The Dedicated Savagery of Palestinian Terrorism

"Since the round of fighting in May two years ago there is a decision by Hamas leadership to display unprecedented restraint and forbearance."

"For over two  years there hasn't been a single rocket fired under Hamas initiative from Gaza."

"Hamas is very, very restrained and understands the consequences of further defiance."

Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi 

 

"Dad, I am speaking to you from a Jew's phone."

"I killed her and her husband  -- killed them with my own hands."

"I am in Meflasim father. I killed 10. Ten! Ten with my own bare hands."

"Their blood is on my hands."

"Mother, your son is a hero."

October7/23 Hamas terrorist 

 

"Today, yes, today, our people resume their revolution, rectify their path and return to the plan of liberation and the establishment of the state through blood and martyrdom."

"...Today is the day of the great revolution that will end the last occupation and the last racist apartheid regime in the world."

"To the brothers in the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, the day has come when your resistance joins the people of Palestine."

Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif

 

"Our objective is clear: we want to liberate our land, our  holy sites, our al-Aqsa, our prisoners. This is the goal that is worthy of this battle, worthy of this heroism, worthy of this courage."

"We have only one thing to say to you [Israel]: Get out of our sight. Get out of our Jerusalem and our al-Aqsa."

"We don't want to see  you on this land. This land is ours; Jerusalem is ours, everything is ours."

"You are intruders on this pure and blessed land. There is no place for you."

Ismail Haniyeh, head, Hamas political office 

Palestinian terrorists move towards the border fence with Israel from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7.  Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

   

It is beyond difficult for normal, ordinary people to grasp just how it is possible that a human mind could be so gripped with a mind-consuming hatred as to make it even remotely possible that in a chaotic frenzy of deadly loathing overtaking all other emotions, that of human fraternity, compassion, empathy, rational thought and most of all that very intimate reaction to committing lethal physical harm on others, would restrain anyone, anyone at all other than those who have experienced the mass psychosis of self-assumed victimhood driving a collective thrust for vengeance against an imagined enemy. 

 

Yet continued, ongoing exposure in a tribal setting where leaders deliberately set out to convince their civilian public from infancy to youth of the grandeur of honour to be gained in the ferocious determination to slaughter those identified as their enemy will do it. Characterizing Jews -- settled as a nation in their ancestral Judean homeland, an ancient geographic reality that preceded the arrival of Arabs in the region by millennia -- as 'invaders' out to conquer the world, starting with the Arabs in the Middle East, insulting to Islam as rank imposters worshiping a false god.

 

The passion of hatred against the shared vision of a Jewish state plotting to extinguish the aspirations of Arab Palestinians on land they claim as their own, has seen a complete and utter inversion of cause and effect; Palestinians dedicated to the  eradication of Israel and the slaughter of Jews, invoking their version of reality; Israeli Jews becoming the invaders and mass murderers victimizing Palestinians, when the violent assaults against Jews by Palestinian Arabs, beginning with the Palestine Liberation Organization and morphing into the PFLP, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and a myriad of others like Hezbollah dedicated and fully psychopathic are the actual transgressors.

Which led to four thousand terrorists, and an estimated two thousand Palestinian civilians entering Israel from Gaza, to launch a mass terror attack, a surprise incursion that had been planned and rehearsed for up to two years, until the final decision was made. Maps had been hand-drawn of farming communities showing where the security bases in each were located; maps conveniently produced by Palestinians who had been given employment as agricultural workers in those same kibbutzim whose members fully empathized with Palestinians in Gaza. The kibbutzim received the brunt of the destruction and pillaging.

But there was also a nearby music festival with thousands of Israeli youth from all over Israel in attendance. The Nova Music Festival was to have been a place of music, dancing, good fellowship and celebration. It turned into a venue of horror with mass rape, dismemberment and torture; barbarity on a grand scale. Hundreds of young people died, fleeing in panic from the bloodlust-maddened terrorists whose goal was death and destruction. The Israeli military posts, accustomed to constant barrages of rockets from Gaza, and unprepared for what was to follow, ended the day with IDF soldiers either killed or taken hostage.

