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Can a Mother Pray for Her Son to Die as a Martyr? Palestinians Can

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visiting the West Bank city of Jenin. Photo: Reuters/Mohamad Torokman

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is incredibly effective at brainwashing people across the generational spectrum to believe that achieving martyrdom, i.e., dying for Allah, is of supreme value.

Official Palestinian TV broadcasts this messaging regularly, making it difficult to miss. On the Moons of Palestine program, which focuses on promoting martyrdom, Hussein Fawaqa reminisced about how his terrorist brother, Muhammad, would tell his mother from a young age that she would miss him after he dies as a Martyr:

Hussein Fawaqa, brother of terrorist Muhammad Fawaqa: “Praise Allah’s name, He chose [Muhammad Fawaqa], and He chose a path for him that everyone wishes for but not everyone achieves. Ever since he was little he always would talk about Martyrdom: ‘I will die as a Martyr and you will miss me’… He wished for it and he achieved it…”

[Official PA TV, Moons of Palestine, April 9, 2024]

Fawaqa’s mother not only expressed pride about her son’s desires but prayed that her son’s request to die as a martyr would be granted:

“Um Hussein,” mother of terrorist Muhammad Fawaqa: “He would always tell me: ‘I want to be a Martyr, pray for me, mom, that I will die as a Martyr.’ I would tell him: ‘You’re making a precious request of me’; the truth is I prayed for him [that he be granted Martyrdom].” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Moons of Palestine, April 9, 2024]

Muhammad Fawaqa is a 21-year-old Palestinian terrorist who was killed while participating in violent confrontations with Israeli forces north of Ramallah on Oct. 18, 2023.

And Muhammad Fawaqa’s mother is not the only mother openly declaring how she wanted her son to die.

Uday Al-Zayyat’s mother also told Moons of Palestine about how she wanted her son to be a Martyr and that all the little children of the neighborhood want to become Martyrs as well, just like her son:

Mother of terrorist Uday Al-Zayyat “Abu Saqr”: “I told him: ‘Get married, let me hold your child.’ He said: ‘Allah willing, in Paradise’. I thought he was just saying that, and every time I said: ‘Get married,’ he would say: ‘In Paradise.’ … I congratulate him on the Martyrdom he achieved…

He would say: ‘Mom, don’t be sad, our paths are the paths of Martyrdom.’ …He only thought about the situation and the occupation [i.e., Israel] …

Ask the children of the neighborhood: ‘What do you want to be?’ [They say:] ‘Like [Uday] “Abu Saqr.”’ I ask: ‘What does that mean, like “Abu Saqr”?’ They are little and say: ‘He fought and went to Paradise, and we will fight and go to Paradise.’ … ‘I want my son to be a Martyr, this is [a source of] pride for Palestine and for me.’” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Moons of Palestine, March 19, 2024]

Uday Al-Zayyat “Abu Saqr” is a Palestinian terrorist and co-founder of a local terror cell who was killed together with five other terrorists in an Israeli drone strike in the Tulkarem refugee camp on Nov. 22, 2023.

On yet another episode of Moons of Palestine, Yanal Samhan, the granddaughter of terrorist Jihad Al-Abd Rushd Samhan, demonstrated how this ideal of Martyrdom gets spread across the generations:

I’m very happy that he’s my grandfather. I’m very proud of him … I’m happy that Allah chose us to be the family of a Martyr …He was a great leader, a Jihad fighter, a self-sacrificing fighter…He really loved to see people doing Jihad for Allah. Given how he loved this matter and aspired to Martyrdom, Allah chose him.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Moons of Palestine, April 8, 2024]

Jihad Al-Abd Rushd Samhanis was a Palestinian terrorist, PA Preventive Security Forces member, and Fatah member who was arrested in 1988 and served 10 months in prison for his role as a terror leader in a wave of Palestinian violence and terror against Israel, in which approximately 200 Israelis were murdered (the first Intifada, 1987-1993). Samhan was arrested again in 1992 on charges of terror activity, but was released in 1994 in a prisoner exchange deal, and joined the PA Preventive Security Forces the same year. Samhan was killed on Sept. 26, 1996, while attacking Israeli soldiers during the Western Wall Tunnel Intifada.

As if sacrificing one child on the altar of martyrdom were not enough, one father also prayed that his second son would become a Martyr as well.

In an interview on official PA TV, Yasser As’ous shared how he stood over the grave of one of his sons who had already been killed while shooting at Israeli soldiers and prayed that his other son, who was injured at the time, should die as a Martyr rather than recuperate.

Yasser As’ous: “The second [child], Allah willing, Allah will grant him Martyrdom. Allah willing, now before I leave [the cemetery], Allah will inform me that he became a Martyr. Praise Allah Master of the Universe, our God chose them.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Facebook page, Jan. 8, 2024]

Hazza Darwish, Rami Darwish, Ahmed Darwish, Alaa Darwish, Rizq Suleiman, Muhammad As’ous, and Wadi’ As’ous are Palestinian terrorists who shot and threw explosives at Israeli forces conducting a counter-terror operation in the Jenin refugee camp on Jan. 7, 2024. The terrorists were killed in an Israeli airstrike, thereby ending their attack. During the confrontations, Israeli border policewoman Shay Germay, 19, was killed and three other border police officers were wounded by an explosive.

