The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and IDF intelligence Unit 504 revealed on Monday that Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman Tarik Salame Uda Abu confessed to Gazan terrorists taking over all of the hospitals in Gaza.

“Gaza terror groups use all of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip.... The organization lied and deceived regarding the story of an Israeli rocket hitting a hospital at the start of the war,” he told his interrogators.

The PIJ spokesman was arrested recently during the second takeover of Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, along with 500 other Hamas and PIJ terrorists, plus another 200 whom the IDF killed when they refused to surrender.

The terror spokesman said his role was to fool the global media and foreign countries to turn them against Israel.
Previously revealed recordings of Hamas members blaming PIJ

On October 18, IDF Spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari laid out the IDF’s full comprehensive intelligence case to prove that a failed rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza was the cause behind the damage and the death at al-Ahli Arab Hospital. This was the incident that Uda Abu was referring to.

Amid reports on Monday of US backing for Palestinian Authority (PA) control of post-war Gaza, tensions between Fatah and Hamas appear to be escalating, posing a threat to existing plans.

The US and other influential entities anticipated that the Palestinian Authority would implement crucial reforms to function as a "normalized" authority.An Israeli official told the Wall Street Journal, "The understanding is that one way or another, we will work with entities connected to the Authority. However, it doesn't mean that the current format of the Authority will be the leading force in Gaza." Hamas, on the other hand, is intensifying efforts to ensure its central role in governing the Gaza Strip, aiming for significant political influence.

The terror organization arrested six Palestinians suspected of collaborating with PA intelligence operatives who entered Gaza with Egyptian Red Cross aid at the end of March.

Hamas targets PA for alleged collaboration with Israel

Hamas sent a sharp message to the PA, alleging cooperation with Israel in "the destructive war against Gazans." A Fatah spokesperson, in turn, stated that Hamas is focusing on activities against the Palestinian Authority and that "Palestinian Authority intelligence operatives operate in Gaza solely to distribute aid to residents."

JERUSALEM – It gives journalist Matti Friedman no satisfaction to know he was early to realize that a change had come to covering Israel, favoring fixed narratives and activist journalism over a tradition of fact-based reporting.

Friedman, a former reporter and editor at the Associated Press based in Jerusalem from 2006-2011, quit the global news agency after being censored by his editors, and realizing he would have to censor what he and his colleagues knew to be true about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And what was the case a decade ago is more true now, he told me.

“The press has been gutted. The bureaus have shrunk, and into that vacuum have come ideological voices,” he said. “Now Human Rights Watch gives you a report, in English, and you write a story based on that report. And you end up serving as the media arm of the hard left, the world of NGOs.”

This mattered less when the conflict had fallen out of the headlines. But now that the heated war between Israel and Hamas has come to dominate the global news cycle, this shift has dramatic consequences on regional tension amid a frightening spike in anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment around the world.

Examples of this shift abound

An unconfirmed number of Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Service members were apprehended in Gaza by Hamas after being accused of sneaking into the Gaza Strip in collaboration with Israel, according to Arab media reports on Monday, citing an interview on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV.

According to the reports, the General Intelligence Service members entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt during a mission to secure and facilitate the humanitarian aid truck convoys. At some point after entrance, they were apprehended by Hamas terrorists.

An unnamed Hamas official told Al-Aqsa TV that the PA General Intelligence Service leader, Majed Faraj, was using this mission as a guise with the aim of creating a "state of confusion and chaos among the ranks of the home front, and with security from the Israeli Shin Bet service and the enemy army.”

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An unnamed PA official in Ramallah said in a separate statement, “The statement of the so-called Hamas Interior Ministry about the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip yesterday is baseless, and we will continue to provide everything necessary to provide relief to our people.”

IDF: Troops find weapons cache at Shifa Hospital’s MRI center
The IDF says troops of the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit located a cache of weapons at Shifa Hospital’s MRI center, during the military’s ongoing raid against Hamas at the medical center, the largest in the Gaza Strip.

Mortars, grenades, firearms and ammunition were found hidden within the building, in some cases under the floors and in the drop ceiling, according to the IDF.

The IDF says the Nahal troops killed several gunmen during their scans of the MRI center and Shifa’s maternity ward.

Weapons were also found in the maternity ward, the IDF says.

IDF publishes evidence of weapons found inside Shifa Hospital’s MRI center

The Israel Defense Forces releases evidence of Hamas weapons found inside Shifa Hospital during a raid in the medical center today.

It says members of the elite Shaldag unit and other forces of the 36th Division found the weapons inside Shifa’s MRI center.

Troops had battled Hamas gunmen outside the hospital, killing five.

“During searches inside one of the hospital’s wards, the troops located a room containing unique technological means, combat equipment, and military equipment used by the Hamas terrorist organization,” the IDF says.