 

A final count of 1,200 deaths from that fateful day which included mostly civilians, mostly Israeli Jews, but Israeli Arabs and foreign farm workers as well who suffered the same savage fate as the slaughtered Jewish children,  youth, women and men. 250 infants, children, elderly, women and men, along with IDF personnel were taken into Gaza to serve as hostages. Where they were subjected to torture, starvation, isolation and injuries that were never treated, most being kept in the network of underground tunnels that served Hamas as weapons depots, command centers, communications areas and refuge from detection for Hamas operatives.

Israel was unprepared for the carnage of October 7, 2023. Its leaders and intelligence groups had convinced themselves that the-then ceasefire arrangement with Hamas would hold. There had been no real skirmishes, to alert Israeli authorities beforehand. Even though some of the Israeli female IDF lookouts had reported suspicious activities nearby, when in fact these were rehearsals for the stealth invasion that was to follow on October 7. Their warnings were ignored; Israel's government wanted to believe that Hamas had finally relented, even though its charter was clear: the destruction of Israel. 

 

Naama Levy bodycam video taken by Hamas

That Saturday morning, the time of a national heritage holiday of Simchat Torah, a time of great rejoicing, Israelis in southern Israel heard a rocket bombardment heading from Gaza to Israel, but this in and of itself was not unusual. What was unusual was that at the border between Israel and Gaza, bulldozers were ramming the security fence separating the two, and waiting trucks, motorcyclists and those on foot swarmed through the fence on their way to disperse toward their target Israeli communities, to begin shooting people waiting at bus stops. They invaded homes to kill the inhabitants, breaking down safe rooms, and torching other homes with entire families burned to death.

 

This kind of dedicated savagery of sadistic proportions is the result of hatred so intense that a young man who had just killed ten Jews was eager to impart the good news of his heroism to his approving, congratulatory parents. The kind of sadistic savagery that saw Palestinian terrorists run down horrified, frightened girls and woman for mass rape and mutilation. Men so proud of their accomplishments that they took care to video their atrocities to air them as proof positive of their courage and heroic status.  

"We made them think that Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians [in Gaza] and has abandoned the resistance altogether."

"All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack."

Lebanon-based senior Hamas official Ali Baraka, October 8 

 

"Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country, because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation and must be finished."

"We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again."

"The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight."

Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad  

Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova festival on 7 October and killed hundreds   BBC, Nik Millard

 

The 'Peacemaker-in-Chief'

"This was the granddaddy of them all. And frankly, I thought this was probably going to be the toughest, and maybe in many ways, it was."

"The prayers of millions have finally been answered. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East." 

"I've been involved in a lot of success. I have never seen anything like what's going on today." 

"Today, for the first time anyone can remember, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put the old feuds and bitter hatreds behind us -- and to declare that our future will not be ruled by the fights of generations past." 

"Israel, with our  help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You've won. I mean, you've won. Now it's time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East." 

"The total focus of Gazans must be on restoring the fundamentals of stability safety dignity, and economic development so they can finally have the better life that their children really do deserve after all these decades of  horror."

"I intend to be a partner in this effort." 

U.S. President Donald Trump 

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, on Monday. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

 

The final release of the remaining Israeli hostages from Hamas hands in Gaza is indisputably a diplomatic tour de force, and no one can take that credit away from Donald Trump, the self-lauded master of the deal. From the unitary height of his position as the most powerful, influential man on this planet he exerted the weight he wields to convince all those involved in this ageless saga of suspicion and hatred, sectarian and tribal, to agree that terrorism cannot be permitted to destabilize an entire region, the tremblors of which may threaten the very peace of the entire globe.

 

That accomplished, the equally large challenge of future prospects in that tiny segment of the Middle East was addressed on the surface with the attendance of world leaders from Europe and the Middle East attending the global summit on the future of Gaza, in Sharm el Shiekh. In the absence of  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who declined to attend on a Jewish holiday, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Emir Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani of Qatar, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged their commitment to a future Gaza. 

