Part 3: Exposing myths about Palestinian identity

Part 1: Comparing realities in Israel and her neighbours

Ongoing environmental destruction – and ways to help

The world cries out for a murderer to be released while the innocent one takes the rap

What the British media aren’t telling us

The Lord is blessing Israel, but his enemies are cursing her!

But Jesus is the anchor for both Jew and Gentile

Christians and Jews are both in the firing line.

With residents of Israel bombarded by 700 rockets last weekend, it’s something of an understatement to say the Jewish nation is under fire.

Fortunately, decisive words and action – in marked contrast to what we are witnessing in Britain – led to a ceasefire as Hamas terrorists backed down in the face of an ultimatum from Benjamin Netanyahu. He warned them that if they didn’t drop their weapons forthwith, Israel would annex Gaza and drive them out forever.

Israel has long since learnt that they cannot fully rely on the support of their allies, and are thus prepared to take tough action when necessary.

British Betrayal

The British Parliament, now in complete disarray over our future in Europe, made a decision 80 years ago on 23 May 1939 which effectively sent thousands of Jews to certain death.

Capitulating to Arab opposition, a White Paper was passed on that day severely restricting entry to Palestine (then under Britain’s mandate) of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. It was a shocking betrayal of our pledge to prepare a home for Jewish people to live in safety.

The British Betrayed

It is significant that this anniversary coincides with the European elections, which we should never have needed to contest three years after a majority 17.4 million of our citizens voted to leave the EU.

"The day of the LORD is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head"

Following the shameful betrayal of the Jewish people 80 years ago, the British people themselves are now feeling betrayed by the same Parliament. Is there perhaps a connection? The word of God says: “The day of the LORD is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head" (Ob 15).

19^th-Century Britain

There was a day, in 19^th-Century Britain, when we acted more decisively and with greater honour and compassion, as viewers of the hit ITV series Victoria would have observed last Sunday night.¹

In 1850, Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston actually ordered a naval blockade in response to an Easter anti-Semitic outrage in Athens involving a British subject. Gibraltar-born Jew Don Pacifico and his family were viciously attacked by a mob after the Greek government banned the traditional burning of an effigy of Judas Iscariot in apparent deference to a wealthy British Jew, Lord Rothschild, who was in the country to discuss offering a loan.

There was a day when Britain acted more decisively and with greater honour and compassion.

Pacifico, a former Portuguese consul-general, was targeted in his capacity as de-facto leader of the city’s Jewish community. Palmerston was also a key figure in early political moves designed to facilitate the restoration of Israel.

Persecution of Christians in the UK

Tragically, it seems that, to some degree, Britain is now playing the role of Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, turning on their own Christians in a bid to silence those holding to the truth of the gospel and the commandments of God which have been recklessly jettisoned by successive governments.

I believe there is a sense in which God is speaking to both Christians and Jews, telling us we’re in this together. After all, we both worship the God of Israel, which is surely why both groups are being so fiercely persecuted worldwide.

There is a sense in which God is speaking to both Christians and Jews, telling us we’re in this together.

The Relationship Between Christians and the Jewish People

The church needs to understand that the Jews brought us the gospel (along with the Bible, the law, the prophets, the patriarchs, and our Lord himself). We owe it to them to offer help in their time of need (Rom 15:27). At the same time, however, Jews must understand that Jesus is their Messiah – Gentiles are even called to tell them so by declaring: “Your God reigns!” (Isa 52:7).

Praise God, many are responding, though others are clearly offended. But the gospel has always been an offence (Gal 5:11). And we must tell them – it’s a way of saying thank you, just as many grateful Africans have come over to Britain to thank us for our faithful forefathers who took the gospel to their countries, often sacrificing their lives in the process. These Nigerians, Zambians, Zimbabweans and others are now living among us, preaching with passion the message we have largely discarded, acting as lighthouses to a rudderless society in danger of shipwreck.

