidnapped people.

Neither do you.

-(woman) Of course I do. -No.

(woman) Ugh, you have no idea how heartbreaking it is.

-Like Gaza? Or just Israel? -All of it.

Wow, this is like my first "Karen" encounter.

Oh my God, guys, this is kind of, like, exciting.

(Julia) On October 6th,

I really loved where I was in life,

and I had a lot of friends.

I like to consider myself friends

with a lot of people at school.

And then October 7th hit,

and so many people that I came into contact with every day

who I thought I mattered to

and who I thought cared about me...

didn't actually.

A lot of the fighting was going on online,

and then you'd have to show up to class with these people

who had just said some really horrible things to you,

or who had just posted really ignorant or bigoted things,

and you just had to sit next to them

and talk about your homework assignment.

(cell phone ringing)

(Alana) I very quickly saw some friends turn away from me,

and when I say that,

I mean a lot of it on social media.

Unable to share anything about my family.

I heard from Palestinian friends who checked in on me.

I don't know why other people couldn't reach out.

It was silent.

There is a silence, um,

that...was heartbreaking.

(somber music)

(protestors) Bring them home!

Bring them home!

Bring them home!

(cheering)

My name is Alana Zeitchik,

and I'm here to tell you about love.

I love my family.

And I promised

I would scream to the ends of the earth for them.

For too many in the West,

the suffering of hostage families like mine

has become a footnote,

collateral damage in service

of some perceived higher universal truth.

For too many,

it feels like to care about one family,

to love one child,

is to diminish the suffering of another.

But the simple human truth

is that you don't have to choose.

You can abhor the suffering of Palestinian families

and the suffering of Israeli families like mine.

(cheering, applause)

Do you think that in this space that we're in right now,

there's room to have empathy for the Israelis

who lost their lives?

If you turn on any mainstream channel,

you'll see the stories of Israelis

on every screen you look to.

And so I think, for me,

I will continue to use my platform

to uplift the voices of Palestinians

and the struggles they're going through.

And they are asking us and begging us

to share their stories,

and that's what I will continue to do.

(Linsey Davis) Do you have empathy for the Israeli victims?

I think whether or not my empathy goes to Israelis

or to Palestinians is really not the question here.

What the question is,

is will we call for an end to this genocide

and will we call for a ceasefire?

(soft music)

♪

This is a Jewish community. We know.

(woman) So what's wrong with putting up kidnapped posters?

So, why do you come to people's homes

and vandalize with signs of hate?

(woman) Why do you keep taking them down?

(woman) She's not putting it on their homes...

(man) My neighbors keep taking them down

because their wives are Palestinian,

and one of their wives are Arab,

and they don't want to see signs of hate.

(woman) And you know that they only also kidnapped Arabs?

Go to your own homes and put the fucking signs up.

-You're doing this out of spite! -We want to show

that bringing home the kidnapped people

-is important. -Whoever's taking them down,

-you want to see. -Or you're taking them down.

So you want to come to people's homes,

and keep putting up out of spite.

The people who posted these posters

skipped this entire neighborhood

and found the one Palestinian restaurant.

These posters are being used

to target Palestinians in our community.

The point of those posters, in and of itself,

is not to be, like,

"Look at all these children that are lost," okay?

The point of these posters,

the real point of these posters,

is so that someone goes and fucking tries to rip it off

so they can fucking film it, and go,

"Look, look at these scary Arabs,

they hate it, they have no interest in Israeli lives."

Okay? It is the next wave of, like,

don't think about 3,000 murdered children

with our tax dollars and our missiles,

and instead talk about how...how...how horrifying

what these guys are doing is.

♪

(Aaron) It may be in some cases

that people are putting up posters

with the intention of causing anger in others.

But that's all part of the debate, right?

I mean, that's...so that may be worthy of criticism.

People may say that, "Look, by doing this,

you're not helping bridge the divide

between the different sides of this conflict."

But the people doing it, at the same time,

may argue that,

"This is the way that I think is most effective

in expressing my views,

and I want to put these posters up

where people who disagree with me will see them."

Maybe they're not doing that in the most productive way,

but, again, that's all part of the debate

that is allowed to happen in this country

under the First Amendment.

(man) No, what are you doing?

Do you know where they are right now?

You have any idea where they are right now?

I'm not fucking Jewish. He's not Jewish.