 

Twenty living Israeli hostages, young men to middle-aged men, captured by Hamas terrorists marauding through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, from kibbutzim and from the Nova Music Festival, were finally freed from the shackles of captivity after two years of starvation, shackles, privation and torture. The exchange price for their release was steep, the freeing of 1,700 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, among whom were murderers of Israelis. The disparity in numbers represents the usual fare paid by Israel for the release from captivity of their nationals from the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Experience has proven that the vast bulk of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons return to the very lethal predations that saw them imprisoned to begin with.

 

Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli hostage released from the Gaza Strip holds an Israeli flag after coming off a helicopter at the Ichilov Hospital, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

 

Now the issues at hand relate to the future of Gaza, to the vital  necessity of having Hamas disarm and surrender their weaponry, which they adamantly refuse to do, much less to vacate the Strip where they have over their years of governing it, transformed the land underground to a labyrinthine maze of tunnels for haven/escape from retaliatory attacks by the IDF following rocket strikes into Israel. Tunnels under hospitals, schools, private homes, apartment blocks, and mosques, where command posts, headquarters, weapons depots, communication stations and more were located. And more recently, subterranean dungeons for Israeli hostages.

 

There are pledges from Middle East nations and Western nations to help fund civic infrastructure, from the West, along with the ME nations to send peacekeepers to Gaza. No one has any solution how best to force Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to depart Gaza, to disarm, to disown their death charters for the destruction of Israel, for the deadly elimination of Jews everywhere. For his part, President Trump is 'confident' that the ceasefire he personally oversaw would be permanent. Skepticism abounds, however, among those with the experience of decades of conflict. 

 

It took no time at all for the realization to sink in that although the living hostages were restored to Israel and to their own lives as free men with a future ahead of them, Hamas failed in its signed obligation to transfer the 28 bodies of those whom they had murdered while in their custody; one woman and the rest Israeli men with the misfortune not to have been able to endure the hardships and psychological deadening of their inhumane incarcerations. The agreement was for the wholesale restoration of all Israelis, alive and dead. That old adage 'time will tell', certainly will. 

 

A crowd gathers around a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners who were released from an Israeli prison as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, upon his arrival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

 

 

 

Until Justice is Done

"The report presents the truth as it is -- shocking painful, but vital and necessary." 

"On behalf of all those who were harmed, we are committed to continuing to fight until their cry is heard everywhere and until justice is done." 

"There was an expectation that women around the world would understand and support us, like in other conflicts. The feeling of their backs turned on us was painful."

"As Israeli women, we need to scream for those who cannot anymore and bring them justice."

Israeli First Lady Michal Herzog

 

"We say this [that sexual violence in conflict is systematic rather than random] in a clear voice: sexual violence in conflict is a weapon. It is not random, it is not directed only at the individual and it is not done without direction from above."

"It is time for the international community to treat this phenomenon as such."

Professor Ruth Helperin-Kadri 

The authors of the Dinah Project's report on sexual violence on and since October 7 are pictured with First Lady Michal Herzog (center) at the President's Residence, Jerusalem, July 8, 2025. (Itzik Biran)

 

On Tuesday a legal report was presented to the wife of Israel's president.  That ground-breaking report presents as the first comprehensive framework to enable the prosecution of Hamas and other Palestinian  terrorists for their systematic pre-planned use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, as seen by the agonized savagery on display during the October 7, 2023 invasion by Palestinian terrorists into southern Israel, where thousands of terrorists led by the Hamas ruling group committed mass rape, sadistic torture and massive bloodshed, taking the lives of 1,200 Israeli children, women, the elderly and foreign farm workers, along with a smaller number of Israeli soldiers.