Worldwide Persecution

That we are in this together was brought home most forcibly through Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday terror attacks. Though the targets of the atrocity were the Christians, two of the eight British citizens killed by the bombs were Jews – siblings Amelie and Daniel Linsey, members of the synagogue of which Lord Leigh of Hurley is president. He said: “They shared the same classes as my children.”²

Shechem (also known as Nablus) in Samaria, some miles north of where the Jifnah attack took place. Both Christians and Jews are targeted in Israel / See Photo Credits

In territory run by the Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, Christian residents of the town of Jifnah were attacked by (ruling party) Fatah activists after a local woman complained to the police about the son of a senior Fatah official. The violent incident included shooting.³

In spite of what I said about Britain turning on their own Christians, I am pleased to say that the plight of persecuted Christians abroad has at last been acknowledged by the Government, thanks to a report commissioned by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has already opened the way towards further reconciliation with the Jewish community by apologising for the White Paper mentioned earlier.

Mr Hunt, reported to be a committed Christian, said Christians are enduring what amounts to genocide in some parts of the world and were being driven out of the Middle East in a modern-day exodus. And he blamed political correctness – particularly a “misplaced worry” that it would be interpreted as “colonialist” – for failing to confront the issue.⁴

The plight of persecuted Christians abroad has at last been acknowledged by the Government.

His report found 245 million Christians spread across 50 countries now suffer high levels of persecution. So it seems that as Jews migrate to Israel, now home to nearly seven million sons and daughters of Abraham, Christians in neighbouring countries are being uprooted and forced in the opposite direction.

We must stand together with our brothers in the ancient faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and be a blessing to one another. Their deed to the land is, primarily, in the Bible (Gen 17:7f). And our right to inheritance in the faith of Abraham is also in the Bible (Rom 4:16f).

References

1. The incident and its repercussions were featured in last Sunday’s episode of the series on the life of the young Queen.

2. Two Jewish siblings among victims of Sri Lanka attacks. The Jerusalem Post, 24 April 2019.

3. Christians Violently Attacked by Palestinian Forces, Forced to Pay Special ‘Tax’. United with Israel, 29 April 2019.

4. Persecution of Christians is modern-day 'genocide' says report. Daily Mail, 3 May 2019.

Part II: Aftermath and prospect.

Western media coverage of the March of Return peaked in May 2018, but the protests have continued. To date, almost a year later, over 180 lives have been lost and thousands of rioters are still gathering at the border.

The tragedy has played out well beyond the original plan, with much damage done to Palestinians as well as to Israel’s civilians, environment and international reputation. Senior Israeli officers and ministers have summarised the events as a military win but a big PR loss for Israel. This week, the UN has chosen to blame the IDF for its handling of the situation, accusing Israel of possible ‘war crimes’.¹

That said, Hamas has not realised its ultimate goal of storming through the fence and on into Israel, flooding it with 1.9 million ‘returning refugees’. In January, Israel announced the start of a massive upgrade of the border fence, the above-ground part of which will be 6 metres high and equipped with ‘smart’ technology. The new fence will likely minimise violent attempts to break through, but also draw international criticism and be held up as another symbol of Israeli ‘apartheid’.

One Battle, Many Fronts

In recent months, military and intelligence resources in Israel have been split between the ongoing violence at the Gaza border and the discovery of sophisticated tunnel systems beneath Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. One suspects co-ordination by Iran, a major backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah, as the tunnels were constructed partly while the Gaza spectacle was drawing the IDF’s attention.

NBC reports the tunnels’ connection to Hezbollah fighters “coming home from the war winding down in Syria, where they helped prop up President Bashar al-Assad as he battled rebels trying to unseat him. Fears are running high that as the battle-hardened militants return to an estimated arsenal of 100,000 rockets and missiles, they will intensify their focus on their original foe: Israel.”²

Back in Gaza, violent Islamist incitement has only continued. As 2018 was drawing to a close, Khaled Meshal (former Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau) stated on al-Jazeera TV (Qatar):

A country cannot be liberated and rights cannot be restored without resistance. It is not possible. Without resistance, the occupation cannot be defeated or forced to retreat. Every means of power must be put to use…

Today we are being called and preparing to force Israel to retreat from Jerusalem and from the West Bank. Allah willing, this is on the way to its retreat from all of Palestine…The West Bank spans over 5,600 square kilometres, and has mountains and valleys. I'm from there, I know the landscape. It has everything necessary for guerrilla warfare. Why are we not preparing for that?3

To date, almost a year after the March started, thousands of rioters are still gathering at the border and the tragedy has played out well beyond the original plan.

