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The Palestinian Authority Still Considers Massacre of Jews a Historic Act
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visiting the West Bank city of Jenin. Photo: Reuters/Mohamad Torokman
The Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah still rejoice over the murder of 37 Israelis in 1978.
Long before Hamas’ massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, the attack known as the Coastal Road Massacre was the most lethal in Israel’s history — and has remained the source of immense pride for Fatah, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ political party.
On the anniversary of the attack, Abbas’ Fatah glorified female terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi who led the massacre.
As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, Mughrabi has been turned by the PA into a hero and role model for Palestinian society.
Her “heroic” act was leading a squad of Fatah terrorists in the hijacking of a bus on Israel’s Coastal Highway, which led to the murder of 37 civilians — of which 12 were children — and the wounding of over 70.
The PA and Fatah refer to the hours during which the terrorists took control of the Israeli bus and held its passengers captive as “the establishment of the Palestinian republic.”
The Fatah post calls murderer Mughrabi “the first president of the republic”:
Text on image: “Dalal Mughrabi and her comrades established the Palestinian republic”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, March 11, 2025]
The image shows the ruins of the Israeli bus that was hijacked and detonated by Mughrabi and her terror squad.
Text on image: “The Martyr Kamal Adwan operation [name given to the Coastal Road Massacre]
March 11, 1978
The day that Fatah established the Republic of Palestine … It never mattered how long this Palestinian republic lasted, rather that it was established altogether. The first president of the republic was Dalal Mughrabi, and the Palestinian flag flew in the depth of the occupied land on a road 95 km long on the main road in Palestine [i.e., Israel]
Self-sacrificing fighter Dalal Mughrabi died as a Martyr along with the squad members. Two of them, prisoners Khaled Abu Asba and Hassan Fayyad, were captured and [later] released in an exchange deal in 1983″ [emphasis added]
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, March 11, 2025]
Text on image: “‘Know all of you [Israelis] that the land of Palestine is Arab and will remain so no matter how much your voices and your buildings rise on its soil’ — the last words of self-sacrificing fighter Dalal Mughrabi before her Martyrdom.”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, March 11, 2025]
The Palestinian Authority also marked the anniversary of the Coastal Road Massacre, describing in detail how Dalal Mughrabi joined Fatah and yearned to participate in a terror attack against Israel:
Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of the Martyrdom of Palestinian fighter Dalal Mughrabi … She decided to join the ranks of the Palestinian revolution and to act in the ranks of the self-sacrificing fighters [i.e., terrorists] in the Fatah Movement while still a student.
She took many military courses and received lessons in guerilla warfare, during which she trained with different weapons … She became known for her daring, her courage, her well-developed national sentiment, and for her devotion to Palestine and Fatah…
The [operation] plan was formulated by Martyr commander Khalil Al-Wazir ‘Abu Jihad’ [i.e., terrorist, responsible for the murder of 125 Israelis]… The self-sacrificing fighters competed among themselves to participate, foremost among them Dalal Mughrabi, who was 20. She was selected to lead the squad that would carry out the operation, which was made up of 10 self-sacrificing fighters.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 12, 2025]
Fatah’s Shabiba Student Movement and Student Union Council at Palestine Technical University praised murderer Mughrabi as the one who traced “Palestine’s” borders “with her blood”:
Text on image and in post: “The 47th anniversary of the Martyrdom-death of fighter Dalal Mughrabi, who outlined the borders of the homeland with her blood and wrote the praise of the self-sacrificing fighter with letters of light.”
[The Fatah Shabiba Student Movement and Student Union Council at Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie, Facebook page, March 12, 2025]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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