 

The report in its 84 pages -- written by professor Ruth Halperin-Kadri, retired district judge Nava Ben-Or, and Col. (res) Attorney Sharon Zaggi Pinhas, former chief military prosecutor of the Israel Defense Forces -- is the most extensive legal and factual documentation at this point, of sexual crimes committed during the assault on Israeli border communities adjacent Gaza. The report is part of "The Dina Project", analyzing dozens of sources, establishing clear patterns of systematic sexual violence.

 

Outlined are clear and consistent patterns of sexual violence committed by Palestinian terrorists both at murder scenes and upon Israeli hostages in captivity. Gang rape, public humiliation, forced nudity genital abuse and direct shooting of intimate body parts -- all are documented. Accounts from abductees describing repeated sexual assaults, threats of 'forced marriage', and attempts to erase sexual identity are accounted for, including violent sexual attacks perpetrated on men.  

 

Memorials at the Nova music festival site in May 2024.  Leo Correa / AP

 

 Investigators discovered recurring descriptions of half-naked female bodies some of whom had been tied up to buildings and trees. Reports from personnel identifying casualties from military bases were also included. The unequivocal conclusion of the authors was that Hamas made use of sexual violence representing an integral portion of an overall plan of terror, collective humiliation and dehumanization of Israeli society. During interrogations, several Palestinian terrorist captured by Israel, admitted having raped and sexually abused women.

 

Testimony from Ilana Gritzewsky who survived 55 days of captivity in Gaza was included in the presentation. She spoke of her experience of sexual abuse: "On October 7, I was in my house, in Kibbutz Nir Oz, with my partner, Matan (Zangauker). And suddenly -- noise. Explosions, Screams. Then a door was broken open. We were kidnapped." 

 

Security forces at the Nova music festival site in Kibbutz Re'im, Israel, on Oct. 12, 2023.  Leon Neal / Getty Images file 

"When I woke up, I was half-naked. Surrounded by terrorists. They beat me, touched me. I didn't know what happened to my body in those lost minutes. But my soul already knew: nothing would be the same."

"I was released after 55 days. But I'm not really free. Because true freedom only exists when no one has to go through what I went through."

"Almost two years later, there are those who still ask if this really happened. I’m here to tell you that it did and it’s still going on."

"My Matan is still there. I don’t know what they’re doing to him, but I know what they did to me. I wake up every morning with the fear that he is experiencing what I did."

Ilana Geritzewsky  

"Sexual crimes during war are — forgive me — a ‘perfect crime."

"[Amid the chaos of war], perpetrators can rely on the silence of their victims, either because they murder them, which was the case for most of the victims who were assaulted on October 7, or for the survivors. There is so much trauma and shame unique to the crime that they often won’t talk about it."

IDF Col.(ret) Attorney Sharon Zagi-Pinhas  

 

The Ceasefire That May or May Not Be

 

The UN Security Council resolution ended the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 and stipulates that the only armed groups in the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River should be the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces (UN Interim Force in Lebanon – UNIFIL). The so-called Blue Line was set by the UN in 2000 after the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and now serves as a de facto border between the two countries. Resolution 1701 also prohibits Israel from encroaching on Lebanese territory by land, sea or air.

United Nations Resolution 1701

A view of destruction caused by the Israeli army in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kela, following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, November 27, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Under this agreement Hezbollah was to disarm and turn their weapons over to the Lebanese military, as well as blend their members with that of the military, under Lebanese Army control. That never happened. UNIFIL was also ordered to ensure that no build-up of weaponry was to take place, to ensure that a cache of weapons that would be used again against Israel did not eventuate. That too failed, because it was never enforced, the result being that the Islamic Republic of Iran was able by stealth to continue arming its creature Hezbollah with more sophisticated missiles in huge numbers, stockpiled to be used at a time when a well-planned attack was to take place with Israel confronted on all sides.

 

Hezbollah had entered the fray the very day following the infamously savage attack on southern Israel by thousands of terrorists led by Hamas, October 8, 2023. The Hamas attack from Gaza on Israel's border kibbutzim took place on the 7th of October and it was still ongoing on the 8th when Hezbollah first began sending rockets into Israel to open a northern front in Israel, to join in the carnage and spell relief for Hamas. This, at a time when Israel had yet to invade Gaza, necessitating that the Israel Defense Forces deploy both in the country's south and the north.

