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Palestinian Authority Leaders Deny October 7 Massacre Took Place
The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas gunmen from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Photo: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun
Two months after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the murders, beheadings, and rapes — which Hamas terrorists themselves documented with body cameras and broadcast on social media — Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are denying this took place.
In addition to denying the massacre as “stories and tales spun from the imagination” — some officials even accuse Israel of murdering and committing atrocities against its own citizens.
Qadura Fares, the director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs with the rank of minister. has stated that Israel’s response to eradicate Hamas’ terror infrastructure in Gaza is “based on a lie,” and that Israelis “killed their civilians” on Oct. 7:
Qadura Fares: “This whole [Israeli] outcry and this whole campaign against the Palestinian people is based on a lie, which it took Israel 24 hours to create and formulate properly. They killed their [own] civilians [on Oct. 7], and they committed all these crimes and burned the bodies, and they made up this story and said: ‘They [the Palestinians] raped, killed, and burned.’ …However, this narrative fell apart quickly … Israel’s lie is no longer tripping anyone up.”
[Official PA TV, Nov. 20, 2023]
Right from the beginning the PA denied the atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel, claiming beheaded babies and rape were Israel’s “narrative,” “fabrications,” and “stories and tales spun from the imagination”:
Official PA TV reporter: “From the first day of the [Israeli] attack, some Western media outlets deliberately took action to side with Israel and adopt the occupation’s narrative by broadcasting fabricated pictures and video clips, which tell stories and tales spun from the imagination that there are Israeli babies who were beheaded, and others about cases of rape and burning among captured women.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Oct. 31, 2023]
Despite the abundance of documentation of Hamas’ atrocities, two months later PLO official and Secretary-General of the terror organization Palestine Liberation Front Wasel Abu Yusuf still denies “murder of children” and “rape of women” as “tendentious Israeli propaganda”:
PLO Executive Committee member and PLF Secretary-General Wasel Abu Yusuf: “Since Oct. 7 there has been a Zionist version that [Israel] has attempted to spread worldwide out of tendentious propaganda, [claiming] that there was murder of children, rape of women, crimes, and the like.”
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Dec. 3, 2023]
Palestinian Media Watch already exposed that the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a similar libel, claiming it was Israeli army helicopters that intentionally bombed young Israelis at the music festival and destroyed the “settlements” in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Another PA official, who has been very vocal about his and the PA’s support for Hamas and its war against Israel is PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash. After two months and a wealth of documentation of Hamas’ brutality against Israeli victims on Oct. 7, he too claims that it is all “lies, falsehoods, and fabrications”:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “They [the Israelis] have spread lies, falsehoods, and fabrications regarding what happened on Oct. 7, and therefore the world turned against the Palestinians.”
[Facebook page, Dec. 5, 2023]
Al-Habbash has also referred to facts about Oct. 7 as “the narrative that Israel was a victim on Oct. 7 to aggression, to an attack” — claiming this was “an incorrect picture” and that the world had fallen “victim to Israeli deceit and deceit by the lobbies that support Israel in the world.” [Al-Habbash’s Facebook page, Nov. 27, 2023]
Four days after the terror attack, Hamas itself claimed it was “not targeting children” and that Western media had spread “fabricated claims” and “adopted the Zionist version” — despite Hamas terrorists’ own published footage of the atrocities committed.
Hamas even pretended that the numerous civilian victims were “Zionist military and security establishment” and therefore “legitimate targets”:
“The Hamas Movement firmly emphasized ‘the falsehood of the fabricated claims being spread by a number of Western media outlets.’
[Hamas] said that the Western media outlets ‘are unprofessionally adopting the Zionist version that is full of fabrications and lies against our Palestinian people and its resistance, the latest of which was the claim of murdering children, beheading them, and targeting civilians…
Hamas emphasized that the Palestinian resistance and the [Izz A-Din] Al-Qassam Brigades [i.e., Hamas’ military wing] took action against the Zionist military and security establishment in ‘the Al-Aqsa Flood’ battle [Hamas’ name for its terror war against Israel], and that these are legitimate targets. It also said that at the same time they made efforts to avoid [harming] civilians, and many videos from the ground are witness to this, and many settlers [sic.] spoke about this in filmed testimonies in the media outlets.”
[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, Oct. 11, 2023]
A different but equally outrageous accusation regarding Israel’s treatment of the invading terrorist murderers was voiced by a Palestinian NGO that claims to defend human rights, which is designated in Israel as a terror organization due to its ties to the PFLP. Al-Haq accused Israel of “summarily executing” the Oct. 7 terrorists, murderers, rapists, and kidnappers.
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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