Anti-Semitic rhetoric in Gaza is encouraged by Islamic clerics around the world. On 29 December, on al-Watan TV (Turkey), Egyptian cleric Sameh Al-Juba proclaimed:

Allah forbids you to deal justly and kindly with…those who fight us because of religion and who drive us out of our homes, like what is happening in Palestine…Those must not be treated kindly or justly. Jihad is the only way to deal with those people. It is blood for blood, and attack for attack. [The Quran says:] "Whoever attacks you, attack him in the same way." This gives ample justification for the men of the resistance and the mujahideen in Palestine to retaliate twofold against this occupying enemy, until our countries are purified.⁴

Struggling for Support

Gazans protest against Abbas, 24 February 2019. Mohammed Talatene/DPA/PA ImagesBut, underneath the threats of genocide, the Palestinian cause is struggling. Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, is ageing and ill. Most Palestinians want his resignation, yet no successor is apparent. The longer this remains the case, the more likely his eventual retirement or demise is to trigger internal instability.⁵

Relations between the West Bank and Gaza – culturally very different enclaves – remain at an impasse, with successive reconciliation attempts falling through. At the end of January, Abbas, with the backing of Egypt, announced increased sanctions against Gaza which will restrict imports, prevent money transfers and reduce openings of the Rafah crossing into Egypt.⁶

The economic pressures are also enormous. The cutting of substantial funding from the USA and Australia has coincided with international backers like Qatar, Turkey and Iran being increasingly distracted by their own issues.⁷ The Arab world is fractured and re-structuring - and leading Sunni states including Egypt and Saudi Arabia are drawing closer to Israel. Meanwhile, in a spat over his rewarding of terrorists and their families, Abbas has refused to accept further tax payments collected on his behalf by Israel, which represent the PA’s most important source of income.⁸

All this, sadly, is likely to mean more violence in the short-medium term, but whether Palestinian leaders manage to deflect it successfully towards Israel, rather than themselves, remains to be seen. Dr Mohsen Mohammad Saleh, a pro-Palestinian political expert from Lebanon, predicts escalation, whichever way things go.⁹ He also predicts a growing role for diaspora Palestinians to champion the cause abroad, even while things collapse at home.

Indeed, since ‘Palestine’ is the ‘cause celebre’ of the Western left-wing, we can assume that whatever happens in the Middle East, in Europe and North America the encouragement of anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviour (e.g. the chanting of genocidal anti-Semitic slogans at such events as the British Labour Party Conference¹⁰) will continue. In the West, the PR war for Israel’s right to exist continues unabated and relatively undisturbed by on-the-ground Middle East politics.

This is because Palestinian aggression is but one manifestation of a global war on Israel, driven by an underlying hatred of the God of the Bible, whose faithfulness to his own promises is proclaimed to the world by the modern re-establishment of the Jewish people in their historic homeland.

Underneath the threats of genocide, the Palestinian cause is struggling.

Remembering Ordinary Palestinians

The victims in all this are not only the Jews, however, but also ordinary Palestinians, especially in Gaza. Though many (not all) continue to support Islamist aggression against Israel, it would seem that the majority know no better – understandably, given the systematic anti-Jewish indoctrination they receive from birth.

98% of the Gazan population are Muslim, living under the sway of imams, with only about 1,200 Christians and no Jews amongst them. There is no free press and disagreement with Hamas results in imprisonment and torture. How can they hear the Gospel, let alone understand Jewish perspectives?

They remain ignorant of God’s promise in Genesis 12:3 to Abraham, whom they revere as patriarch, prophet and ‘Friend of Allah’. That promise is repeated to Jacob in Isaac’s blessing (Gen 27:29), in a variant form to the nation of Israel under Moses (Ex 23:22) and through Balaam (Num 24:9). It promises that God himself is against those who fight against the Jewish people: ‘I will curse them that curse you’.

So far as the Gospel is concerned, the Christian TV channel SAT7 broadcasts in Arabic across the region, but its effects in Gaza are not publicly known. There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is active in the Muslim world, not only through social media and satellite TV but through dreams and visions that are bringing many to Christ.

Our best prayers for the Palestinians should be that the Lord himself will open their eyes to his truth and bring them into real freedom – something the March of Return, even in its most idealistic form, could never have offered.

Part 2 of 2. Click here to read Part 1.