The assaults from Hezbollah were at first desultory and haphazardly intermittent, with Israel firing back in similar vein. Until the attacks reached a momentum where it became necessary for Israel to order towns and communities in the north to evacuate and leave for the Israeli interior, leading to tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes. 

 

Israel's response to the Hezbollah assaults saw Lebanese living in Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon forced to leave as well. Israel's pounding by air of southern Lebanon, where Shiite villages comprised the area that held Hezbollah's headquarters and military barracks along with weapons stockpiles resulted in the Lebanese terror group's critical loss of commanders along with weapons depots.

 

Residents of northern Israeli communities who were evacuated from their homes due to the war protest against a ceasefire, in Tel Aviv, November 26, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

 

Now, a 60-day ceasefire is in effect which Israel's security cabinet agreed to under pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden, mindful of a legacy project as he leaves office. Israel, pressed by the Biden White House to reach a ceasefire agreement with both Hamas and Hezbollah when its existential goal is to destroy both terrorist groups' capacity to ever again threaten, attack and violate the Jewish State's sovereignty and Jewish right to life, has been constrained time and again under threat of withholding U.S.-supplied arms and munitions to Israel in its struggle against its enemies' intention of annihilating Israel.

The Lebanese Armed Forces are to be deployed to the border region between Israel and Lebanon, while Hezbollah is to withdraw for a "transition period" which would see Israeli troops return to Israel. Hezbollah has agreed under the ceasefire to relocate its "heavy weapons" to north of the Litani River, 30 kilometres north of the border with Israel. No sooner was the ceasefire implemented, than did Hezbollah betray expectations, some of its operatives appearing in areas meant to be off-limits.

Israel's pledge was to deal immediately and harshly with any violations by Hezbollah should the Lebanese army fail to neutralize any conceivable threats that could arise. The stipulation under the agreement continues to hamstring Israel, since it must consult over any actions taken beforehand with Washington. Air Raid sirens have now gone silent, but they were constantly activated across the Galilee and Haifa areas to warn of thousands of incoming rocket and missile fire from Lebanon.

Hezbollah, briefly relieved of the presence of Israeli ground forces and the pounding of their strongholds has vowed to "remain active" once the conflict comes to a formal conclusion. Lebanese lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, representing Hezbollah's March 8 Alliance, spoke of rebuilding the areas destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and presumably picking  up where they had left off. Two days prior to the ceasefire, over 240 projectiles had been fired by Hezbollah into Israel. 

Over 60,000 internally displaced residents of Israel's northern boundaries await return to their homes with the cessation, however temporary, of Hezbollah missiles during the ceasefire. At least 76 Israelis were killed, 31 IDF soldiers among them, along with six foreign nationals, and 700 people wounded during the airborne assaults from Lebanon. For the time being the IDF has withdrawn its ground forces that had conducted "limited, localized and targeted raids" into Lebanon.

Israeli authorities wait and remain on alert. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adhered to Joe Biden's pressure, he has made no secret of his intention to continue battling Hezbollah until its vicious menace recedes completely. As for the northern Shiite Lebanese and their Hezbollah heroes, they are all celebrating their heroic 'victory' over Israel, having 'forced the enemy' to declare a ceasefire, a situation that they interpret as having gained the upper hand over Israel. 

Israeli soldiers seen on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, November 27, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

 

Palestinian Terrorists Feeling Entitled to Control the Outcome of their Savagery

"I want to remind the citizens of Israel that every time you eat something or drink something, remember us, the hostages, who don’t have the opportunity to enjoy food or water."

"My fear for my life is daily. The military efforts to release me that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is selling you is what will end up leading to my death."

"I can tell you I have become scared of the army. I am really afraid of the moment the army might get to me, or blow up the place I am located."

