RSS
US Gives $336 Million to Palestinians; PA Demonizes It as the ‘Head of Global Terror’
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
The US has announced that it’s giving the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank additional humanitarian aid worth $336 million.
But in response to all the US support during the war (and prior), the Palestinian Authority (PA) is relentlessly demonizing the US as being the aggressor and mastermind behind Israel’s war against the Hamas and Hezbollah terror organizations, regardless of the fact that both terror organizations first attacked and continue to attack Israel and Israeli civilians.
Worse still, three days ago, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman also blamed the US for “the continuing chaos, wars, and instability” in the region:
Official Spokesman for the [PA] Presidential Office Nabil Abu Rudeina [said] … the successive American administrations bear responsibility for the continuing chaos, wars, and instability through their mistaken policy and provision of political, monetary, and military support for the continuation of the occupation [i.e., Israel], which has encouraged it to commit more crimes against our people and against the peoples of the region in Syria and Lebanon, alongside the ongoing threats against other regions.” [emphasis added]
[WAFA, official PA news agency, Sept. 29, 2024]
While many Western governments have been highly critical of Israel’s response to Hamas and Hezbollah’s attacks during the ongoing 2023 Gaza war, and have supported the idea of having the PA take power in Gaza after it is done, the PA and its ruling Fatah party have, on the other hand, made their hostility to the West clear in numerous recent conspiracy theories and statements of demonization.
Even as Abbas was again welcomed in the US last week, his PA and Fatah officials are busy bad-mouthing the US administration, accusing it of being behind the war and using Israel as its pawn.
A regular columnist of the PA’s mouthpiece Al-Hayat Al-Jadida accused the US of being guilty of “war crimes” in Lebanon:
The US has been a central partner in managing the operations against the Hezbollah leadership and its activists who are wanted by the [American] administration and Israel ….
The American administration is involved in the war crimes against the Hezbollah leadership and activists … [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida website, Sept. 22, 2024]
In a recent interview, Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki referred to the US as “the head of global terror.”
Perhaps this is no surprise considering that Zaki also serves as Fatah Commissioner for Arab and China Relations:
Fatah Movement Central Committee member Abbas Zaki… called for a comprehensive agreement and a code of honor between all parts of the Palestinian people and its movements, according to which the main contradiction is with the Israeli occupation and the rest are secondary differences that our preoccupation with them serves the plots of the occupation … led by the US, the head of global terror. [emphasis added]
[Al-Quds website, Sept. 8, 2024]
Earlier this year Zaki accused the US, and “not Israel,” of waging a war to “slaughter the Palestinian people”:
Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki: “The US is the one waging the [Gaza] war, and not Israel …
[The US] is the one waging the war and it is the one that is striving with all its efforts to slaughter the Palestinian people … Our central issue is to stop this cursed war, this barbaric war, which is worse than Nazism.” [emphasis added]
[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, Jan. 20, 2024]
Similarly, Abbas’ advisor, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, has accused the US of pulling the strings in Israel’s war against Hamas, claiming Israel just “carries out American instructions” and the US is “pushing” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “towards extremism” with its “hostile, immoral, and illegal position”:
Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “Israel’s sovereign is the US, unfortunately. The US even today opposes a resolution proposal at the [UN] General Assembly calling to end the occupation. Imagine, this is the level of American hostility to the Palestinian rights …
The one who is strengthening the position of [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu and pushing him more and more towards extremism is the American administration’s position.
The American administration’s position is a hostile position, an immoral and illegal position, and honestly it is the one that bears responsibility for the scope of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.” [emphasis added]
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Sept. 18, 2024]
Al-Habbash: “Everyone knows that all the cards are in the hands of the US, not in the hands of Israel. Israel is nothing more than the one who carries out the American policy. If the American administration would have wanted to tell Israel ‘Enough,’ the war would have ended. But it doesn’t do this and attempts to mislead and spread lies to extend the aggression to achieve the same goal. The goal is to erase the political aspect of the Palestinian cause and change the rules of the game, even in the West Bank.”
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Sept. 11, 2024]
Al-Habbash: “Israel exploited and used what happened on Oct. 7 [2023] as an excuse to carry out aggression that was planned and prepared in advance against the Gaza Strip, as part of the aggression against the Palestinian people. What happened on Oct. 7 is not the cause of the aggression …
[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu is just a clerk of the American administration, and all of Israel is just subordinate to the American administration and carries out its instructions and serves its policies.
Israel is nothing more than an American interest that is carrying out the American policies. We don’t need to speak with Netanyahu because he has no authority of his own. We must speak only with the American administration that alone bears the magnitude and responsibility for the continuation of this aggression.” [emphasis added]
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Jan. 29, 2024]
Al-Habbash has also called the US “the biggest liar” and “the true threat”:
Al-Habbash:“There is no bigger liar than the US administration, no bigger liar than [the US] exists.
The American administration is inventing lies against us, as it has done through all the last decades… We are an unarmed people. We are a people that has been living under occupation for more than 70 years…. We are just trying to protect our existence.” [emphasis added]
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Aug.29, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch also reported on other anti-US remarks by another Abbas advisor, including the accusation that US President Biden is a “war criminal who should stand trial.”
While emphasizing that the real war is “against the US and not Israel,” Abbas Zaki has also stressed the Palestinians’ “strong connection and strategic partnership with China”:
Zaki: “Our war now [i.e., 2023 Gaza war] is a war against the US and not Israel because Israel’s guarantee of life is the US …
Old colonialism, in other words the European colonialist states, wanted to take the Jews and create a base close to them that is hostile to their surroundings, and offered to establish Israel in Argentina, Uganda, and the like.
But when the oil was discovered, the lifeline of modern industry, they wanted to take control of the Middle East region from the ocean to the gulf, and therefore Palestine fell victim to this oppressive criminal alliance …
Our connection with China is very strong, we have a strategic partnership with China. Our connection with Russia is very strong … Israel could not fight against any faction, not even against a state, if not for the US, and Allah willing the US will not be the world ruler.” [emphasis added]
[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, May 16, 2024]
Zaki also repeated the conspiracy theory that Israel is not fighting Hamas in Gaza for security reasons, but rather because it wants to steal natural gas resources discovered there:
Zaki emphasized that Israel is striving to decide the conflict and empty the land of its Palestinian owners, and he noted that the goal of the war in the Gaza Strip is not security-related, but rather it deviates beyond this and includes economic targets, like the [natural] gas reserve that was discovered northwest of Gaza. [emphasis added]
[Al-Quds website, Sept. 8, 2024]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
The post US Gives $336 Million to Palestinians; PA Demonizes It as the ‘Head of Global Terror’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
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.”
RSS
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.
RSS
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.