The PA through all its outlets indoctrinates its population, especially its children, to die as Martyrs.

This has not changed ever since Palestinian Media Watch wrote in the The Jerusalem Post about the PA’s child soldier strategy. It has not changed ever since former Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) coined it “civilization abuse.” And it has not changed now with the PA’s supposed “revitalization.”

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.

The post Can a Mother Pray for Her Son to Die as a Martyr? Palestinians Can first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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French Jewish Students Forcibly Removed From Spanish Plane After Singing in Hebrew, Camp Director Arrested

A Vueling aircraft approaches landing at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, as Vueling employees prepare for strike, in Barcelona, Spain, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce

A group of 50 French Jewish students was forcibly removed from a plane in Valencia, Spain on Wednesday evening — reportedly for singing in Hebrew — in an incident that led to the arrest of their summer camp director.

The children, aged 10 to 15, are members of the Kineret Club — a summer camp for Jewish families run by the Matana charitable association — which had just concluded their trip in the coastal resort town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, between Valencia and Barcelona.

According to local reports, the children were singing in Hebrew while boarding the plane to return home, which prompted a hostile response from the crew.

Witnesses say the group then stopped singing and quietly followed boarding instructions, but airport police still intervened and ordered them to disembark.

As the incident quickly escalated, the camp director was arrested after refusing to hand over the children’s cell phones when requested by staff.

Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, condemned the incident in a post on X, accusing the airline of antisemitism and calling for a thorough investigation.

“In line with Hamas’s campaign of lies echoed by Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and others, we are seeing numerous severe antisemitic incidents recently; this is one of the most serious,” the Israeli official said.

However, the Spanish low-cost airline Vueling denied the allegations, insisting the incident was not related to religion but rather that the group was causing a disruption.

In a statement released on Thursday, the airline asserted that the group was removed because of its members’ “highly combative attitude that was putting the safety of the flight at risk.”

Vueling claimed that the group “mishandled emergency equipment and actively disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration,” ignoring “multiple warnings,” which prompted the crew to call airport police.

Other passengers on the plane who witnessed the incident reported that staff made antisemitic remarks toward the group, including one employee who allegedly referred to Israel as a “terrorist state.”

The Kineret Club announced it is taking legal action against the airline over what it called a “purely antisemitic act.” The organization also confirmed that the children are safe in a hotel and scheduled to return home tomorrow.

The World Jewish Congress condemned the incident in a post on X, urging authorities to take swift action.

“Singing in Hebrew is not illegal. Existing as a group of Jewish people together is not illegal. This needs to be taken seriously,” the statement read.

This latest incident comes amid a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes in Spain, where Israelis have faced harassment, intimidation, and even assault following the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Spain has also been one of the harshest critics of the Jewish state since the start of the war in Gaza, mounting a sustained effort against Israel in international forums.

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Spain halted arms shipments from its own defense companies to Israel and launched a diplomatic campaign to curb the country’s military response.

At the same time, several Spanish ministers in the country’s left-wing coalition government issued pro-Hamas statements and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with some falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”

More recently, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the European Union to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Last year, Spain officially recognized a Palestinian state, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the time, Israeli officials condemned the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”

The post French Jewish Students Forcibly Removed From Spanish Plane After Singing in Hebrew, Camp Director Arrested first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israel Denies Gaza ‘Famine’ Claims, Condemns Failed UN Food Distribution Efforts

Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri

Israel has rejected claims that its military policies have triggered a famine in Gaza, describing such accusations as inaccurate, politically driven, and detached from reality.

The Israeli government has facilitated the entry of hundreds of aid trucks into Gaza, officials said this week, condemning international aid agencies for their alleged failure to distribute supplies. One senior security official told reporters on Tuesday that there is no famine in Gaza, pointing to over 950 truckloads of food, water, and medical supplies that are currently stalled at border crossings such as Kerem Shalom.

“We know the calorie value of each truck that enters, and how many people it is enough for,” the official said according to The Times of Israel.

Israel has assigned responsibility to the UN for logistical failures which may have caused a breakdown in aid distribution within Gaza.

According to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military and Defense Ministry body responsible for coordinating aid deliveries to Gaza, said the stockpiled aid in the enclave could sustain the population for over two weeks if properly distributed.

“The bottleneck isn’t on our side,” the official said. “The aid is there. It’s the UN and its partners who aren’t moving it.”

The official added, “We have not identified starvation at this current point in time, but we understand that action is required to stabilize the humanitarian situation.”