Alexander Troufanov

 

"[With winter approaching], these hostages, who have been subjected to horrific conditions of abuse, starvation and darkness for over a year, face an increasing risk of losing their lives."

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum 

"I am relieved to see my son alive, but I am very worried to hear what he is saying."

"I urge that every effort be made to secure his immediate release and that of all other hostages."

"They have no time left."  

Yelena Troufanov

Russian-Israeli captive Alexander “Sasha” Trufanov seen in an undated video released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Source: Screenshot/X.

Hi Rita Rosenfeld, Your post was detected by our systems and has had its visibility limited for violating the X rules. Specifically: We have determined your post violated our rules against Hateful Conduct. You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. Rita Rosenfeld @rheytah The sadistic pleasure Palestinian terrorists enjoy in turning the screw: Watch: PIJ releases new sign-of-life video of hostage Alexander Troufanov As a result, your post may stay on the platform but we have limited its reach. You can learn more about how your post’s visibility is limited on our Help Center. If you think we’ve made a mistake, you can appeal the violation by going to your post and selecting “Learn more”. Need some help? X Corp. 1355 Market Street, Suite 900 San Francisco, CA 94103

There were originally 254 Israeli infants, girls, women, men civilians, IDF soldiers, migrant farm workers captured by Palestinian terrorists who invaded southern Israel from Gaza with the specific purpose of looting, mass rape, mutilations and murder on a grand scale. These terrified people were taken hostage for the purpose of being used as 'trades' for Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons, found guilty of crimes of terror. The hostages have been deprived of liberty, daylight, hygiene, adequate food provisions and have experienced humiliation and torture, young women constantly raped. Many have died of privation, ill health and others have been murdered.

Those that are left, both dead and alive, are still viewed as prized caches of human trade. Palestinians know well the penchant of Israelis to try to move heaven and earth to secure the release of their people from the tender claws of their enemies. It is not enough for the Palestinians who in the greater majority  fully support their terrorist groups, and specifically Hamas that had governed Gaza in their exploits of murder, rape and abduction of innocent children, the elderly, vulnerable women and others to satisfy their own sense of implacable victimhood.

Those holding the Israeli hostages enjoy the psychological warfare they indulge in, a sadistic exercise in savagery outlawed by civilized people, but perpetrated by those whose seething hatred is unappeasable and do their utmost to cause suffering and anguish to the families, friends, colleagues of those helpless victims by staging scenarios where their prisoners read from scripts given them in an obvious ploy to manipulate those affected -- which to all effects, is every Israeli citizen -- to spur efforts to demand of their government the acceptance of Hamas's conditions for the release of the hostages.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and ordinary Palestinian civilians had taken part in the massacre of October 7, and the hostage-taking, released a video meant as proof that the hostage being featured is not yet dead. In the videos released by Hamas and PIJ, drawn and haggard victims plead with their families, with their government to use all means to secure their release. The terrorists hope that the end effect of these heartstring-pulling exercises in pain for Israel, it can turn the population against its government intent on destroying Palestinian terror groups.

This latest video featured Russian-Israeli hostage Alexander 'Sasha' Troufanov, abducted during the terrorist attack of 2023 from his family home, held captive for 404 days, in the Gaza Strip. This third video of Sasha Troufanov has him stating that he and the other captives remaining -- a hundred in number, but many no longer living -- and receiving inadequate food, much less basic hygiene products, pleading for the Israeli public to call for a hostage agreement. He expressed his fear of being accidentally killed by Israeli Defense Forces on cue; not very subtle, but quite effective.

The 29-year-old Troufanov was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz, as was his mother, Yelena Trouifanov; his grandmother Irena Tati, and his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen. His father, Vitaly Troufanov was murdered during the Nir Oz onslaught by Hamas as were 40 other residents of the Kibbutz. Since the abduction his mother and grandmother were freed in November of 2023, as requested by Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Sapir Cohen was released in a ceasefire agreement the same month.

