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Palestinian Authority Leaders Deny October 7 Massacre Took Place
The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas gunmen from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Photo: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun
Two months after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the murders, beheadings, and rapes — which Hamas terrorists themselves documented with body cameras and broadcast on social media — Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are denying this took place.
In addition to denying the massacre as “stories and tales spun from the imagination” — some officials even accuse Israel of murdering and committing atrocities against its own citizens.
Qadura Fares, the director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs with the rank of minister. has stated that Israel’s response to eradicate Hamas’ terror infrastructure in Gaza is “based on a lie,” and that Israelis “killed their civilians” on Oct. 7:
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.”
[Official PA TV, Nov. 20, 2023]
Right from the beginning the PA denied the atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel, claiming beheaded babies and rape were Israel’s “narrative,” “fabrications,” and “stories and tales spun from the imagination”:
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]
Despite the abundance of documentation of Hamas’ atrocities, two months later PLO official and Secretary-General of the terror organization Palestine Liberation Front Wasel Abu Yusuf still denies “murder of children” and “rape of women” as “tendentious Israeli propaganda”:
PLO Executive Committee member and PLF Secretary-General Wasel Abu Yusuf: “Since Oct. 7 there has been a Zionist version 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.”
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Dec. 3, 2023]
Palestinian Media Watch already exposed that the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a similar libel, claiming it was Israeli army helicopters that intentionally bombed young Israelis at the music festival and destroyed the “settlements” in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Another PA official, who has been very vocal about his and the PA’s support for Hamas and its war against Israel is PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash. After two months and a wealth of documentation of Hamas’ brutality against Israeli victims on Oct. 7, he too claims that it is all “lies, falsehoods, and fabrications”:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “They [the Israelis] have spread lies, falsehoods, and fabrications regarding what happened on Oct. 7, and therefore the world turned against the Palestinians.”
[Facebook page, Dec. 5, 2023]
Al-Habbash has also referred to facts about Oct. 7 as “the narrative that Israel was a victim on Oct. 7 to aggression, to an attack” — claiming this was “an incorrect picture” and that the world had fallen “victim to Israeli deceit and deceit by the lobbies that support Israel in the world.” [Al-Habbash’s Facebook page, Nov. 27, 2023]
Four days after the terror attack, Hamas itself claimed it was “not targeting children” and that Western media had spread “fabricated claims” and “adopted the Zionist version” — despite Hamas terrorists’ own published footage of the atrocities committed.
Hamas even pretended that the numerous civilian victims were “Zionist military and security establishment” and therefore “legitimate targets”:
“The Hamas Movement firmly emphasized ‘the falsehood of the fabricated claims being spread by a number of Western media outlets.’
[Hamas] said that the Western media outlets ‘are unprofessionally adopting the Zionist version that is full of fabrications and lies against our Palestinian people and its resistance, the latest of which was the claim of murdering children, beheading them, and targeting civilians…
Hamas emphasized that the Palestinian resistance and the [Izz A-Din] Al-Qassam Brigades [i.e., Hamas’ military wing] took action against the Zionist military and security establishment in ‘the Al-Aqsa Flood’ battle [Hamas’ name for its terror war against Israel], and that these are legitimate targets. It also said that at the same time they made efforts to avoid [harming] civilians, and many videos from the ground are witness to this, and many settlers [sic.] spoke about this in filmed testimonies in the media outlets.”
[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, Oct. 11, 2023]
A different but equally outrageous accusation regarding Israel’s treatment of the invading terrorist murderers was voiced by a Palestinian NGO that claims to defend human rights, which is designated in Israel as a terror organization due to its ties to the PFLP. Al-Haq accused Israel of “summarily executing” the Oct. 7 terrorists, murderers, rapists, and kidnappers.
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
The post Palestinian Authority Leaders Deny October 7 Massacre Took Place 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.