Connect with us

RSS

Gaza Border Residents Demand A Return Home, Four Months Into War

A damaged building lies in ruins, following an infiltration by Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel at a kibbutz in Kfar Aza, Israel, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Israelis from the Gaza Envelope are calling on the government to approve their return home, roughly four months since the war’s outbreak on October 7.

The head of the Scot Negev Regional Council, Tamir Idan, said outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, “We demand a clear statement from the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister that it is safe to return to the area. Until then we are not moving from here.”

The heads of the other regional councils in the Gaza area joined Idan outside the Prime Minister’s office, where they slept last night in protest.

The regional leaders say that members of the Gaza border towns should be allowed to return to the areas if they wish, rather than being forced to live in hotels. An internal plan is set to be presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in the near future.

The heads claim it is safe to return home, and are demanding that the government sign off on such a statement so residents can do so. Their protest comes as the government extended the funds allocated for their stay at hotels until July.

Following the October 7 massacre by Hamas terrorists, when they stormed southern Israel, murdering over 1,200 and taking hostage more than 240, tens of thousands of Israelis from the area were uprooted from their homes and placed in hotels in the Jerusalem area, Eilat, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea region. Since then, they have been living there full time, with makeshift schools set up for children and activities to keep everyone occupied. The move has also led local businesses to be completely shuttered.

Some Israelis have already moved back to their towns, which is technically allowed but under their own risk — rockets still fly near daily from Gaza and the IDF is operating within the Gaza Strip, which is minutes away from certain border towns.

The plan presented by the regional heads, they say, would mean that the towns are technically safe to return to, and therefore the risk falls under the government and the military.

This is as tens of thousands of Israelis from northern towns also remain out of their homes, with no current timeline for return due to the constant threat of Hezbollah missiles and the potential the war extends to the north.

The post Gaza Border Residents Demand A Return Home, Four Months Into War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

RSS

Palestinian Authority: Jews Should Go to America or Europe, and Gazans Should Flood Israel

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is trying to garner international support for an alternative to President Trump’s plan to relocate the Arabs of Gaza to countries “with humanitarian hearts.”

The PA has called Trump’s plan “satanic,” and instead wants the Jews to leave Israel to make room for the Gazans in Israel — the place that the PA calls Gazans’ rightful home.

Official PA TV suggested that the Jews should go back to Poland or Russia, as Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported last week.

A senior PA official, Jibril Rajoub, is now suggesting that Trump take the Jews to America:

Click to play

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “[US President Trump] is talking about expelling the original residents of Palestine and forgets that Israelis come from 76 countries, so let him take them to him.”

[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Feb. 15, 2025]

Rajoub also hopes for Fatah-Hamas unity to “besiege” Israel, “and those who stand behind the Jewish State, ” through “comprehensive popular resistance” — a term that also refers to the use of terrorism:

Jibril Rajoub: “We in the Fatah Movement support building bilateral rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas… so that our strategic option in the next stage will be comprehensive popular resistance and an organizational rapprochement that pertains to the PLO… What Netanyahu and Trump have said must constitute for us an incentive to achieve our unity and re-examine many political policies. I hope our brothers in Hamas will also understand that they need to do some self-inspection in a way that will allow building a future for our people and besiege this occupation (i.e., Israel) and those who stand behind it.”

The concept of Israel becoming Jew-free was also echoed in the PA’s official daily:

Instead of uprooting the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, why don’t you return the Israelis to the countries from which they came?’

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 7, 2025]

Senior PA officials, such as Mahmoud Abbas himself and his senior advisor, propose that Gazans flooding Israel would bring “comprehensive peace and real coexistence” and that “then there will be no problem”:

Click to play

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “If the Americans want a solution, the only place they [the refugees] need to return to is their cities and villages from which they were expelled during the Nakba [i.e., “the catastrophe,” the establishment of Israel] … He [US President Trump] who thinks he has the power to impose a new deal of the century or to exile our people and take control of any inch of our land is deceiving himself.”

[Official PA TV News, Feb. 15, 2025]

Click to play

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The solution is simple and easy: To return them to the cities and villages from which they were forcibly removed in 1948, then there will be no problem…”

[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, YouTube channel, Feb. 5, 2025]

Click to play

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “He should return them to the cities and villages from which they were expelled in 1948.”

[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, YouTube channel, Feb. 5, 2025]

PMW has reported numerous times that the Palestinian Authority does not recognize Israel’s right to exist within any borders. All of these statements by the PA leadership hoping for Israelis to leave and be replaced by so-called refugees reflect messages that the PA regularly broadcasts to its people and upon which it educates its children.

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 Palestinian Authority: Jews Should Go to America or Europe, and Gazans Should Flood Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

How Hamas Is Using Goebbels’ Propaganda Tactics in Gaza

US-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen and Russian-Israeli Sasha (Alexander) Troufanov, hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, are escorted by Palestinian Hamas terrorists and Islamic Jihad terrorists as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle.”

That statement is often attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, who understood the power of a lie, repeated over and over again. Whether the quote is accurate or not, Goebbels certainly used that very principle to cultivate the myth of the so-called Jewish-Communist betrayal that allegedly led to Germany’s defeat in World War I.

This propaganda enabled Hitler to tap into the frustrations of many Germans suffering from the Great Depression of the 1920s — and also fueled long-standing hatred toward Jews, which eventually culminated in the Holocaust.