UNRWA -- Rotten Through to the Core

`UNRWA has taken steps to address allegations regarding individual employees`support for terrorist organizations and demonstrated its willingness to pursue and implement reform of internal processes.`

Statement co-signed by Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain

The opening assembly of the Knesset’s winter session. (Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS-IL)

 

And despite having been updated in full by the Israeli government on the UNRWA propensity to hire Gazan Palestinians who just also happen to be members of terrorist groups, Hamas among them, somehow evidence is not proof enough to believe Israel over the word of innocence from the UN body some of whose employees took active participation on the barbaric sadism of October 7 in southern Israel. ``Ìt is not just a few rotten apples ... UNRWA in Gaza is a rotten tree entirely infected with terrorist operatives``, they were assured by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Yet, even so, condemnation was fairly universal from most of Israel`s democratic allies when the Israeli government made the decision to sever all ties with UNRWA, charging that the UN body is irreparably involved with terrorism. Which failed to give thoughtful pause to Canada`s foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly who threw her support to the agency that Canada continues to support financially with an annual $25 million.

Israel provided ample evidence that UNRWA facilities were appropriated by Hamas for use as command posts. That roughly one hundred Hamas commanders and operatives were on the UNRWA payroll. Israel made it clear that despite its determination to no longer cooperate with the corrupt UN agency which has pleaded ignorance of the content of the Palestinian school curricula which it supplies, and its complicity in demonizing Israel, encouraging Palestinians to reject attempts at peace, it intends to continue work with other UN agencies in the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

 

Hamas terrorist Muhammad Abu Attawi and UNRWA staffer during the attack on a bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

Under the former government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada`s UNRWA funding had been suspended for the very reason that it was recognized the agency`s agenda was fundamentally anti-Israel and corrupted with institutionalized antisemitism. One of the first acts of the new Trudeau government in foreign affairs had been restoration of federal funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine. It had been briefly suspended when proof had initially been given of its employee complicity in October 7, but speedily restored.

International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau had stated that UNRWA would no longer be funding terrorist groups, with UNRWA instituting a `very robust oversight and reporting framework`. Perhaps she knew something that UNRWA was unaware of, since there was much that the agency purported to be unaware of with respect to its links to Palestinian terrorist groups. This, despite a dossier that up to 2,000 UNRWA employees had ties to Palestinian terrorist groups.

Much less that many schools operated by UNRWA served as entrances to the Hamas underground tunnel network, and that over a dozen known UNRWA employees had taken part in the October 7 massacres of Israel civilians. UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Mussallem An-Naimi was seen on surveillance video dragging the dead body of a murdered victim at Kibbutz Bee`ri, where over 100 civilians were savagely murdered.

 

This image from video shows Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami (right) and another terrorist abducting the body of an Israeli on October 7, 2023. (Screenshot: South First Reporters)

 

Canada`s International Development Minister had claimed to have been assured by UNRWA`s pledge they had `taken immediate measures to strengthen oversight, accountability and transparency` -- for what that was worth. UNRWA fired nine of its employees admitting it seemed credible they had participated in the October 7 attacks, after all. Following the death of Hamas`s Lebanon chief Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin in an Israeli airstrike, it was confirmed by UNRWA that he was one of their employees, a past chairman of the UNRWA Teachers`Association.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, stated that el-Amin had been placed on administrative leave for political activities -- but his agency had no idea whatever that in him they had employed a senior Hamas commander. `The specific allegation at the time was that he was a part of the local leadership ... I never heard the word command before`, said Lazzarini.

Months before the October 7 atrocities took place. the German magazine BILD published an investigation of rampant antisemitism and incitement to violence among UNRWA teachers and in their textbooks. 

`Ìn an exercise for students in a 9th grade class in Gaza, a Palestinian arson attack on a bus carrying Jews is referred to as a `barbecue`.

`Germany continues to pay for hatred of Jews.`

Israeli soldiers walk inside an evacuated compound of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in Gaza City. Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP

Funding Terrorism Support, the Role of Iran/Qatar

"The project revealed, for the first time, the existence of substantial Middle Eastern funding [primarily from Qatar to U.S. universities that had not been reported to the Department of Education, as required by law."

