Fatah and Hamas mock Israelis fleeing rocket fire
Fatah mocks Israelis fleeing rocket fire:
"Going down to the shelters, their hearts filled with fear"
Ashkelon became a "ghost town"
- Hamas-aligned news site mocks Israelis
seeking shelter from rockets
By Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Last week, Israelis living near the Gaza Strip had to cope with hundreds of rockets being fired into Israel by Hamas and other terror groups. The response by Abbas' Fatah Movement was to mock Israelis seeking cover from those rockets:Posted text: "Going down to the shelters, their hearts filled with fear"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Nov. 13, 2018]
Likewise, the following two images emphasize the terrorizing aspect of the missiles aimed at Israeli civilians who, according to these images, are forced to flee their towns, which in turn become "ghost towns." The images were posted by the Palestinian Information Center, an independent Palestinian news website aligned with Hamas:
Posted text: "The Palestinian resistance is turning the occupied settlement of Ashkelon into a ghost town as a result of the repeated missile attacks."
Text on upper street sign: "Ashkelon is a ghost town"
Text on lower street sign: "Emigration from Palestine under the resistance's missiles"
[Facebook page of the Palestinian Information Center,
independent Palestinian news website, Nov. 13, 2018]
The image shows a woman sitting with a doll in a rocking chair with ghosts around her in the middle of a street. As if to emphasize Hamas' power to scare Israelis into fleeing, the Hamas-affiliated news site took the image of the woman in the chair from the cover of the 2013 American horror movie The Conjuring.
Text on image in Hebrew: "The army is using the city [of Ashkelon] in the cruel operations against us, and therefore we will respond to this.
It is preferable to move as far away from the city as possible."
[Facebook page of the Palestinian Information Center,
independent Palestinian news website, Nov. 13, 2018]
The cartoon shows a woman and child leaving the city of Ashkelon, which is marked by a sign with the city's logo and its name in English and Hebrew. A building with the IAI logo and "IAI" (Israel Aerospace Industries) written on it is sending signals through a transmitter to aircraft flying overhead. Transmitters are also seen sending signals from on top of residential buildings in the background.Another show of support from Fatah to Hamas in addition to the mocking post on Facebook above came from the Deputy Chairman of the Fatah Movement, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, who, while Hamas was sending missiles into Israel, stated that "the differences" between Fatah and Hamas are "nothing but a secondary disagreement":
"The Fatah Movement has always adhered to the principle and will never deviate from it - the only conflict is with the Israeli occupation, and the distinctions and differences between the Fatah Movement and the Hamas Movement are nothing but a secondary disagreement."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 14, 2018]
The following is a longer excerpt of Fatah Movement Deputy Chairmans' statement that the differences between Fatah and Hamas are minor:Headline: "Al-Aloul: The sole and fundamental conflict is with the occupation"
"Fatah Movement Deputy Chairman [and Fatah Central Committee member] Mahmoud Al-Aloul said... at a ceremony to mark the 14th anniversary of the death of [former PLO Chairman and PA President] Yasser Arafat as a Martyr (Shahid) that our people is still being subjected to aggression, and that the most despicable and grave kinds of crimes are still being committed against it...
He explained: 'The Fatah Movement has always adhered to the principle and will never deviate from it - the only conflict is with the Israeli occupation, and the distinctions and differences between the Fatah Movement and the Hamas Movement are nothing but a secondary disagreement. The proof of this is that our sons from Fatah are standing in the battle field and have made many sacrifices in the Gaza Strip.'
...
Al-Aloul demanded that priority always be given to the struggle against the aggression, and said: 'At this occasion, we repeat the call that [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas has made on several opportunities. We call on our brothers in Hamas - for the sake of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque and for the sake of the future, freedom, and independence - to work immediately to end the [Fatah-Hamas] rift and to return to the bosom of the people and the homeland.'"
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 14, 2018]