The Palestinian Theatre of Terror

After the October 7 massacre, the international community was shocked by the harsh atrocities committed by Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Palestinian civilians who participated in the massacre.

Hamas has been compared to ISIS and the Nazis, which has given Israel a broad international support and credit for acting in Gaza to topple Hamas and bring the hostages back home.

The Israeli advocacy found a sympathetic ear, since most members of the international community could not support the Palestinian side that committed these inhumane atrocities.

Hamas and the Palestinians were in trouble. How will they be able to correct the world consciousness that now classifies them in one line with the Nazis and ISIS? Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority realized that in order to win this war they would have to use the card that the Palestinians have been using for years –  smear Israel’s legitimacy in the world.

Although the incitement to carry out terrorist attacks against Jews continues unceasingly in Arabic, in the ears of the international community there is a different melody.

In recent months, senior officials of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, used statements of ‘reverse advocacy’.

This advocacy is based on one simple method: the use of terminology in which all the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th and testimonies of hostages who returned from captivity are used to accuse Israel.

What is the Palestinian reverse advocacy?

The Palestinians use core concepts from the Israeli narrative of October 7 and turns it into a Palestinian narrative.

Hamas is attentive to the Israeli public pain points and recognizes the international reaction to the Israeli narrative after October 7.

In December 2023, Hamas used the symbolic date, October 7 as the day the attack on Gaza began, “the day the attack on our people began”.

This is how the murderous organization tries to obscure the symbolic date of the horrible massacre it carried out against Israel – and makes the date symbolic for the Palestinians – as “the day Israel attacked the Palestinians”.

Also, the organization calls the terrorists detained by Israel, as detainees, saying that among them are women, elderly and children (similar to the description of the Israeli abductees who were held by Hamas and released) “and they are subjected to the most terrible conditions”. Hamas recognizes the humanitarian motive that also influences international public opinion and uses this to its advantage. He calls those prisoners, among them terrorists with blood on their hands, as detainees who “disappeared”, as a kind of kidnapping of “innocent Palestinians” by Israeli forces. Hamas takes his brutal attack, turns it over and presents itself as a victim:

• Israel attacked from October 7th on (using October 7th as a symbolic date, like 9/11 only in reverse- smearing the Israeli narrative).

• Calling the arrest of terrorists and Hamas supporters “disappearance” or kidnapping – turning the narrative so that Israel kidnaps Palestinians as opposed to the kidnapping of Israeli citizens held by Hamas.

• Hamas presents false information that Israel keeps women, elderly people and children in extremely difficult conditions.

This was propagated after hostage deals were held, in which Israeli women, elderly and children were released from the hands of Hamas. Hamas recognizes the effect of combining women, elderly people and children to build a new narrative: Israel is “the aggressor”, kidnapping women, elderly people and children.

Moreover, Hamas officials use the word “Nazi” in their statements to describe Israel and its actions – in order to break the comparison of Hamas to the Nazis and turn the equation so that Israel is compared to the Nazis.

In his speech in January 2024, Hamas official, Usma Hamdan, made sure to use the terms “Nazi aggression” and the “war of extermination” that Israel is waging, to describe what is happening in Gaza.

Additionally, Nabil Abu Radina, spokesman for the office of Abu Mazen, chairman of the Palestinian Authority said that the “series of daily killing crimes” of the IDF in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria is a comprehensive “war of extermination against the Palestinian people”.

Palestinian officials from the PLO and Hamas use the terms “extermination” and “Holocaust” to strengthen the influence on public opinion that Israel is committing a “Holocaust” to the Palestinian people. They try to create awareness among the international community of “How can the Jewish people, who went through the Holocaust, perpetrate a Holocaust on other people?” Moreover, the Palestinians want to create “guilt feelings” because following the Western support for Israel a holocaust is being carried out against their people.

In January 2024, Hamas started a campaign on social media using female terrorists imprisoned in Israeli prisons for its counter propaganda. It published various posts in which the “Palestinian women prisoners” are described as experiencing abuse in the prisons and that they are “in danger”. Moreover, Hamas detailed the “abuses” that Palestinian women suffer in Israeli prisons: “Severe beatings and torture, a shameful (physical) examination” and more.

The cynical use of humanitarian motives that harp on the emotional strings of the international community -plays into the hands of the Palestinians when they come to clear themselves from the guilt of  October 7th massacre and make Israel the “bad guy” in the story.

The PLO and Hamas officials are united in their efforts to change the discourse regarding the war in Gaza. Although for the Palestinians, Hamas is the one who brought the “achievement” of a lawsuit against Israel at the ICJ by South Africa – the PLO is trying to align with this blood plot regarding “genocide” and fail Israel in the international arena. This activity of the Palestinian Authority is added to its long-standing activity to fight Israel: using the international community to eliminate Israel’s legitimacy in the world.

Journalists by day and Hamas commanders by night

Hamas uses the dissembling of its terrorists, for example as journalists. In most cases these Hamas members work for Al-Jazeera.

Hamas and other organizations in Gaza Strip use media channels affiliated with them, and an array of journalists who are close to them and assist them for information and propaganda purposes.

At the October 7th massacre, it could be seen that there were journalists, affiliated with Hamas, who received advance warning of the attack and arrived at the Israeli communities in the Gaza Envelope and began broadcasting live during the shocking terrorist attack.