I don't know if he is or not. It doesn't fucking matter.

This is fucking the U.S.A., it's New York City.

You don't have a fucking right to touch that shit.

It's a free country.

You can wave your Palestine flag

or say death to the Jews, or America,

or whatever you want, but we can put a fucking sign.

(distant siren wailing)

♪

(Nina) The posters helped to raise awareness

to activate people here, sure, but at the end of the day,

how that translates into lifesaving intervention,

I'm not sure we're making that leap

and that the postering is contributing

to making that leap.

That's a hard thing to conclude,

and I hadn't really thought about it that deeply

until you asked the question.

♪

I just got tired of playing Whac-A-Mole

with these sort of invisible enemies, as it were.

And I said, "I'm not doing it anymore," right?

The definition of insanity

is you do the same thing over and over again

and you expect to get a different result...

which is sort of, in some ways,

a metaphor for the whole, um, mess in the Middle East.

♪

(Elisha) We wouldn't be moved to put them up

if they didn't work.

It's really effective messaging.

♪

I did it for us.

I did it because I thought that there's something healing

about changing our environment.

There's something therapeutic about it,

there's something empowering about it.

But it's nice to know

that we're not just talking to ourselves.

No one would rip it down if they didn't care.

I don't think we can convince many people,

but they clearly have some sort of power

or we wouldn't be doing this,

and I wouldn't have spent this much time

doing what I'm doing because they're powerful.

Just hours from now,

we expect a pause in the fighting

between Israel and Hamas,

the first step toward an expected hostage release

on Friday.

We don't yet know the names of who will be in that group.

And it goes without saying,

it has been an agonizing wait for their loved ones.

♪

(Alana) My cousin Moran told me

that Danielle and Sharon were on the list.

It didn't feel real,

and I could not have any sense of relief

until I saw them home.

The Red Cross says they are in their custody.

The Israeli military confirmed

that they have been handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross

and are making their way to Israel.

♪

(Alana) The first time they showed clips on the news

of the Red Cross trucks coming through,

I ran up to the TV.

I could see a glimpse of Danielle's hair

from the side.

♪

(horn beeping)

And I just started crying.

I just saw her, I knew it was her,

and she was on her way home.

♪

And I will never forget the image

of Sharon and the twins.

Sharon, and another woman, wearing these pink outfits,

each of them holding one of the twins sleeping,

flanked by terrorists wearing black,

and, once again, you know, I...

had a sigh of relief.

Um, couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I...it was a second miracle.

♪

Everyone in the world was watching it

as if it was, wow,

this amazing release of Israeli hostages.

And for me, it was seeing people I love, um,

return from hell.

(reporter) They'll be taken to a military airbase

in southern Israel, then on to an Israeli hospital

and ultimately reunited with their families.

(Liam) This is our first time seeing them.

It's an indescribable feeling of relief.

♪

Fighting resumes in Gaza

with no agreement to extend the seven-day ceasefire.

It's also important to understand

why the pause came to an end.

Uh, it came to an end because of Hamas.

We remain intensely focused on getting everyone home,

getting hostages back.

There are still about 120 hostages remaining in Gaza.

One of them is 22-year-old Omer Neutra.

(protestors) Bring him home!

Bring him home!

(Orna Neutra) Our son Omer,

he was born in New York City

one month after 9/11.

And here we are 23 years later,

and he's the victim of another vile terrorist attack.

Imagine waking up every morning

praying that he, too,

is still waking up every morning.

That he is strong and is surviving.

(cheering, applause)

I think the first few days

when I was thinking about Omer, I...

I really was hoping that he was dead.

Of course, I wanted him to come home, um,

but the thought of what he would have to live through

before he got to that point...

(distant horn blaring)

But I feel really horrible saying that.

(soft, tense music)

♪

It's also hard to say

if the person who's gonna come home

is the person that I remember.

♪

I hope he still has his light at the end of all this,

and his humor,

but there's really no way of telling.

♪

My cousins are coping in very different ways.

They also have different experiences.

Danielle has come home

with a sense of resolve and purpose.

She's become an amazing advocate

for all the hostages.

Prime Minister Netanyahu,

seal the deal now

and bring them all back now!

♪

Sharon, on the other hand, is in a total state of depression.

How could you not be?

Not only has she experienced

a traumatic, terrorizing kidnapping

filled with smoke and gunshots and blood and death.

