Boris Johnson has said an exhibition showing the horrors of the October 7 attacks is ‘the bucket of cold water people need’ – as he reiterated his support for Israel.
The former prime minister visited the Nova Exhibition on Tuesday, a memorial set up in Shoreditch to the 413 people killed by Hamas terrorists at the festival in 2023.
He called for people to visit the display as a ‘dose of reality’ and to understand what ‘really happened’ on October 7.
Mr Johnson also criticised Andy Burnham‘s pledge to impose sanctions on those ‘involved in the violence on Gaza’ and to implement ‘measures to ban trade in goods with illegal settlements’.
Speaking to the Daily Mail at the exhibition, Mr Johnson also paid tribute to Ann Widdecombe following her alleged murder last week at her home in Devon.
He said that the former prisons minister was a ‘great platform speaker’ who had ‘Tory audiences in the absolute palm of her hand’.
The October 7 attacks by Hamas-led militants killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 others taken hostage.
Boris Johnson has said an exhibition showing the horrors of the October 7 attacks is ‘the bucket of cold water people need’ – as he reiterated his support for Israel
The former prime minister visited the Nova Exhibition on Tuesday, a memorial set up in Shoreditch to the 413 people killed by Hamas terrorists at the festival in 2023
One of the exhibits is a burnt out car from the festival in 2023
Israel’s attacks have since killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, half of which are women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Specifically, the Nova Exhibition – which has travelled around the world – is set up to commemorate Nova Festival goers who were killed in the October 7 attack.
Mr Johnson told the Mail: ‘People need to understand that the people who committed these massacres were motivated by an absolutely nihilistic ideology, that hates equality between sexes and hates the idea of people having fun at a music festival.
‘Hamas are Islamists – how can we support that?
‘How can nice, clever, sensible, young students in Britain, let alone the dons effectively support this ideology by backing them against Israel.’
He added: ‘What’s so odious about what Hamas did was that they knew by committing these atrocities, on that scale, being quite so barbarous.
‘The cruelty they elicited was enormous. They knew that by doing that they could trigger a violent response as well.
‘And then they could ratchet up their claim to martyrdom and the rest of it.’
The former prime minister criticised students joining pro-Palestine demonstrations and chanting ‘from the river to the sea’.
He said: ‘All these students out on the streets, saying from the river to the sea. Then what are they doing in the evening?
Mr Johnson speaks to people at the exhibition in Shoreditch on Tuesday
Rows upon rows of discarded shoes, trainers and sandals meanwhile are reminiscent of a scene from Auschwitz
‘They’re going off to discos exactly like the Nova Festival. They’re taking their clothes off.
‘They’re having fun. They’re expressing themselves in a way that Hamas finds repulsive, right?’
He also called anti-Semitism a ‘virus’ which hides ‘beneath the floorboards’ and is currently out in the open.
Singer Boy George and actor Martin Freeman were also looking around the Nova exhibition on Tuesday afternoon.
The display has run for six weeks in Shoreditch and visitors can experience the timeline of terror that took place at Nova.
Burned out cars, toilet cubicles riddled with bullet holes and abandoned camping gear are among the personal possessions, hairbrushes and half-eaten food items left behind by those who fled for their lives – and those that never returned.
Rows upon rows of discarded shoes, trainers and sandals meanwhile are reminiscent of a scene from Auschwitz inside a room filled with memorial candles and photographs of the young lives taken that day.
More than 40,000 people have visited the exhibition, including Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and senior government figures including Wes Streeting, David Lammy, and Angela Rayner.
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