It publishes images and videos showing several assault rifles, grenades, and other military equipment. It says that in another ward, it found a Hamas operational headquarters and “technological means” which it says indicates Hamas’s use of the facility for terror

The near-universal assumption is that Hamas viewed its surprise offensive as another phase in a long-term war against Israel. There’s some truth to it, but that misreads why Hamas decided now to deliberately provoke a massive Israeli response—which is the long-standing power struggle between the Islamists in Hamas and their smaller ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), against the secular nationalists of Fatah who control the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and, more importantly, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which represents Palestinians diplomatically.

Fatah, of course, knows this full well, but a surge of nationalist sentiment and shared outrage at the mass killing and suffering of the 2.2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza muffled nationalist leaders like President Mahmoud Abbas (also the chairman of the PLO) in publicly acknowledging Hamas’ breathtaking cynicism.

--snip--

“Those who caused Gaza to return to living under Israeli occupation and caused a nakba [catastrophe] to befall the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, have no right to make dictates related to national priorities,” Fatah said, batting aside Hamas’ assertion of authority. “The real side that is out of touch with reality and the Palestinian people is the Hamas leadership that has until this moment failed to realize the extent of the catastrophe endured by our oppressed people in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories,” it continued, shifting quickly into a narrative framework that, for the first time in major Palestinian politics, acknowledged the full extent of Hamas’ responsibility for deliberately provoking Israel’s entirely predictable onslaught.

Fatah’s statement flung the accusation of unilateralism back at Hamas, saying the Islamists consulted with no other Palestinians before launching “an adventure on Oct. 7 that has led to a nakba that is more severe than the 1948 Nakba,”—one of the most punishing accusations in the Palestinian political lexicon.

A map of the Middle East in a geography book makes no mention of the State of Israel, showing “Palestine” in its place; a history book narrates a 1968 battle between the Israeli army, the Jordanians and Palestinian fedayeen, extolling the latter’s courage in wearing explosive belts, and praising the “image of a burnt Zionist soldier”; a chemistry book asks students to analyze the type of chemicals contained in phosphorous bombs allegedly dropped by Israel; an Islamic studies book describes the goals of jihad as “terrorizing the enemy” and “achieving martyrdom.”

These are examples from textbooks used in schools in Gaza run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency UNRWA), as highlighted in a recent report compiled by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). The organization, based in the UK and Israel, has since the late 1990s monitored school curricula around the world, with a particular focus on the Middle East.

For years, IMPACT-se has been sounding the alarm over what it says is anti-Israel incitement contained in Palestinian textbooks, including the systematic erasure of Israel’s existence and the glorification of violent jihad and martyrdom.

“The cooperation between UNRWA and Hamas is absolutely undeniable,” said Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se, “both in educating the terrorists that perpetrated the October 7 atrocities, and in being part, as we discovered afterwards, of the terror infrastructure in its schools and in its hospitals.”

Steven Spielberg warned on Monday that “the machinery of extremism is being used on college campuses,” and lamented those killed in Israel and Gaza, while being honored for his Holocaust remembrance work at the University of Southern California.

The renowned Jewish filmmaker spoke at a ceremony in which USC bestowed its prestigious University Medallion on the 56,000 Holocaust survivors who have provided testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation, which Spielberg founded three decades ago. Thirty of the survivors were present at the ceremony. The award’s text also says the school is “immensely grateful” to Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw.

In his speech, Spielberg lamented polling showing high rates of antisemitism on college campuses. He also condemned other forms of hatred, including anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh discrimination.

“We see every day how the machinery of extremism is being used on college campuses,“ Spielberg said. Moments later, he said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. And I am increasingly alarmed that we may be condemned to repeat history, to once again have to fight for the very right to be Jewish.”

Palestinian terror group Hamas said Monday night that it informed mediators that it will stick to its original position on demanding a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a return of displaced Palestinians and a “real” exchange of “prisoners” — demands Israel has already rejected as delusional multiple times.

Israel has continuously dismissed Hamas demands for a full military withdrawal and a permanent ceasefire, while the terror group has conditioned any further hostage releases on an Israeli commitment to end the war. Israel has rejected this demand as delusional, and insisted that its military campaign to destroy Hamas’s military and governance capabilities will resume once any hostage-truce deal is implemented.

Some 130 hostages — not all of them alive — are believed to remain in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw terrorists kill some 1,200 people and abduct another 253, mostly civilians.

--snip--

The Palestinian terror group’s statement came hours after the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a release of hostages taken on October 7, after the United States abstained from the vote, sparking a spat with Israel. The remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution, backed by Russia and China, that called for a ceasefire without conditioning it on the release of hostages.