References

1. UN disgraces itself; accuses Israel of “war crimes”, ignores Hamas terror at Gaza border. CUFI, 28 February 2019.

2. Bruton, FB and Goldman, P. Discovery of Hezbollah 'attack tunnels' rattles a northern Israeli town. NBC, 27 January 2019.

3. Former Hamas Leader Khaled Mashal Calls for West Bank "Guerrilla Warfare," States: "I Resist, Therefore I Am". MEMRI, Clip No. 6891, 12 December 2018.

4. Egyptian Cleric Sameh Al-Juba on Muslim Brotherhood TV: The Jews Are Treacherous and Should Not Be Dealt with Kindly or Justly. MEMRI, Clip No. 6945, 29 December 2018.

5. According to some commentators, this instability may have already begun.

6. WATCH: Hatred of Israel not enough to unite Fatah and Hamas. World Israel News, 30 January 2019.

7. Qatar is also showing signs of impatience with Hamas, refusing to pay Gaza’s electricity bill beyond April because key infrastructural investments have not been made. While Qatari cash is still coming into the Strip, attempts are apparently being made to route this into humanitarian needs rather than giving it straight to Hamas. Read more here and here.

8. Israel freezes funds to PA after Abbas refuses to stop payments to terrorists. CUFI, 22 February 2019.

9. Saleh, MM. Political Analysis: The 2019 Forecasts for the Palestine Issue. Al-Zaytouna Cenre, 28 January 2019.

10. According to the Jewish Chronicle, at the Labour Party’s Annual Conference on 26 September, “it seemed there were more Palestinian flags being waved than at a Hamas rally in Gaza, or at the opening session of the Palestinian Parliament at Ramallah. The vote by party members to debate Palestine was the fourth most popular after housing, schools, and justice for the Windrush generation. The subject of “Palestine” gained more votes (188,000) than Brexit and the National Health Service. The chanting by Labour activists included the Hamas and Islamic Jihad slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free”.” 

Exploited idealism and deliberate deception.

Editorial introduction: In the first of two articles, David Longworth looks back over a year of the ‘March of Return’ at the Gaza border.

According to Enas Fares Ghannam,¹ it all started in 2011. A Facebook post expressed the dream of a 33-year-old man in Gaza named Ahmed Abu Ratima. Gazing at a tree on the other side of the barbed fence that separates the Strip from Israel, Abu Ratima had thought, “Why can’t I go and sit under that tree just for a while, like a free bird?” The post asked (rather impractically) what could happen if 200,000 Palestinians headed peacefully to cross the border.

As the Arab Spring swept the region, Abu Ratima and his friends issued a statement entitled ‘The Palestinian Refugees Revolution’, calling all Palestinian refugees to gather peacefully at the nearest point by the Israeli border to call for their ‘rights’. At the time, they were considered crazy. But in 2018, Abu Ratima and his friends found encouragement.

In early 2018, Gazan journalist Muthana al-Najjar, whose family originally hailed from Salama (near Jaffa), pitched a tent near the border. He stayed for over a month, while others began planting olive tree seedlings in the area. But these idealised aspirations were soon taken over by the Hamas authorities.

Public preparations for a mass protest started to appear in February. On the 6^th, Hamas official Isma'il Radwan said that the activity would begin on 30 March and would reach its peak on 15 May, ‘Nakhba Day’.² He stressed that this activity "should take place without clashes [with Israel] in order to protect the young people...The plan of action focused on organizing a march of hundreds of thousands towards the border in order to pressure the occupation."³

Idealism Exploited

On 22 February 2018, the ominous image on the right was posted on Facebook:⁴

The UN symbol and the ‘194’ refer to UN Resolution 194 (of December 1948), which resolved that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date” (my emphasis), the so-called ‘Right of Return’. When the resolution was passed it was envisaging those who had just become refugees, not the millions of later generations.

The key evokes memories of those who left having locked their homes and retained their keys: another powerful symbol of ‘Right to Return’. However, notice that the key is held in a red clenched fist, a not-so-subtle suggestion of aggression.

Note also that the area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean is entirely covered by the colours of the Palestinian flag. This image therefore denies not only the territories agreed under the Oslo Accords, but also UN Resolution 181, of 29 November 1947, which agreed the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.

