By Ariel Grossman, NoCamels -
On October 7, Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip struck homes and communities in the south of Israel, murdering over 1,400 people and dragging hundreds of civilians – including women, children and the elderly – into the coastal enclave as hostages.
A new website is using artificial intelligence to collect, document and share the traumatic and heartbreaking testimonies of the survivors of the massacre to ensure that what happened to them and their loved ones is never forgotten.
The Iron Lions website, developed by Israeli startup AI21 Labs, uses the company’s AI writing assistant tool to not only translate the testimonies from Hebrew into English, but preserve the tone and tenor of the original narrative, something that is often lost in translation.
For while thousands survived the brutal attacks, as Israeli troops ready to enter the next phase of the war and battle Hamas in Gaza, they fear the world’s focus is beginning to turn from them and what they endured.
Tehila Afota, Strategic Communications Manager at AI21 Labs, tells NoCamels that the startup has altered its Wordtune writing tool, which is normally used to rewrite text or personalize writing with a joke or a statistical fact, in order to record the memories of the survivors.
“We made tailored improvements and customizations specifically for the translation of October 7 testimonies, in order to deliver the correct and contextualized meanings, such as military terms and kibbutz names,” says Afota.
The website has already received hundreds of first-hand testimonies, ranging from accounts of the massacre of 260 people at the Nova music festival, to stories from survivors recounting their last interactions with loved ones who were killed or taken hostage.
“The website serves as a comprehensive platform for collecting, documenting, and sharing the testimonies of October 7 victims,” Afota says.
Each testimony is reviewed and verified by startup staff and volunteers before it is published on the Iron Lions website.
‘I turned my head and saw everything’
One testimony relates what happened to Adi Neve, who attended the Nova festival with her husband Itzik and narrowly escaped death at the hands of Hamas terrorists. She and her husband lay in a bush for four hours, pretending to be dead, until IDF forces arrived to rescue them.
“I turned my head to the road and saw everything,” she says in her testimony. “Three girls were kidnapped, put in vans, and one on a motorcycle.
“I saw how they made sure to kill people in cars, how they burned cars, cars with people inside,” she continues. “A teenager who looked like a little boy kept shooting with an Uzi machine gun at everyone who was fleeing.”
Nikita Somrov, a survivor from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, relates the terror of barricading himself with his wife and his four-year old son Aviv in their safe room for nearly 12 hours as terrorists stormed his community.
“Messages in the kibbutz WhatsApp group starting coming one after the other: I hear screams in Arabic outside my window; someone is trying to open my door; I have terrorists inside my house; please send soldiers asap; please they have been here for 10 minutes and are trying to break into our safe room; send help, save us please!!!”
He adds: “My wife and I took turns guarding the door handle by holding it up, knowing that this was our last line of defense. We tried to keep our kid entertained as much as we could so he wouldn’t sense our fear.”
Iron Lions website has made it easy to share a snapshot of such testimonies on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook.
These snapshots include a single, powerful statement from each story, as well as the name of the person and whether they were at one of the communities close to the Gaza border or at the Nova music festival in Re’im.
The testimonies are being publicized not only by individuals who want to increase awareness of the attacks, but also by public bodies and organizations.
Testimonies have already been shared by the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, and StandWithUs, a high-profile Israeli nonprofit that educates people about the country and combats antisemitism, hate and misinformation.
AI21 Labs is asking more survivors to submit testimonies to Iron Lions, in order to help the families of the kidnapped procure evidence for future international war crimes investigations and lawsuits under judicial bodies like the International Court of Justice in Hague.
The startup also aims to translate the testimonies into more languages, including Spanish and French, to reach a wider international audience.
“As an Israeli-established company, we feel it’s imperative to contribute our technology to encourage the world to take action,” says Afota.
“So that these crimes against humanity do not go unrecognized.”
