We all know that Hamas threatened the Israelis hostages that it was just about to release last November to put on happy faces, and wish their former captors “Shalom” for the cameras, and those who could manage it did as they were told. They had been warned that if they did not collaborate, it would go hard with the hostages still being held captive, whom they were leaving behind. But when they arrived home, the released hostages proceeded to describe the horrific conditions in which they had been held. They spoke of living on one piece of pita bread each day,or being occasionally given rotten meat. Many of them lived in the tunnels, enduring the cold and the darkness. None had received a visit from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). And finally, after many months, some of them finally spoke publicly of the sexual abuse they had endured every day, including rapes, and revealed that all of the female hostages were still being similarly abused.
Christine Douglass-Williams wrote about this here, and more on this sexual abuse, and Hamas’ blanket denial, can be found here: “Outrageous lie: Israeli hostages in Gaza “left happy and laughing” – they received “generous treatment” – PA TV interview,” by Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch, April 4, 2024:
Recently, an Israeli woman aged 40 who was held hostage by Hamas revealed that she was sexually assaulted by her captor. And she is not the only one. Other hostages have also testified about sexual abuse, torture, and beatings while being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
As more testimonies from Israeli hostages who were freed last November after almost two months in Hamas captivity are being published, the war of narratives has become urgent.
The meager rations, the beatings, the confinement in dark and cold tunnels, were the common lot of the hostages. Several dozen hostages have also been murdered while in Hamas’ captivity over the past six months.
The Palestinian and Arab narrative is entirely fictitious and is intended to humanize Hamas and deny its atrocities. One example is this outrageous claim made to official PA TV by a lecturer at Cairo University that the Israeli hostages received “generous treatment” and left captivity “happy and laughing”:
Head of Radio and TV Department at Cairo University’s Faculty of Mass Communications Ashraf Jalal: “The generous treatment Palestine gave the Israeli prisoners (i.e., kidnapped women and children) caused an enormous positive response, because after [the Israelis] lied and said that [Hamas] is abusing them, the [Israeli] people left [Gaza] happy and laughing… What is required is that we redirect the media spotlight to this issue.”
[Official PA TV, From Cairo, Feb. 12, 2024]
This brazen lie follows those made by senior PA officials, which have been documented by Palestinian Media Watch. In November 2023, Minister Qadura Fares, who is the director of the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, said that Israel “made up this story and said: They [the Palestinians] raped, killed, and burned” [Official PA TV, Nov. 20, 2023]. In December 2023, PLO Executive Committee member and PLF Secretary-General Wasel Abu Yusuf said: “Since October 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].
But we have the testimony about the murdered children, the rapes, the mutilation of bodies from Israeli survivors who witnessed or overheard these events from their hiding places. We also have the videos of these atrocities that were taken at the time by those who committed them, so proud were they of how they had terrorized, tortured, raped, and killed the hated Israelis. And, of course, we have the 1,200 corpses of those who were burned to death, or stabbed or shot, with the females having had their breasts sliced off, and genitalia cut off men, as well as their eyes gouged out.
It’s not the charges of murder and kidnapping that Hamas feels the need to deny, but the charge of “sexual abuse” — meaning “rape.” That is seen as beyond the pale. Pass out candies and celebrate the murders of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, but remain silent about the mass rapes which Muslim men are not supposed to engage in. “We have our standards,” they imply, and rape is not allowed. It’s absurd of course: there were endless rapes on October 7, and then more sexual abuse, including rapes, of female hostages by their Hamas captors in Gaza that continue right up to the present day. So please understand the threats that made some of those hostages — only a few could manage it — appear to be “happy and laughing” for the whirring cameras as they left Gaza, freed in the November hostage-for-prisoner exchange. And months later, concentrate on the full horror of what the remaining hostages — starved, beaten, held in cold, dark tunnels, with sexual abuse and rape a daily occurrence – must still endure.
somehistory says
hamas is now claiming that they don’t have 40 hostages to trade in a “ceasefire” agreement in order to get 700 criminals…100 of which are murderers…released from prisons in Israel.
Question: how many more have they murdered, if they can’t get at least 40 to trade?
PRCS says
Happy they were released, of course.
But laughing?
tim gallagher says
You would have to be a complete fuckwit to believe anything that any scumbag from hamas told you, but there do appear to be many such braindead fools in the world who do seem to give credence to hamas’s transparent lies. Scum of the earth from hamas who murder, rape, torture constantly are not bothered about endlessly lying about everything under the Sun. i would never believe anything that hamas or the Palestinian lobby said on any issue.
Wellington says
Strongly seconding, tm, your “complete fuckwit” assessment. Sadly, the West nowadays has a huge surplus of “complete fuckwits.” The forever execrable Joe Biden comes foremost to mind but there are many other “worthy” candidates here—far too many and this bespeaks in part why the West is descending at a rapid rate.
Ray Jarman says
Wellington, I totally agree with you and Tim Gallager and this sub-human trash need to be eradicated from the earth. If what they say about the well being of the hostages is true, let them post live coverage of the well being of the hostages and as for the AP, Reuters, BBC and other make believe news outlets trust Hamas, let themselves be exchanged for the hostages and they can relate to the world later how much fun captivity was for them.
tim gallagher says
Thanks, Wellington and Ray. Yes, the stupidity and gullibility of so many people in all our societies is astounding. Many of the sleepwalking fools seem totally incapable of learning anything, especially when it comes to islam and its malicious nature. How anyone could ever believe anything that the sadistic, murderous scum from hamas said about anything is beyond belief. Ray, I agree. They need to be wiped out to improve the quality of the human race although, as you say, sub-human is probably a better description of the scum..
Wellington says
This is so risible and stupid on its face but points to something important in the struggle against the iniquity which is Islam in its entirety, to wit, its followers so very often state obscene absurdities, as here, and which alone goes a long way to discrediting this highly warped belief system for anyone possessed of common sense and moral intelligence.
And I would note this as well: The more devout the Muslim the more likely it is that a complete lie will be told about various matters and even about reality in general. And I would not say this about devout followers of any other major religion. Even assuming a devout follower of another major religion is wrong respecting what they contend, it is invariably not done in an actively and knowingly mendacious way. But it is with a huge number of Muslims and this bespeaks to the true merit residing in Islam. Yes it does.
abu taleb says
Islamists also claim that the jihad toward the non muslims is for the benefit of the non muslims and the victims of Islamic jihads should be thankfull because by killing them the torture in the hell will be less from the shortening of the life.
In short, every thing the Islamist do is for the good of mankind, doesn;t matter if it is rape, murder, torture, robbery, etc,
OLD GUY says
Hamas is and will continue to be a lying sack of s–t. You have to simply remember they are muslim/islamic followers who are taught to deceive non-muslim/islamic people.
Westpacwill says
Of course, these terrorists never do anything that is not only permitted in the Qur’an, but is actually commanded. That includes murder of non-Muslims “wherever they may be found” and the sexual assaults on women “under your right hand…” (captured in warfare). Hadith record Muhammad’s instructions on how Muslims are to deal with the very old, infants, and females – since they are “of them” (non-believers), they will also be killed. These standards also apply to Muslims of a different sect – Sunni vs. Shi’ite, almost all against Alawites, etc. If they are not one of their own “tribe”, they receive the same barbarity, all to achieve the “peace of Islam”, which is to say the ultimate slaughter of everyone who does not embrace Islam, and that includes anyone who embraces an Islam that in any way diverges from the terrorists’ own beliefs.