It is doubtful that Goebbels, sitting in a Berlin bunker just before taking his own life along with his wife and six children, could have imagined how his principles would live on in the modern era — adopted by those far removed from the so-called Aryan master race. But reality proves that the method works: A lie repeated often enough becomes an absolute truth.

This past Thursday, we witnessed yet another instance of Hamas’ propaganda — this time regarding the return of the bodies of Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two young children, Ariel and Kfir, who were kidnapped during the October 7 massacre. For months, Hamas operatives claimed that the family had been killed in Israeli airstrikes, even conveying this false information to the captive father. However, forensic examinations have now revealed the grim truth: They were brutally murdered by these terrorists. Yet, just as in 1930s Germany, the lie was repeated so frequently that it became a fact in the eyes of many.

Another example of Hamas’ propaganda unfolded last Saturday, when the release of six Israeli hostages was accompanied by a carefully orchestrated propaganda spectacle — when two other hostages were forced to watch, enduring yet another round of psychological terror. It is worth noting that Hisham Al-Sayed was released discreetly — perhaps because he is Arab or Muslim, or maybe because he did not fit Hamas’ propaganda narrative.

These events played out before crowds of Gazan families who came to cheer and praise the “heroism” of the kidnappers.

Israeli television, rightfully, refrained from broadcasting this spectacle, which echoed Goebbels’ tactics of creating a narrative in which Jews are portrayed as the real monsters. We have seen this before — in pro-Hamas posters depicting the Israeli Prime Minister as a bloodthirsty vampire.

The big lie continues to thrive: We are told that the Bibas family was kidnapped for their “protection”; that Hamas seeks to establish a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel; that a genocide is occurring in Gaza; and that Palestinians are the descendants of the Philistines and Jebusites. There is no truth here — only an endless repetition of falsehoods until they are ingrained in the global consciousness.

Thus, when Israel’s forensic institute confirmed that the Bibas children were brutally murdered as early as November 2023, and that Shiri Bibas’ body wasn’t returned but was instead replaced with that of an unidentified Gazan woman — it no longer came as a shock. The only question that remains is: What lie will they try to sell us next week?

What Joseph Goebbels pioneered in the 1930s has found new life in the age of social media. History proves that in the fight for truth, silence is not an option.

Itamar Tzur is the author of The Invention of the Palestinian Narrative and an Israeli scholar specializing in Middle Eastern history. He holds a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Jewish History and a Master’s degree with honors in Middle Eastern Studies. As a senior member of the “Forum Kedem for Middle Eastern Studies and Public Diplomacy,” he leverages his academic expertise to deepen understanding of regional dynamics and historical contexts.

The post How Hamas Is Using Goebbels’ Propaganda Tactics in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Media Fall for Hamas Propaganda in Coverage of Israeli Hostage’s ‘Kiss’ to Captor

Families and supporters react as they celebrate the release of Omer Wenkert, a hostage who was held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, on the day of the release of six hostages from captivity in Gaza as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, in Gedera, Israel February 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Rami Shlush

Hamas’ despicable hostage release this weekend was widely covered. But foreign media outlets chose to highlight one particularly nauseating propaganda moment — when Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov kissed a Hamas terrorist onstage after being ordered to do so.

For Gaza photojournalist Ashraf Amra, who infiltrated into Israel on October 7 and was honored by Hamas leadership, it was literally the money shot — which was later sold to Getty Images and platformed by media outlets, including The Times of London and Daily Express.

For Sky News, it was a moment of “warmth.”

Getty Images, The Times, and Daily Express all failed to check the source of the photo.

Amra is a Hamas propagandist: He was fired from Reuters and AP after HonestReporting exposed that he was honored by former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and that he hosted an Instagram Live calling on Gazans to invade Israel during Hamas’ massacre on October 7, 2023.

These media outlets also know that Hamas is producing propaganda moments from their despicable staged hostage release ceremonies.

While they might be bound to cover these events, why should they also be helping to line the pockets of a friend of Hamas?

It’s even more problematic when the media seem to forget what Hamas’ staged spectacles are all about, which is exactly what happened to Sky News’ Diana Magnay.

In a live broadcast on Saturday, as Omer Shem Tov, Eliya Cohen, and Omer Wenkert were humiliated by Hamas on stage, with one of the camera-wielding terrorists clearly instructing Shem Tov to kiss his captors, Magnay overflowed with emotion: “Some amazing scenes today … this is very unexpected to see that kind of reaction, that kind of warmth.”

Even without the later clarification by Shem Tov’s father — who said it was all staged — Magnay, or any other journalist, should not have fallen for Hamas’ propaganda in such a painfully naive way.

Is it so difficult to cast doubt on a live show staged by terrorists who don’t even try to hide their propagandist goal?

The answer is that Hamas got what it wanted. Without the international media noticing, the world has gotten used to the spectacles; they have gotten used to the lies; and they have gotten used to the manipulation. They just want the money shot.

Hamas succeeded in normalizing its own evil.

And it is easily sold by Hamas-affiliated journalists to the gullible media, who celebrate it as “amazing scenes.”

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Media Fall for Hamas Propaganda in Coverage of Israeli Hostage’s ‘Kiss’ to Captor first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News