Palestinian Authority libel: Israel “opened graves and cut off the fingers of the dead” to steal land

Israel used to dig up the graves and cut off the fingers of Palestinian landowners so they could use the fingerprints in place of signatures to steal their land. This sick and demented libel was recently disseminated by Muayyad Sha'ban, director of the Palestinian Authority-controlled Committee to Resist Settlements and the Wall, on the airwaves and Facebook page of the Voice of Palestine, the PA's official government-run radio station.

Director of the PA-controlled Committee to Resist Settlements and the Wall Muayyad Sha'ban: "In the 1980s and 1970s, this occupation (i.e., Israel) and the occupation forces opened graves and cut off the fingers of those who were landowners in order to sign with a fingerprint – when he is dead! They opened the grave and cut off the fingers so that he would sign with a fingerprint on the sale of the land."

[The Voice of Palestine (official PA radio station), Facebook page, Feb.11, 2026]

Sha'ban's delusional libel is vile, and in addition to disseminating hatred and motivation for terror, there may be another motive for it.

Under PA law, a Palestinian who sells land or homes to Jews is to be given a life sentence of hard labor. The death penalty may also apply, though it has not been officially exercised by the PA. Some Palestinians who have sold land have been murdered as "collaborators."

For this reason, Palestinians who have sold their homes or lands to Jews for prices high over the market value universally claim falsely that the sale was forged.

While Sha'ban's motive could have been to protect the reputations of Palestinians who have sold their lands to Israelis, some Palestinians have very willingly made those sales. Such libels, therefore, do not truly affect whether or not land is sold to Jews as much as they serve as incitement to hate and terror.