By 28 February 2018 the Great Return March Facebook page featured a much clearer emphasis on violence, as the left-hand picture illustrates (the text reads, ‘We will strike the Guard Fence’, i.e. the international border security fence).⁵ 

Incitement from the Beginning

At the March’s official start on Friday 30 March, an inflammatory Islamic sermon was preached and broadcast on Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV:

We are very near our blessed land, which is being trampled by those descendants of apes and pigs. We are here to embrace the blessed land with our hearts and our eyes, which is being trampled by those accursed descendants of apes and pigs, the remnants of the brutal, savage, and barbaric colonialism, which continues to drain our resources…⁶

So much for the idealist peaceful origins! By 6 April, three Palestinians penetrated the border and planted two improvised explosive devices.⁷

Worse rhetoric was to follow. Two weeks later, at the March venue, Gaza scholar Khaled Hany Morshid, said:

Khaled Morshid, speaking at the March venue. Video initially released on social media, 14 April 2018. Image from MEMRI, used with permission.…when the Jews of the Qurayza tribe violated their treaty with the Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet Muhammad exterminated them…The best way to describe the record of the Prophet's treatment of the Jews is one of violence and force…This is what all the Muslims should know. The relation between us and them is one of eternal enmity. The Jews will never stop this enmity unless the sword of Jihad for the sake of Allah is brandished, and they are made an example of, as was done by the Prophet Muhammad…I call upon every Muslim: Do not stand idly by and let those Jews spread corruption upon the land. Carry out glorious deeds against them!⁸

Social media posts called Palestinians to clash with Israelis after breaching the fence and entering their communities. 'Emad 'Aql, of Gaza, tweeted, "Sderot is only 700 meters east of [the Palestinian town of] Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. The headquarters of the Israeli army is there, and houses about 800 pigs. It can be reached in two minutes on motorcycles or in five-eight minutes at a brisk run…Murder, slaughter, burn and never show them any mercy."⁹

The left-hand image was posted with the following text: "Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, east of Rafah, is only 300 meters from the border. It has turkey pens, a football field and a pool, it houses only 15 families. Pounce on them with knives."¹⁰

Deliberate Deception

By May, things were literally hotting up. Thousands of tyres were burned to create smokescreens for those attacking the fence, while mirrors were used to blind IDF soldiers. Meanwhile, Western media were decrying the injuries caused to ‘peaceful protestors’ by Israel’s defensive actions.

On 13 May, the day before the originally-planned climax of the March, Mahmoud Al-Zahhar a co-founder and senior member of Hamas, was interviewed on al-Jazeera TV, Qatar. Questioned about Hamas adopting Fatah’s ‘peaceful resistance’ policy, he replied,

This is a clear terminological deception…This is not peaceful resistance…when we talk about 'peaceful resistance’, we are deceiving the public. This is a peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies, and enjoying tremendous popular support…This deception does not fool the Palestinian public.¹¹

On 16 May, Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was interviewed for the same channel, saying,

I must emphasize a great strategic goal accomplished on May 14. Our people in Gaza recorded, for the whole world to see, their testimony over the transfer of the United States embassy to Jerusalem and the declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of the occupation entity. On behalf of the Arab Palestinian people and all the Arab and Islamic peoples, our people in Gaza have rejected that decision and that move, by this great activity and by recording its testimony for the sake of history, and by signing this testimony with the blood of the martyrs – our people sacrificed sixty martyrs on May 14, as well as three thousand wounded…Many of them took off their military uniforms and put their weapons aside…¹²

Here we can clearly see the shameless use of ‘martyrdom’ as a motivating factor when inciting aggression against Israel. Sinwar openly admits to satisfaction in the gruesome outcome. Moreover, he also admits that many protestors weren’t ordinary civilians!