These journalists also hold a military position in the terrorist organizations. In addition to their journalistic activity, of covering operations in the context of the struggle for awareness – sometimes these journalists are an integral part of the military units operating in the field.

However, theoretically, they have immunity as journalists. For example, many journalists actively participated in events such as the “marches of return” at the Gaza border, but were identified as journalists due to the special vests they wore. In some cases, the journalists’ vests were used to carry out terrorist attacks, knowing that the person wearing them was immune to damage by the IDF forces.

During the IDF’s activity at the end of January 2024 inside one of Hamas bases in the northern Gaza Strip, the laptop of Muhammad Samir Muhammad Wishah was seized, which was used as a reporter for the ‘Al-Jazeera Mubasher’ channel and the ‘Al-Jazeera’ network in the Gaza Strip. An examination of the documents on Wishah’s computer revealed that he is a prominent commander in the anti-tank missile array in the military arm of Hamas. The IDF spokesman for the Arab media, Avichay Adraee, posted this on X, and following his tweet, online surfers posted a photo of Wishah with Yahya Sinwar from his Instagram account.

This is hardly surprising. Terrorist operatives in the guise of journalists who are part of the Al Jazeera channel’s reporter lineup, which indicates the credibility of the popular channel. The Al-Jazeera channel, based in Qatar, is the mouthpiece of Hamas, and incites frequently against Israel. The channel enjoys overwhelming popularity among Arabic speakers around the world, a sort of Arab replacement for CNN, but at the same time a channel with stations in different languages, including English, and it uses false, anti-Israeli information to influence global public opinion.

Humanitarian terrorism: Hamas members disguised as UNRWA workers

At the end of January 2024, Israeli intelligence officials presented their American counterparts with incriminating materials that proved that a number of UNRWA employees, at least 12, took part in the brutal Hamas massacre on October 7. The Americans informed officials in other countries, which led to a dramatic decision by countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Finland, Australia and the Netherlands to freeze aid funding to UNRWA.

The American “Wall Street Journal” newspaper even reported that the division of roles among the members of the organization was conducted as follows: six of the 12 actively participated in the massacre, being armed and allegedly even committing atrocities against civilians.

Two others helped kidnap Israelis, two more participated in the massacre in the areas where Israeli civilians were executed (probably referring to the Nova party that happened in the vicinity of Kibbutz Re’im), others coordinated the logistics of the attack.

However, the organization’s 12 employees are only the tip of the iceberg of a much wider phenomenon.

According to the ‘Wall Street Journal’, those Hamas terrorists who, in their second hat, were engaged in humanitarian aid to the Strip, were teachers in schools in Gaza. Seven were elementary or high school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic language teachers, and one elementary school teacher.

The Israeli media channel, Kan 11, revealed additional data regarding Hamas operatives and their connection to UNRWA:

The data shows that of the organization’s 12,000 employees in the Gaza Strip, nearly 9,500 are directly or indirectly related to Hamas. This means that one out of every five UNRWA workers in the Gaza Strip is a member of Hamas.

Channel Kan 11 even detailed the distribution of the workers and their ties to Hamas:

440 are active in the military wing of Hamas

2000 are Hamas operatives who are not in the military wing

7000 have a first degree relative in Hamas

For example, Suhail al-Hindi, who served as chairman of the Workers’ Committee in Gaza, was elected as a member of the Hamas Political Bureau in 2017. After Israeli pressure, he resigned from his position at UNRWA.

Another example is the Minister of the Economy of Hamas, Jawad Abu Shamala, who was eliminated by the IDF at the beginning of the war – he also worked at the UNRWA agency, until he was also forced to resign when he was elected to lead the terrorist organization in Gaza in 2017. Abu Shamala, was trusted with Kaspi Hamas designated them for financing and directing terrorism in the Gaza Strip and beyond.

This is how Hamas hides its people and actions by using an organization like UNRWA which is used as a tool in its hands for the purposes of disguising its terrorist activity.

The show must NOT go on

In conclusion, Hamas is concealing its terrorist activity under the guise of legitimate civil organizations and agencies. The dissembling of members as journalists or humanitarian agency workers is added to its attempt to hide the horrible atrocities it made on October 7th with the new Palestinian reverse advocacy. It is all part of well-crafted terrorism theatre which must not be allowed to fool the international community.

Both Hamas and PLO are acting in multiple plays of the Palestinian theatre of terror.  By these means, they attempt to score points in the international arena, while promoting their terrorist activity in order to undermine Israel’s legitimacy in the world, until they reach their ultimate goal which eliminating the State of Israel.

One of the “leading” actors is UNRWA, which its employees participated in terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip, while using the agency as a conduit for the transfer of funds from countries that contribute to the provision of weapons and ammunition, necessitates its closure and replacement by another humanitarian aid organization, under strict supervision.

Israel must demand that the Western countries drain out UNRWA’s funding. It must be made clear that an agency that cares for refugees cannot act as a conduit for promoting terrorism under the guise of a humanitarian aid organization. The international community should recognize the activity of the Palestinian theatre, the fact that is used as a captive spectator at the show of terrorism in disguise. The show must NOT go on.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement