PA Oct. 7 massacre denial: Israelis “killed their civilians, committed all these crimes, and burned the bodies”
- PA libel: Oct. 7 attack, beheading of babies, rape, and burning of women are “stories and tales spun from the imagination”
- Two months after Hamas’ well-documented atrocities, PLO official still denies “murder of children, rape of women” as “tendentious Israeli propaganda”
- Abbas’ advisor denies Hamas’ documented atrocities on Oct. 7 as “lies, falsehoods, and fabrications”
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 – PA officials deny that any of 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!
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs with the rank of minister Qadura Fares 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:
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs with the rank of minister Qadura Fares: “This whole [Israeli] outcry and this whole campaign against the Palestinian people (i.e., Israeli response against Hamas) 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 (sic., refers to Hamas’ massacre on civilians), 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 Israeland 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.”
[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 PLF 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 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 (i.e., Hamas’ massacre), and therefore the world turned against the Palestinians.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, 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” [Al-Habbash’s Facebook page, Nov. 12, 2023], 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 -Ed.), and that these are legitimate targets (sic., the overwhelming majority of victims of Hamas’ massacre were civilian). 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 (sic.).”
[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 following are longer excerpts of some of the statements cited above and additional statements claiming Israel fabricated Hamas’ murders and abuse:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “With the start of the incidents, the aggression of Oct. 7 [2023] and two or three days afterwards (refers to Israeli counter-terror operation against Hamas’ terror war on Israel; see note below -Ed.), approximately all the Western positions – Europe, the US, and many of the world states – supported Israel and the narrative that Israel was a victim on Oct. 7 to aggression, to an attack…
But thanks to the success of the Palestinian diplomacy, Arab diplomacy, and Arab and Islamic media, and even the biased Western media to turn the picture upside down, present it as it is, and document the facts as they are on the ground, a turning point has taken place in global public opinion…
According to the Zionist idea they want Palestine to be a land without a people for a people without a land. Now they are using what happened on Oct. 7 as an excuse to continue the aggression and push the Palestinians to leave.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Nov. 12, 2023]
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “In the first days of the aggression (refers to Israeli counter-terror operation against Hamas’ terror war on Israel; see note below -Ed.), global public opinion and the international positions were against the Palestinian position, against Palestine, and against the Palestinian people’s rights, and in favor of the Israeli narrative, because the picture that reached global public opinion was an incorrect picture, a different picture. After the truth was revealed, after the true picture became clear of what happened and what is happening, the world discovered that it fell victim to Israeli deceit and deceit by the lobbies that support Israel in the world…
Israel has attempted for over 75 years, since the Nakba (i.e., “the catastrophe,” Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) and until today, and before it the British Mandate and the Western colonialist forces attempted to erase the name ‘Palestine’ from the political map by establishing an Israeli entity that is subordinate to the West and the Western colonialist forces at the expense of the Palestinian people (sic., the Palestinians have no history prior to the modern period). But despite the passage of all these decades since the Nakba, the expulsion, the removal, and the targeting [of Palestinians], the Palestinian truth remains the firmest truth on the ground. Currently there are 7 million Palestinians inside Palestine (refers to Israel and the PA areas -Ed.) and 7 million in the diaspora, and Palestine still dwells in their hearts, spirits, and minds.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Nov. 27, 2023]
Headline: “Hamas: The resistance is not targeting children, the Western media outlets must insist on being precise”
“The Hamas Movement firmly emphasized ‘the falsehood of the fabricated claims being spread by a number of Western media outlets (refers to reports on the Hamas terror war; see note below -Ed.).’
In a statement, a copy of which reached [the independent Palestinian news agency] Donia Al-Watan, it 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 (sic., footage filmed by Hamas terrorists themselves documents the atrocities; in Kfar Aza alone 40 babies were murdered, most of them beheaded).’
Hamas said: ‘Adopting the Zionist version and supporting it without clarification is nothing but a media failure in an attempt to hide the occupation’s crimes and the massacres that it is committing in the Gaza Strip over and over, which are reaching the level of war crimes and genocide through targeting civilians, cutting them off from supply of electricity and water, and stopping the entry of food supplies and medical supplies.’
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 -Ed.), and that these are legitimate targets (sic., the overwhelming majority of victims of Hamas’ massacre were civilian). 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 (sic.).”
[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, Oct. 11, 2023]
Editor in Chief of the Jordanian state-run daily Al-Ra’i Khaled Al-Shaqran: “The occupation (i.e., Israel) is not satisfied with the transmission of the picture of the Palestinian people’s suffering and the massacres that are being committed against this people, conveying the truth, and exposing the falsification and fake claims that the occupation initiated, and it is always initiating their distribution as a Zionist narrative against the Palestinian people in the Interior (i.e., in Israel and the PA areas), in order to turn the picture, the facts, and everything we have seen regarding this occupation’s attempts since the start of the crisis upside down. In other words, to describe the resistance and the Palestinian people as murdering children through the narrative of beheading (refers to Hamas terrorists who beheaded Israeli babies -Ed.). Therefore, the truth has been revealed and the Western media has begun to apologize for the narrative that it presented due to its incorrectness. All of this is causing the occupation’s dissatisfaction, and therefore, certainly the journalist teams and media teams will all constitute a target to a large degree for this occupation, which truly does not honor international conventions and human rights.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 14, 2023]
Former Jordanian Minister of Education and Advisor at Philadelphia University in Jordan Dr. Ibrahim Badran: “The Israeli narrative that was spread at the start that the Palestinian resistance massacred children and harmed the dignity of the women, this fabricated image that was spread in the first two days – it became clear to everyone that it is incorrect and fabricated (sic., refers to Hamas terrorists massacring Israeli civilians, including raping, beheading, and torturing women and children; the terrorists filmed and broadcasted themselves committing their atrocities). Therefore, thousands, actually hundreds of thousands set out in the various world states to support the Palestinians… In all the Arab capitals supporting demonstrations set out, and this also emphasizes that the Arab peoples still view Israel as the thieving enemy, regardless of how the relations between the governments may be – this does not represent the sensibilities of the civilians. The Arab civilians in the various Arab states support the Palestinians’ rights, support the Palestinian resistance, and condemn Israel over the crimes, massacres, and illegal occupation of the Palestinian lands.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 22, 2023]
Hamas terrorists filmed and broadcasted themselves committing their atrocities on Oct. 7. Israeli authorities confirmed the murders and abuse while tending to the victims’ bodies, as did testimonies of surviving victims.
Qadura Fares also serves as Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club and is a former PA minister without portfolio and former member of PA Parliament.
Hamas war on Israel October 2023 - At least 1,200 Israelis, including over 1,000 civilians, were murdered and over 4,800 wounded, in addition to approximately 244 who were abducted into the Gaza Strip (including 110 later released or liberated and at least 26 later killed), in a Hamas terror war that began when approximately 3,000 Hamas terrorists broke through Israel's security fence at the Gaza Strip border and launched a surprise attack, taking control of several Israeli towns and attacking a music festival on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which fell on the Sabbath, Oct. 7, 2023. During the massacre the terrorists tortured, raped, shot, beheaded, and burned their victims alive, murdering entire families and leaving at least 21 children without parents. Hamas terrorists also fired at least 5,000 rockets at Israeli population centers. In response, Israel launched Operation Iron Swords to counter the Hamas terror threat. Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon joined Hamas' terror war starting from the following day, attacking Israel from the north. Occasional rocket launches and shootings continued from Lebanon throughout the war. A ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal began on Nov. 24, 2023, in which Israel agreed to release 150 terrorist prisoners, pause drone surveillance in the Gaza Strip, and allow movement between the northern and southern Gaza Strip, in return for 50 Israeli female and child hostages held by Hamas. The deal was subsequently extended with additional releases, until Hamas violated the agreement and resumed attacking on Dec. 1, 2023.