RSS
Palestinian Authority Says Hamas Is ‘Holding More than Two Million Palestinians Hostage’
A Palestinian Hamas terrorist shakes hands with a child as they stand guard as people gather on the day of the handover of Israeli hostages, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has never condemned the October 7 atrocities, and it even continues to defend them as “legitimate resistance.”
To be clear, any disapproval of Hamas by the PA is not about expressing criticism over the Israelis who were murdered, raped, tortured, and kidnapped on October 7. It has only to do with internal competition for favor among the Palestinian population, as Hamas has grown tremendously in popularity since October 7.
That is why the PA is currently lashing out at Hamas for continuing to fight at the expense of Palestinian civilians.
Through an article in its official daily, the PA complained that Hamas is using the Gazan civilian population as “human shields” and “holding more than 2 million Palestinians hostage.”
The headline of the article called on Hamas politicians to “close the gates of hell”:
Headline: “O Hamas politicians, close the gates of hell with rationality”
“None of us demands obedience and submission, as claimed by the Hamas politicians, but only a bit of rationality, realism, and an abandonment of the irresponsible behavior.
This is because our people in the Gaza Strip is paying the price of the hopeless behavior of the Hamas politicians, their political ignorance, and the lack of courage to make the most appropriate decision to stop the destruction campaign.
In reality, they are holding more than two million Palestinian residents hostage and using them as human shields to preserve their organization.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 20, 2025]
Also in an editorial, the PA accused Hamas of being trapped in an “illusion,” imagining that they are going to “safely” end the war and return to power through the Israeli hostages:
Over 50,000 female and male Martyrs [unverified casualty figures from Hamas and the PA] have not convinced Hamas to act wisely and escape the illusion that has overtaken it and still makes it imagine that the Israeli hostages in its possession are the way for its safe exit from this war and its return to the throne of power in the Gaza Strip!”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 19, 2025]
Moreover, the editorial expressed the opinion that Hamas can’t be part of the political plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip:
[We should be] demanding from Hamas that the Gaza Strip be out of its political plan, and that it not remain part of its ideology and project … In short, there is no reconstruction with Hamas.
Former General Political Commissioner of the PLO Political and National Guidance Authority Adnan Al-Damiri criticized Hamas along the same lines, calling for Allah to take revenge not only on Israel but also on Hamas who “with their stupidity and adventures” have destroyed the Gaza Strip:
Hamas presents the residents of the Gaza Strip with an alleged victory even before the liberation of Rafah, Jabaliya, Gaza, and Khan Yunis from the occupation [i.e., Israel], at a time when the people is uprooted and homeless in tents.
Your gift has been returned to you. Delight in the illusion that you have created with the blood of the children of Gaza. You presented your alleged victory to Iran and its leaders before the people of Gaza, and it did not benefit them at all …
O Allah, take revenge on those who oppressed Gaza, destroyed it, orphaned its children, widowed its women, and destroyed its homes with their weapons [i.e., Israel] or with their stupidity and adventures [i.e., Hamas].” [emphasis added]
[Adnan Al-Damiri, Facebook page, March 13, 2025]
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 ‘Holding More than Two Million Palestinians Hostage’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
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.
RSS
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.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
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.