Palestinian Authority questions official version of Hamas attack

“SAccording to the Israeli media, the preliminary investigation by the Israeli police showed that on October 7th, Israeli helicopters bombed Israeli civilians who participated in the music festival, which means that Israeli fighter planes caused great destruction in the region”, indicates a statement from the ANP Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Consequently, the ministry considers that the result of this investigation raises doubts about the Israeli reports on the destruction and killings that took place in that area, especially with regard to the photographs and videos that reflect the destruction and fires that took place in many housing as a result of this bombing,” he added.

According to the Israeli version, the Islamist group Hamas — in power since 2006 in the Gaza Strip — attacked Israel on October 7 with the launch of hundreds of rocket launchers and 3,000 fighters who massacred 1,200 people and kidnapped another 240 in nearby locations. of the Gaza Strip.

On that day, the Nova music festival was being celebrated near the ‘kibbutz’ Reim, located about five kilometers from the Gaza Strip, where, according to the latest estimates from the Israeli police, Hamas killed 364 people, in the most serious incident in that period. day.

Today, the Israeli daily Haaretz published an investigation in which, citing official sources, it revealed that Hamas had no prior knowledge of the music festival and “decided to attack spontaneously.”

An official source close to the investigation also revealed to the daily that an Israeli Army combat helicopter that traveled to Reim accidentally killed several young people when it fired at Hamas militiamen.

According to the report cited by Haaretz, Israeli forces “had difficulty identifying the Hamas militiamen” and the pilots “used artillery” that hit civilians.

“Hamas terrorists were ordered to blend slowly into the crowd and not to move under any circumstances,” the report said.

“So they tried to fool the Air Force into believing that those below were Israelis. This deception worked for a while, until the Apache helicopters were freed from all restrictions. The pilots had difficulty distinguishing who was a terrorist and who he was Israeli”, he continues.

The document explains that “when they realized the fact, some decided to use artillery ammunition against the terrorists, without authorization from their superiors”.

Spokespeople for the Islamist group said today at a press conference in Beirut that “Apache helicopters were the ones that bombed the concert participants. The burned bodies were the result of missiles and a Zionist plane.”

After the October 7th attack, Israel launched a land, sea and air attack against the Gaza Strip, causing more than 13,000 deaths, tens of thousands of injuries and more than 1.7 million people displaced, creating a severe humanitarian crisis.

Since then, the Government of Israel has organized visits with the local and international press, including senior officials from different countries, in many Israeli locations near the Gaza Strip that were attacked by Hamas, ensuring that the bodies, burned houses and Destroyed vehicles were the result of the attack by the Palestinian group.

The ANP, which governs small areas of the occupied West Bank, today issued an appeal to “all media, UN officials and leaders of other countries to follow up” on the Haaretz revelations and to “review their positions in light of these revelations “.

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, described the ANP’s position as “absolutely absurd”, assuring that he “denies that it was Hamas who carried out the horrible massacre at the music festival” and that he even “accuses Israel of having carried out this massacre “.

“My goal is that after we have destroyed Hamas, any future civil administration in Gaza will not deny the massacre, will not raise its children to become terrorists, will not pay the terrorists and will not tell them that the ultimate goal in life is to witness the destruction and dissolution of the State of Israel”, he added in a statement issued by his office.

The coalition government led by Netanyahu, which includes ultra-Orthodox and anti-Arab ultranationalists, promotes the occupation and colonization of the occupied West Bank, despite the opposition of international bodies, which defends a two-state solution as a solution to the prolonged Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last Thursday, Israel’s Minister of National Security, the anti-Arab extremist and settler Itmar Ben Gvir, said that his country must treat the ANP in the same way it treats Hamas in Gaza.

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