♪

Now she has to wait for her husband,

and she knows what he's experiencing.

♪

The children ask about him all the time.

I was there, and they run around the house

singing a song they made up about their father, you know,

saying, "I want my dad, but he's still in Gaza."

That's not normal.

♪

(laughs)

I think Hamas is a vicious enemy,

and the hostages were the ultimate bargaining chip.

At the same time, what is devastating to me

is the ways in which Bibi and his government

have placed so little emphasis on the fate of the hostages.

They almost seem like a nuisance to him.

It feels like a hopeless place. But, you know, as Jews,

we're kind of cockeyed optimists,

and the last thing we do is give up all hope.

♪

Gaza's Health Ministry says more than 30,000 Palestinians

have been killed in Gaza since October 7th.

♪

(reporter) The IDF says it has killed or captured

more than 14,000 Hamas combatants...

(explosions)

...but Hamas continues to recruit, to regroup...

♪

...to regenerate.

(explosion)

Is this an unwinnable war, would you say?

This conflict will only end with a political solution.

It won't end with a military victory.

♪

(Julia) I just really hated seeing them, ripped.

I pretty much found one on every single lamp post,

every mailbox.

♪

I wanted to take something

that I knew was once beautiful and meaningful

and restore the beauty of our community.

♪

Yeah, I just ended up creating a bunch of these paintings.

♪

One of my professors was like,

"If Omer comes home and he were to see this,

what would he think of it?

♪

You need to make it more hopeful, less angry."

♪

Trying to make my experience palatable for them

felt like a total cop-out.

♪

There was...there was no hope.

There's... Nothing about the situation

would lead a normal person to be hopeful.

I think the posters did a really great job

of showing who people are and the world we live in

and who is really there for us.

I think these posters kind of threw a stone

and the ripples woke us up.

Resistance is justified when people are occupied!

Resistance is justified when people are occupied!

(Alana) I think the kidnapped posters

gave us something tangible and actionable.

It was able to provide a sense of belonging,

a sense of feeling like you're doing something.

And at the same time,

I think it illuminated something for us.

Through the tearing down of the posters,

we learned about this fracture in our society,

this gaping hole of, you know, moral, um,

moral compass that exists in our society.

So, shining a light on something that we need to fix

is inherently a good thing.

(shouting)

(Aaron) Part of the problem with cancel culture

is that it runs on this blinding

moral and intellectual certainty, uh,

where people increasingly view those on the other side,

not as people who have good faith disagreements,

but as bad people with evil motives.

And when you view someone that way,

then it becomes easier to justify shutting them up.

Censorship and cancellation don't change people's minds.

They're not persuasive.

And what they actually can do is just cause resentment.

There's a quote attributed to Sigmund Freud that goes,

"The first human to hurl an insult instead of a stone

was the founder of civilization."

(horn blaring, siren wailing)

(reporter) That escalating feud overseas,

prompting both passion and protests

right here in New York City.

Both countries, Israel and Palestine,

have a strong representation right here in New York City,

and those airstrikes can be felt right here at home.

(indistinct chatter, shouting)

(solemn music)

(man) You're not gonna get close to my friend.

(man) He attacked me!

-You know, I am pro-Palestinian. -Great!

-Then hold the fucking flag! -I am! I am!

-I want to do it freely. -Hold the flag!

-I want to do it freely. -They rape people!

They kidnap them! They murder them!

-What are you standing for? -You murder people!

-You're here, go to Gaza! -Yeah, I murder people. Yeah.

(man) A fucking white supremacist Klan rally!

White supremacist? Did you see the color of my skin?

You calling me white supremacist?

(man) Yeah, you Zionist fucking cunt!

Shut up, you Zionist, apartheid, genocidal cunt!

(woman) I'm a proud Zionist!

(indistinct)

You ugly piece of shit! Walk away, bitch. Walk away.

(man) Fucking losers.

I wish we lived in a world...

♪

number one, where there wasn't a war to begin with,

and we all lived in peace and harmony.

That would be nice, that would be lovely.

♪

I wish, at very least...

♪

...we could share the poles.

They'd put up their images of their children.

We'd put up images of ours.

And it would be sad, and tragic, and angry,

but we'd all share the public space.

I want to live in that world...

♪

where we can share the poles.

(somber music)

♪

♪

♪

♪

(sad music)