An Israeli victory over Hamas — a group financed, organized and armed by Tehran that exists to kill Jews and drive them out of the Middle East — will be a blow to reactionary forces that promote Jew-hatred across the region, in the United States and worldwide. Getting out the truth about Hamas’ murders, torture and rapes during its Oct. 7 pogrom remains central to advancing the fight against it and those who offer it support.
Most of the capitalist media either obscure the character and extent of the long-planned attack that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine carried out, or barely mention it at all.
With 1,200 dead, more than 5,000 wounded and over 250 taken hostage, the October Hamas-led attack on a dance party and farm communities in Israel is the largest anti-Jewish pogrom since the Nazi Holocaust. Dozens of Arab, Thai, Nepalese, Filipino and African workers were also murdered, wounded and taken hostage for working with Jews.
Hamas uses civilians as human shields and built tunnels and command centers underneath and inside hospitals, schools, mosques and apartment buildings. But growing numbers of Gazans openly blame Hamas for the death and destruction that are a by-product of Israel’s efforts to destroy the group.
Hundreds of Palestinians in Rafah and Jabalya in Gaza took to the streets Feb. 21 and 22 to protest against Hamas, blaming it for the war with Israel. Israel’s advances are helping working people in Gaza lose their fear of Hamas, which has ruled the territory with an iron fist for the last 17 years.
‘Killers are Hamas, not Israeli army’
In a video filmed during a Feb. 22 nighttime protest in Jabalya, one man said Hamas “got us into a war we don’t want. We want peace. We want our children to go to school. Our children shouldn’t be displaced. They should not live in the streets. Who is responsible for all these things?
“[Yahya] Sinwar, it is you that is killing us, not the Israeli army,” he said.
At one action that took place in broad daylight, protesters chanted, “We need food. We need flour. Sinwar and [Ismail] Haniyeh, stay away from us, you thieves.” That’s a reference to Hamas’ long record of confiscating humanitarian aid for its own use or to sell for a profit.
A group calling itself “Free Gaza – Gaza’s Liberators” is putting up posters across the territory calling for a “revolution now to eliminate Hamas and its ideology,” reports Israeli news agency YNET.
The Israeli government is looking for forces in Gaza hostile to Hamas to form a new ruling structure, to prevent the return of the reactionary group and make possible the rebuilding of Gaza. Army officials say they have met with clan leaders in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City to discuss them taking over food distribution and other tasks.
Prior to Hamas’ takeover, tribal and clan leaders played a prominent role in the politics and local government in Gaza, but they were disarmed, pushed aside or partially co-opted when Hamas consolidated its rule.
Hamas sexual crimes
Apologists for Hamas around the world continue to press the demand for a permanent cease-fire that would allow Hamas to regroup and carry out more pogroms, as it has promised it will do.
To try to win public sympathy, some deny that Hamas targeted civilians on Oct. 7 and gang-raped and mutilated women — and men — in an attempt to sow terror among Jews everywhere.
Orit Suiltzeanu, CEO of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Tel Aviv, told the Militant by phone Feb. 23 that she was shocked by the level of denial — and hatred toward Jews — among groups that she thought were defenders of women’s rights in the U.S. and Europe. “People who deny what happened on Oct. 7 are just like those who deny the Holocaust,” she said.
To get out the truth, her group put together and submitted a report to the United Nations Feb. 21, “Silent Cry: Sexual Crimes in the October 7 War.”
It’s based on eyewitness accounts of the rapes; videos that Hamas thugs themselves filmed to flaunt their atrocities; accounts and photos by first responders who saw the bodies; and on conversations with some of those who were raped Oct. 7, survived and spoke to counselors at the crisis centers. “It is still too early for them to speak out publicly,” Suiltzeanu said.
The rape of dozens and dozens of women — including children and women in their 70s — “happened systematically,” she said. “Many women were shot in the genitalia. Sometimes their faces were shot off.”
“The genitals of both women and men were brutally mutilated, and sometimes weapons were inserted into them,” the report notes. “Often, the rape was perpetrated in front of an audience — partners, family or friends — in a manner intended to increase the pain and humiliation of all present.”
The rapes took place everywhere Hamas attacked: the dance rave, army bases and farm communities. “They had to have been given directives to do this or it wouldn’t have happened like that everywhere,” Suiltzeanu emphasized.
“People read the news about the suffering in Gaza,” she said. “But they don’t understand that Hamas still holds the hostages there, including women, children and the elderly who face the risk of abuse every day.
“Even if you believe that Israel is an oppressor, even if you don’t like Israel’s politics and you don’t understand the complexity of life here, no human being should excuse the sadistic torture that took place Oct. 7,” Suiltzeanu said.
“Many Arabs still find it hard to believe that Hamas could do something like this,” she said. They hope to get the report translated to help get out the truth to Arabic speakers inside Israel, in the Palestinian territories and beyond.
Jew-hatred disguised as anti-Zionism
As Israeli forces advance in Gaza and as more Arabs speak out against the reactionary bourgeois Islamist group, supporters and apologists for Hamas in the U.S. and around the world are becoming more thuggish and more openly antisemitic.
So-called supporters of Palestine picketed and passed out leaflets outside a Feb. 14 comedy show in New York that was raising funds for victims of Oct. 7. The leaflets charged that “all ‘Israelis’ are settlers and partake in the risks associated to stealing land and resources” — in other words, Jews who live or visit there, from babies to the elderly, are fair game for murder and rape by Hamas.
“No matter where they are, they shall not know peace,” the leaflet threatened at the end. “May we teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget.”
Their encouragement of Jew-hating violence should be rejected and condemned by all working people, religious groups and the unions.