President Isaac Herzog today, Tuesday, hosted a special screening of the Emmy Award-winning documentary “We Will Dance Again” at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, attended by hostages returned from Hamas captivity and survivors of the Nova music festival massacre.
Among the attendees were former hostage Eliya Cohen, who was abducted from the Nova festival, and his partner Ziv Abud, who survived the October 7 attack. The event also featured a panel discussion with Shira Shapira, mother of murdered festival-goer Aner Shapira, alongside Nova survivors Tamir Leshetz, Yuval Siman Tov, and Noam Ben David.
In his address, President Herzog said: “We Will Dance Again” is, first and foremost, a cry. A cry that should be heard from one end of the earth to the other, shaking the very foundations, the cinema halls, and the tables of decision-makers throughout the world, in every place. This film stands as decisive and unequivocal testimony to the justice of our path, and to the duty that rests upon all humanity: to stand firm, to stand with us, on the right side of history. We must think at all times of the hostages and their anxious families, and initiate with creativity, responsibility, and commitment, moves that will bring them home urgently. All of them - until the very last one.”
The President stressed: “The harrowing report by the Ministry of Health, submitted today to the Red Cross, together with the horrifying images and videos of the hostages, make clear to us and to the entire world that the monstrous acts committed on October 7 continue to this day, every day, every hour, even at this very moment, in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza. These are crimes against humanity, carried out on a truly daily, premeditated, and systematic basis, proving beyond all doubt that each and every one of the hostages is an urgent humanitarian case. Hamas murderers are subjecting them to unimaginable cruelty, and we, the State of Israel and all the nations of the free world, must use every tool at our disposal to extract the hostages from their clutches.”
Eliya Cohen, himself a survivor of 505 days in Hamas captivity, spoke movingly at the event: “We must not forget that we still have brothers who endured this hell and are living what I lived for 505 days. We are almost six months after my return, and in your presence, Mr. President, I want to ask you: do everything. Bring them home. I have another brother who was with us in the shelter, and he too deserves to be here, to meet Shira and Moshe, Aner’s parents. There is also Elkana, the producer of the party, and of course another 48 hostages - all of them must come back.”
HOT CEO Tal Granot added: “We Will Dance Again” is an important tool for telling Israel’s story to the world and a historic document, but it is also a portrait of Israeli society. Before it became a film that reached tens of millions worldwide and showed them the truth, it was first and foremost a film that touched every home in Israel. For me, it most clearly expresses our mission—to be the home of Israeli creativity.”
The President praised the filmmakers, led by director Yariv Mozer, for their “sacred work” in documenting the events through footage from survivors, rescuers, and Hamas terrorists themselves. He emphasized that the horrors of October 7 continue daily in Hamas tunnels, where hostages are subjected to “unimaginable cruelty,” and called on the international community to “use every tool at its disposal to bring them home.”
The documentary, a collaboration between Israel’s HOT, SIPUR, and Sloatzky Productions, with the BBC and Paramount+, has been recognized worldwide for its unflinching portrayal of the Nova festival massacre. Its Emmy Award was dedicated to the return of the hostages.