Hamas’s disdain for Palestinians

The claim by Hamas on Saturday when it released US hostage Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie, 17, that it had done so for “humanitarian reasons” rang hollow. If it had a smidgen of sincerity it would release all the hostages it captured in Israel a fortnight ago. Such a move would help Palestinians if it prompted Israel to review its blocking of water, power, food and fuel supplies to Gaza. The views of an imam, Sheik Youssef Nabha, expressed at a mosque in Kingsgrove in southwestern Sydney on Saturday, to “farewell and commemorate” three so-called “martyrs” were also dubious. The three Hezbollah fighters – Taha Abbas Abbas, Ali Marmar and Hussam Ibrahim – died this week in Lebanon. The three men were killed “on jihad” while firing mortars into Israel, the imam told a crowd of 400.

Jewish community leaders rightly fear such commemorations of “martyrs” will incite hatred and divisions. Like 9/11, the terrorist assault on Israel is having repercussions across the world, with police in the US city of Detroit investigating the unexplained stabbing death of Samantha Woll, a synagogue president whose body was found outside her home at the weekend.

On the ground in Gaza, the arrival of the first convoy of 20 trucks carrying emergency UN supplies of medicines, water and other supplies that entered through the Rafah crossing point with Egypt is a sign that more desperately needed help is on the way. Deep concern about the dreadful plight of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, like that expressed in a Sky News interview on Sunday by Industry Minister Ed Husic, is understandable. The search for ways to alleviate the Gazan people’s suffering, however, is not being helped by the reluctance of many leaders across the world to sheet responsibility for the crisis to where it rightly belongs: Hamas terrorists and their Islamic Jihad allies.

In Cairo on Saturday, a so-called “Summit for Peace” of government officials, including major Arab leaders brought together by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, concluded without a denunciation of Hamas’s massacre of Israelis in its final statement. There was no full-throated condemnation of its terrorist atrocities or any apparent sympathy for Israel’s determination to “destroy” Hamas. If it succeeds, Palestinians and Arab nations, as well as Israel, will be better off.

Senior Hamas official Khaled Mashal, who lives safely in Doha, Qatar, callously boasted at the weekend that his group was “well aware of the likely consequences” of its October 7 attack on Israel. Palestinians needed to “sacrifice lives” to “liberate” themselves from Israel, he said. His words showed his depravity and cruel disregard for Palestinians’ lives as well as that of Israelis.