Israel has argued that false claims of mass starvation are being amplified by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and international humanitarian organizations to manipulate global opinion. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims, without evidence, that more than 100 people have died from malnutrition in the beleaguered enclave. Israeli officials emphasize that these figures are unverified and may be inflated for propaganda purposes.

Western-backed attempts to bypass Hamas, such as the US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), have served Palestinians in Gaza over the past few months. However, tragic incidents, including tramplings and occasional gunfire, have killed hundreds of Palestinians attempting to obtain aid at one of GHF’s four distribution sites. Hamas has accused Israel of shooting Palestinian civilians at aid distribution sites. Israel has denied these unverified claims.

The GFH has called on the UN to publicly condemn the killing of aid workers in Gaza by Hamas and to collaborate in order to provide relief to the enclave’s population, accusing the UN of perpetuating a “vast disinformation campaign” aimed at tarnishing the US- and Israel-backed foundation’s image.

Despite the difficulties, the program is seen by Israeli and US officials as a more accountable and secure system than aid distributed through traditional UN agencies, which Israeli investigations have revealed as hotbeds of corruption and infiltration by Hamas operatives.

Nonetheless, international pressure is building on Israel to ramp up aid distribution. However, Israel argues that the international community fails to account for Hamas’s tactics, including documented cases of aid theft and interference with humanitarian workers.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) published footage showing five Hamas fighters smiling while eating an assortment of fruits and rice, casting doubt over allegations of a famine in the Gaza Strip. The IDF also released additional recordings from Gaza showing thousands of aid pallets waiting for UN distribution.

“Israel is not preventing the entry of aid trucks or humanitarian shipment into the Gaza. The aid is already across the fence inside the Gaza Strip, ready for distribution, but the UN chooses to slander Israel instead of delivering the food, which now sits idle and rotting,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The post Israel Denies Gaza ‘Famine’ Claims, Condemns Failed UN Food Distribution Efforts first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hungary Bans Anti-Israel Irish Band Kneecap for Three Years Citing National Security Concerns

Members of Kneecap pose on the red carpet at the Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) Awards in Dublin, Ireland, Feb. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Hungary has banned members of the Irish rap trio Kneecap from entering the country for three years ahead of their scheduled performance at a major music festival, due to national security concerns surrounding what critics have decried as the band’s antisemitic hate speech and their alleged support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Belfast-based band is scheduled to perform on the closing day of the Sziget Festival in Budapest on Aug. 11. Kneecap has stirred controversy recently for a series of anti-Israel comments and a band member’s alleged support for Hamas and Hezbollah, which are proscribed terrorist organizations in the United Kingdom and United States. Kneecap has denied support for both Iran-backed Islamist terror groups.

Hungary’s immigration authority, the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing, announced in a Hungarian-language degree on Thursday that Kneecap members Naoise Ó Cairealláin, J.J. Ó Dochartaigh, and Liam Óg ÓhAnnaidh are banned from entering Hungary for three years because their “entry and stay constitute a serious threat to national security.”

Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary’s secretary of state for international communications, further explained in an English-language social media post on Thursday that Kneecap cannot enter Hungarian territory due to their history supporting “antisemitism and glorifying terror.” Kovacs added, “Granting them a stage normalizes hate and terror, and puts democratic values on the line.”

Kneecap’s members “repeatedly engage in antisemitic hate speech supporting terrorism and terrorist groups” and Hungary “has zero tolerance for antisemitism in any form,” he continued. “Their planned performance posed a national security threat, and for this reason, the group has been formally banned from Hungary for three years. If they enter, expulsion will follow under international norms.”

Hungarian authorities — including Hungary’s Minister for European Affairs János Bóka – members of Hungary’s music industry, and others have been pressuring organizers of the Sziget Festival for some time to cancel the band’s performance because of their comments and behavior, characterizing them as antisemitic. Sziget Festival organizers said in a statement they think the decision to ban Kneecap from Hungary is “unnecessary and regrettable” and may “not only damage the reputation of Sziget, but also negatively affect Hungary’s standing worldwide.”

“Sziget Festival’s values mean we condemn hate speech, while guaranteeing the fundamental right to artistic freedom of expression for every performer,” they added. “Cancel culture and cultural boycotts are not the solution.”

Since Kneecap displayed anti-Israel messaging on stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California in April, two major music festivals in Germany canceled the band’s performances, and their performances were also canceled at the Eden Project concert series and the TRNSMT festival – both in the UK. Kneecap was further dropped from its US booking agency, and television personality Sharon Osbourne called for their US visas to be revoked.

The Hungarian government has been a vocal supporter of Israel in recent months, going against much of the rest of Europe, which has grown increasingly critical of the Jewish state over its military campaign against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

In April, Hungary’s parliament approved the country’s decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) because of its “political” stance against Israel and the Jewish state’s military actions during its war against Hamas terrorists in the enclave responsible for the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The post Hungary Bans Anti-Israel Irish Band Kneecap for Three Years Citing National Security Concerns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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