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How the Palestinian Authority Denied the October 7 Massacre
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s lies have launched a worldwide phenomenon of denial of the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas.
The PA started this false narrative immediately after October 7, even though Hamas had proudly filmed its actions for the whole world to witness. Since then, the PA’s messaging has become progressively more extreme in its denial of the accusations, appropriation of victimhood, and libel of Israel as having made up the whole story. It has thus set the tone and talking points for Israel haters around the world.
These have been the components of the PA’s lie and libel:
PA denied evidence and accused Israel of lying
PA claimed that Israel fabricated and falsified evidence
PA blamed Israel for the deaths and atrocities
PA asserted that the hostages actually enjoyed the terror tunnels
Palestinians overall denied the atrocities, leading to world denial
PA denies evidence and accuses Israel of lying
The PA’s first step in its October 7 denial was to claim that there was “no evidence” and that Israel lied.
Palestinian reporter on Israeli affairs Ahed Farwaneh: “Israel achieved international support, and mainly American [support], through lies, because a number of the American channels reported on [Hamas] slaughtering Israeli children … At the start, these statements led to great support for the occupation state, especially in the US and the Western states, and we saw that even the European Union pressured the PA and attempted to stop the aid, but after the truth was revealed and it became clear that there is no evidence of what they (i.e., Israel) spoke about, and after the great damage that they inflicted on our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the picture began to slowly turn upside down.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Oct. 16, 2023]
PLO Executive Committee member and PLF Secretary-General Wasel Abu Yusuf: “Since Oct. 7, there has been a Zionist narrative 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.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Dec. 3, 2023]
PA libels Israel as a fabricator of evidence
The PA’s next step was to accuse Israel of “fabricating pictures and video clips”:
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]
Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor: “They [the Israelis] have spread lies, falsehoods, and fabrications regarding what happened on Oct. 7, and therefore the world turned against the Palestinians.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Dec. 5, 2023]
PA appropriates Israeli victimhood and says Israel committed the massacre
The PA then moved to libeling Israel as being the one to commit the massacre so that Israel could justify its war in Gaza.
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs with the rank of minister 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.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Nov. 20, 2023]
PA turns Israeli victims into “happy hostages”
The next step was to claim that the Israeli hostages, many of whose families were either partially or entirely wiped out, received “generous treatment” and left captivity “happy and laughing”:
Head of Radio and TV Department at Cairo University’s Faculty of Mass Communications Ashraf Jalal: “The generous treatment Palestine gave the Israeli prisoners caused an enormous positive response because after [the Israelis] lied and said that [Hamas] is abusing them, the [Israeli] people left [Gaza] happy and laughing … What is required is that we redirect the media spotlight to this issue.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, From Cairo, Feb. 12, 2024]
Result: Widespread Palestinian Oct. 7 denial
Consequently, when Palestinians were polled about whether they believed that Hamas committed atrocities on October 7, they were in complete denial as well. Only 9% of them think that Hamas committed war crimes, according to a poll by PSR.
In turn, the PA lies are now being echoed by Israel-haters worldwide, who adopt, embrace, and disseminate them so the uninformed public will deny the Palestinian atrocities as well. The Washington Post published an article on January 21, 2024, describing this phenomenon
. A prominent recent example is Roger Waters, who on Piers Morgan Uncensored eagerly parroted the PA’s claims that Palestinian terrorists did not rape Israeli women:
Roger Waters: “And wouldn’t it be great if we could have an actual real investigation…debunking all the filthy, disgusting lies that the Israelis told after October the 7th…about burning babies and women being raped which were all completely…”
Piers Morgan: “Actually, women were raped.”
Waters: “No they weren’t!”
Piers Morgan: “Yes, they were.”
Waters: “Well, there’s no evidence! You can say anything you want, but there’s no evidence. There is no evidence!”
[Piers Morgan Uncensored, July 2, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch has reported extensively on how the Palestinian Authority consciously and maliciously attempts to rewrite ancient history. Now, we are seeing the PA’s rewriting of history as it is occurring.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
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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.
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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.
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