The involvement of militants was confirmed in more detail in a broadcast on Baladna TV, Gaza, on the same day, by a member of the Palestinian National Council:

50 of the martyrs were from Hamas, and the other 12 were regular people…What did Hamas gain? 50 martyrs...I am giving you an official figure. 50 of the martyrs in the recent battle were from Hamas. Before that, at least 50% of the martyrs were from Hamas.¹³

Other Tactics

In addition to the above, in the last year tactics have included hand grenades, stones and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) being hurled across the border. Snipers have been in action. Hundreds of rockets and mortars have been deployed.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, by mid-October almost 3,300 acres of forest and 4,000 acres of farmland had been destroyed by incendiaries carried by kites and balloons from Gaza.¹⁴ In the forest nature reserves, thousands of animals perished and conservation work was set back by decades. Earlier, as the wheat harvest was imminent, the loss of crops by farmers was estimated at £1.4 million. On one kibbutz alone, some 320 acres of irrigation equipment was also destroyed. In addition, honey farms, avocado and jojoba orchards were devastated.¹⁵

Sometimes explosives were carried similarly, such as those attached to gaily-decorated helium balloons which landed close to a kindergarten in late December.

Another tactic has been deception by false news reports and the posting of staged video clips on social media. Of one such incident on 4 May, IDF video footage shows a group of Palestinians rushing away a seemingly-injured man on a stretcher; then, after smoke and bushes provide some screening, the man clearly rolls off the stretcher, gets up and walks away!¹⁶ Also in May, the death by tear gas of 8-month-old baby Layla Ghandour was widely reported. By 26 June it emerged that the father is a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who admitted that his daughter died from a prior condition and that he had been paid $8,000 by Hamas to lie.

Sadly, the damage of these ‘news’ items is done by their high initial impact, with later revisions mattering little.

Conclusions

Whatever the original intentions of the March of Return, it has clearly turned into an ugly, deceitful battle, on the ground and in the media. Next week we will ask where things are now, in 2019, and put the Palestinian ‘cause’ in greater context.

Meanwhile, watchfulness, discernment and prayer remain essential weapons for Christians in the battle for truth.

Part 1 of 2. 

References

1 Ghannam, EF. Despite Israel’s threats of violence, Gaza protesters have peaceful dream. Mondweiss, 29 March 2018.

2 ‘Nakba’ means ‘catastrophe’, originally used by Arabs to refer to the 1920 partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Informally used by groups of Palestinian Arabs to refer to their displacement during the establishment of Israel by 14 May 1948. Later adopted by the PLO, Nakba Day was inaugurated by Yasser Arafat in 1998.

3 Palinfo.com, 6 February 2018. Obtained from MEMRI.

4 Picture obtained from the official GRM Facebook page by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Originally posted as the GRM Facebook page profile picture on 22 February 2018 (the profile picture has since been modified slightly, but the original image can also be seen in other photos on social media, such as this one).

5 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue preparing a mass march to the Israeli border ('the great return march'), planned for Land Day, March 30, 2018. Meir Amit, 8 March 2018. Picture obtained from the official GRM Facebook page, February 28, 2018.

6 Gaza Friday Sermon: Our Blessed Land Is Being Trampled by the Accursed Descendants of Apes and Pigs - Scenes from Gaza "Return March". Sermon transcript, MEMRI, Clip no. 6500, 30 March 2018.

7 Gross, JA. IDF: Palestinians who breached fence planted explosives. Times of Israel, 8 April 2018.

8 Gaza Scholar Khaled Hany Morshid Calls to Brandish the Sword of Jihad, Fight the Jews - Scenes from Gaza "Return March". MEMRI, Clip no. 6537, 14 April 2018.

9 Twitter.com/imad_aql, May 13, 2018, reported via MEMRI.

10 Picture obtained from Facebook, 14 May 2018. Translation by MEMRI.

11 Senior Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar on Gaza Protests: This Is Not Peaceful Resistance, It Is Supported by Our Weapons. MEMRI, Clip No. 6573, 13 May 2018.

12 Hamas Leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar: Our People Took Off Their Military Uniforms and Joined the Marches… MEMRI, Clip No. 6576, 16 May 2018.

13 Hamas Political Bureau Member Salah Al-Bardawil: 50 of the Martyrs Killed in Gaza were from Hamas, 12 Regular People. MEMRI transcript, Clip No. 6575, 16 May 2018.

14 Thousands of acres of forest land have been destroyed in 6 months of Gaza arson balloons. JTA, 10 October 2018.

15 Zikri, AB. We Flew a Drone Over the Fires Raging Around Gaza. This Is What We Saw. Haaretz, 26 June 2018.

16 Zitun, Y. WATCH: Hamas fakes injuries, uses children in Gaza border protests. Ynet News, 5 May 2018.