• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 6 hours ago

An Israeli limited drama series depicting the terror of October 7, 2023 brings home the horror of that day and serves as a stark reminder of the brutality that ignited a war in Gaza.

This stunning, four-part series drops in its entirety on Paramount+ today, the second anniversary of the attacks by a heavily armed force estimated at 6,000 who crossed the border between Gaza and Israel with the intention of killing Israeli civilians. 

They killed 1,195 of them, most unarmed and going about their daily lives.

As the series begins, we meet a few of them. But the show does not linger on them very long before the attacks commence and quickly close in on neighborhoods and kibbutzim across southern Israel.

In extreme closeup, we share the terror of Israeli parents and their crying, frightened children as they huddle in basements or worse, stand shocked and dumbfounded inside their defenseless homes staring out their windows as terrorists roam their streets and come nearer and nearer.

At a music festival in the desert attended by hundreds of young people, we watch as the festivities are abruptly ended and participants are directed to pile into any available cars to escape farther south. But many are left behind and eventually, 364 of them would be killed.

“This program is based on actual events that occurred in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and the lived experiences of those who survived,” says a statement shown onscreen at the outset of Episode One. 

“Some names have been changed, and some scenes imagined,” it says. But when watching “Red Alert,” you get the feeling that the series’ re-creations of the violence and terror inflicted upon the region’s civilian population -- literally, the very goal of terrorism -- are not at all exaggerated.

The action feels so real that the series might be difficult for some to watch. But that’s the point. Watching this kind of horror should be difficult, and the filmmakers made it that way on purpose.

“I’ve been fortunate to produce films that resonated with audiences worldwide, but ‘Red Alert’ is deeply personal,” says executive producer Lawrence Bender. “It tells the story of my own people and of a day that changed everything.”

“What makes it so powerful is that it isn’t just drama,” Bender says. “It’s real. At a time when some are questioning or forgetting what happened, it felt vital to capture the truth with authenticity and cinematic power.”

Adds Avi Nir, another of the show’s executive producers: “It is vital that the world bears witness to that horrific day -- a day that has yet to end for so many of us. 

“It is vital that we and the world come to know the people who became reluctant heroes in the face of horror and loss,” said Nir, whose Keshet Media Group produced the series.

In a prepared statement, Nir credited and thanked David Ellison -- whose company, Skydance, recently took over Paramount -- with supporting and committing to the project and for giving it a platform in the U.S.

“This critical series cinematically captures the horrific terrorism that stunned the world on October 7 with harrowing precision, and inspires with these true-life stories of heroism and heartbreak,” Ellison said in a prepared statement.

“Red Alert” is a work of very high cinematic quality, but even more than that, it is an important document of real-life events that still reverberate around the world.

“Red Alert” starts streaming on Tuesday, October 7, on Paramount+ -- in Hebrew with English subtitles.