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South African Anti-Israel NGOs Commemorate the Holocaust by Hijacking Its Memory

November 2023: An Israeli soldier helps to provide incubators to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
Anti-Israel groups commemorated the Holocaust by hijacking its memory. Gift of the Givers and other South African anti-Israel organizations marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by screening a film that falsely portrays the descendants of Holocaust survivors as the reincarnation of the Nazis.
The South African government established itself as an anti-Israel trailblazer in late 2023 by bringing Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on false charges of genocide. Meanwhile, the South African government is hosting an array of groups that have been alleged by some to be part of a Hamas funding umbrella.
Gift of the Givers calls itself “the largest disaster response, non-governmental organisation of African origin on the African continent,” and claims to have distributed $320 million in 47 countries over 32 years. It was also part of the Union of Good — according to the Union’s website in the early 2000s — which the United States sanctioned in 2008 for funding Hamas.
In recent months, Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman has crossed the line into blatant antisemitism on at least two occasions. At a rally in honor of the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 2023 massacre, Sooliman declared that “Zionists … run the world with fear. They control the world with money.” At a gala in November 2024, Sooliman doubled down on his overt Jew-hatred, railing about “Zionists” using “fear” and “money,” according to the South African Jewish Report.
Sooliman’s recent remarks call into question his organization’s motivations for hosting a “Holocaust Memorial Day screening” of the film “Al-Shifa Hospital: The Crimes They Tried to Bury” on January 27.
That day marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, where the Nazis murdered over 1 million Jews during the Holocaust — via starvation, disease, shooting, and gas chambers.
Gift of the Givers played the movie — produced by Qatari state-owned media network Al Jazeera — at a hospital lecture hall. Apparently, this venue would help viewers relate to the supposed victims of Israel’s two-week, surprise raid on the Hamas-controlled health facility in late March 2024.
But Shifa isn’t just a hospital. There is evidence of Hamas operating out of Shifa Hospital since at least 2006. By 2014, the hospital had become a “de facto” command center for Hamas. Hamas’ control of Shifa Hospital was an open secret.
In February 2024, The New York Times wrote that evidence suggests that Hamas “used the hospital for cover, stored weapons inside it and maintained a hardened tunnel beneath the complex that was supplied with water, power and air-conditioning.”
During the raid that is the subject of the documentary, Israel killed top Hamas officials, while Hamas fired from the emergency room, maternity ward, and elsewhere. Over the course of the operation, according to the IDF, the Israelis detained up to 900 suspects, 513 of whom were confirmed to be Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad members, and killed around 200 terrorists in gun battles.
Despite the mountain of evidence, a hospital staffer interviewed in the film contends that the Israelis tried to push a false narrative about Hamas using the hospital. Instead, the documentary tries to frame the operation as a vindictive assault on one of the few places of refuge in Gaza.
Erasing the security context of Israeli actions has been central to the attempts to charge Israel with war crimes, including genocide. The film does not ask why hundreds of terrorists were operating in a hospital and endangering its patients and staff.
There are other reasons to doubt the Al Jazeera narrative. In October 2024, Israel published information indicating that six Al Jazeera journalists were members of Hamas.
In March 2024, Al Jazeera published a report featuring the testimony of a woman who claimed that the Israelis “raped a number of women” during the operation. The former managing director of Al Jazeera said that a Hamas investigation found the rape allegation to be fabricated, and that the woman lied to “arouse the nation’s zeal.” Nevertheless, the false rape allegation remains on Al Jazeera’s site.
Portraying Israel as the reincarnation of the Nazis both trivializes the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust, and seeks to cast Israel as a villain. It is also a prime example of how modern antisemitism is manifested, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, the most widely accepted definition of Jew-hatred.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a somber occasion to remember the victims of the Nazi genocide and to resolve to never allow it to happen again.
Alternatively, for Gift of the Givers, it is an opportunity to justify attacking, kidnapping, and killing Holocaust survivors and their descendants in their homes in southern Israel by claiming that Israelis are like the Nazis. The same backwards morality and distortion of reality that underpin a leading South African humanitarian organization’s descent into antisemitism, have also allowed Pretoria to establish itself as Hamas’ lawyer at the ICJ.
David May is a research manager and senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow David on X @DavidSamuelMay. Follow FDD on X @FDD.
The post South African Anti-Israel NGOs Commemorate the Holocaust by Hijacking Its Memory 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.