"Foreign donations from Qatar, especially, have had a substantial impact on fomenting growing levels of antisemitic discourse and campus politics at U.S. universities, as well as growing support for anti-democratic values within these institutions of higher education."

Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)

 

It has been a stormy, disheartening, and frightening eight months for the Canadian Jewish community in the wake of the notoriously ghastly terrorist flood that rushed into southern Israel to enact a crime scene of unbelievable proportions when thousands of Hamas, PLFP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists followed by ordinary Palestinian civilians set out to slaughter 1,200 Israelis of all ages, from babies to the elderly in a bloodbath of grotesque proportions. That the Hamas operatives took tender care to video their sadistic savagery is testament to the pride they took in tormenting, raping, torturing their defenceless victims.

Yet these psychotic acts of inhuman depravity are celebrated in the streets of Canada by Israel-and-Jew haters who characterize the murder of babies, music festival celebrants, terrified men and women, as 'just due' by the courageous Palestinians who 'confronted' their oppressors vindicating their pledge to destroy Israel and Jews wherever they are. In Canada, immigrants from Middle East nations who arrived in Canada to find a better life for themselves, find it evidently in destroying life for Jews in Canada. And there they assemble in keffiyeh-clad, masked mobs to slander Israel and threaten Canadian Jews.

 

Toronto's Walk with Israel, June 9,2024 (Credit: Michael Weisdorf)

 

The blockades and university encampments where demonstrators celebrate their uninhibited antisemitism while uttering alarming threats to the safety and security of Jews loyal to Canada and to Israel have been a fixture for far too long in Canada. Destabilizing society, committing ongoing threats to Jewish communities, and under the cover of night, committing violent criminal acts, fire-bombing and shooting at Jewish parochial schools, synagogues, community centres and Jewish-owned businesses, screaming boycott and Intifadeh.

On Sunday, Toronto was witness to an estimated 50,000 Jews, Christians, Iranians, and First Nations supporters marching in solidarity with the State of Israel, celebrating its existence and demonstrating on behalf of Canadian Jewry, whose presence as generations of Canadian citizens was affirmed and supported. Most Canadians, the 'silent majority' despise Hamas and what it stands for; death-dealing. A Leger poll conducted in May sought the opinion of Canadians on the university encampments demonizing Israel; 19% of those polled supported them, while 48% condemned them.

Sunday's March for Israel saw some counter-demonstrators present, praising Hamas, amidst a massive police presence to ensure security. From time to time questions arise respecting the organization and funding of the ongoing pro-Hamas demonstrations and the installation of university campus encampments that authorities barely know how to respond to, for fear of offending a much larger Muslim than Jewish population in Canada. 

 

Politico conducted an investigation, discovering that organizations with associations to major donors of progressive political causes, such as George Soros and David Rockefeller along with others, including the Tides Foundation have been sources of financial support. It has long been recognized that Iran and Qatar have been funding sources for these exhibitions of foetid Jew-hate and Israel-bashing. The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy launched its "Follow the Money" project in 2012, discovering that Qatar and Iran are principal patrons of Hamas.

ISAP revealed that Columbia University, which has proven itself an epicentre for campus activism supportive of Hamas, received close to $3.5 million from Qatar but neglected to report the money, thus breaking U.S. law in the process. The plagues of pro-Hamas demonstrations that have dominated the streets in Canada since October 7 have been organized by Palestinian students and non-students savvy in the ways of Marxist theory and the foibles of Western progressive-left antipathy to Israel.

"President Joe Biden has been dogged for months by pro-Palestinian protesters calling him “Genocide Joe” — but some of the groups behind the demonstrations receive financial backing from philanthropists pushing hard for his reelection."

"The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker, according to a POLITICO analysis."

"Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change. "

Politico

Students at Washburn University stage a protest expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza and calling for a cease-fire on May 3, 2024, in Topeka, Kansas. | John Hanna/AP