Palestinian Authority Denies Large Parts of October 7 Massacre

By Matis Glenn

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denied large elements of the October 7 terror attack Sunday, claiming that Israel had attacked its own people.

Abbas, who has a history of denying the Holocaust, quoted an article in Haaretz which cited an unnamed police official as saying that IDF airplanes may have accidentally harmed a small amount of Israelis when they responded to the scene of a massacre at a large gathering near Re’im, in which Hamas terrorists brutally killed 350 civilians. Abbas, and antisemites on social media, twisted the statement completely out of its context and spread baseless lies that Israeli forces had killed most of the civilians, and not the terrorists.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that after Abbas denied the Holocaust, he is now trafficking in “preposterous” October 7 denialism and “reversal of truth.”

Netanyahu said that the incident underscores the need to not allow the PA to govern Gaza after Hamas’ fall. “My goal is that the day after we destroy Hamas, any future civil administration in Gaza does not deny the massacre, does not educate its children to become terrorists, does not pay for terrorists and does not tell its children that their ultimate goal in life is to see the destruction and dissolution of the State of Israel. That’s not acceptable and that is not the way to achieve peace.”

While Haaretz’ report claimed that IDF soldiers had accidentally injured some civilians, police released a statement saying that they have not investigated any IDF activity, and that they are only investigating police activity.

In light of how the report in Haaretz was wrenched out of context by Abbas and many on social media, police urged media outlets to “take responsibility for their publications and only base stories on official sources.”

Later in the day, the Palestinian Authority deleted from their website and their social media accounts the post that accuses the IDF of killing participants of the gathering. However, the post remains on their Twitter page as of the writing of this article.