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Palestinian Authority Says Hamas Is Stealing Aid Meant for Gaza Civilians
Pro-Hamas protesters outside the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, Illinois on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Photo: Ron Sachs via Reuters Connect
While Israel continues to let humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, members of the terror organization Hamas continue to steal the aid in order to both resupply for their terror war, and to sell it at exorbitant prices to civilians in need.
Official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV in the Gaza Strip reported that the aid convoys are being “robbed” by “the merchants of war,” who then “sell it in the market at very high prices”:
Official PA TV reporter in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza: “Many aid convoys are suffering from acts of piracy. There are robbers armed with firearms who steal the aid before it reaches the needy, and they take control of it …
The merchants of war [i.e., Hamas] are taking the aid and selling it in the market at very high prices, even though it is written on them that they are aid supplies not designated for sale.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Sept. 18, 2024]
In July, the Palestinian Authority celebrated its unity deal with Hamas — a dream come true for the PA. But at the same time, the PA is frustrated with its “partner.”
Throughout Hamas’ war against Israel, the PA has on the one hand wooed Hamas for partnership and applauded the terror organization for its massacre and murder of approximately 1,2000 people on Oct. 7, 2023. But the PA has also criticized Hamas for looking out for its own and Iran’s interests, thereby ignoring the welfare of Gazan civilians, as Palestinian Media Watch has documented.
And despite the unity deal, the PA’s frustration has continued.
When Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed and Hamas appointed Yahya Al-Sinwar as its new Political Bureau chairman, an editorial in the official PA daily strongly criticized Al-Sinwar and Hamas for only having their own interests at heart and not “the Gaza Strip with its residents, homes, structures, streets, schools, and hospitals”:
Apparently the structural skeleton of the Hamas Movement is immeasurably more important than the structural skeleton of the Gaza Strip with its residents, homes, structures, streets, schools, and hospitals.
This was revealed in the Islamic Jihad Movement’s congratulations to Hamas on selecting Yahya Al-Sinwar as its Political Bureau chairman. The congratulations described this selection as “a strong message to the Zionist enemy,’” and it said that “Hamas is still strong and united,” and that “the enemy has not harmed its structural skeleton one bit”!
…
Hamas does not intend to locate itself outside of the tunnels. It will continue to hold onto ‘the [Al-Aqsa] Flood’ ]Hamas’ name for its terror war against Israel] as its central decision …
Let us be clearer and more honest — and this is in Allah’s hands — which of the two is more important: The people’s structural skeleton, their status, their infrastructures, their life paths, or the [political] party’s structural skeleton? …
What is the resistance’s [Hamas’] criterion of an achievement — that its structural skeleton will be whole and intact, while the structural skeleton of its public is crushed?” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida website, Aug. 8, 2024]
Likewise, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash has accused Hamas of being selfish, having launched the 2023 Gaza war “to make gains for Hamas and Hamas’ allies”:
Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “I have no doubt and I have had no doubt that these goals that were declared [by Hamas] are not the real goals behind the war, and they are not the real goals behind what Hamas carried out on Oct. 7, [2023]
Everyone knows what the real goals are, including us, including the Arab states that knew the real goals. The real goals were to make gains for Hamas and Hamas’ allies.” [emphasis added]
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, July 17, 2024]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
The post Palestinian Authority Says Hamas Is Stealing Aid Meant for Gaza Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.