Alon Penzel is an Israeli author, speaker, and former IDF spokesperson. He served as a spokesperson for the foreign press in COGAT — the unit that coordinates civilian and humanitarian affairs in the territories. 

After October 7, 2023, as the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, he decided the atrocities could not be allowed to disappear into denial and distortion. He interviewed more than sixty people — ZAKA volunteers, forensic doctors, Nova festival survivors — and compiled their accounts into the book Testimonies Without Boundaries: Israel, October 7th, 2023. 
It is raw, unfiltered, and deliberately hard to read. That was the point.

The book has been translated into several languages, quoted in parliaments, displayed in Times Square, and endorsed by Sheryl Sandberg. Alon has spoken at the UK House of Lords, on campuses across Europe and North America, and to journalists and diplomats who still struggle to look directly at what happened that day.

Buy his book here: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Testimonies-Without-Boundaries-Israel-October/dp/B0FQHVVP14/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0⁠

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Alon Penzel
02:52 October 7th
06:05 Documenting testimonies
08:52 Emotional impact
11:46 Global response
15:08 Protests 
17:55 The younger generation 
20:51 Creativity in acts of terror
34:56 Instructions and methods
38:45 Hamas’ strategies and military operations
42:31 Humanitarian aspects
46:45 Moral dilemmas and operational decisions
50:58 Hamas’ ideology
56:34 Israel’s legitimacy
01:01:39 The future