Prominent Palestinian journalist Bakir Oweida in subsequent two articles have made realistic and harsh criticism at mega-terror outfit Hamas for kidnapping dozens of women, children and elderly people during its October 7 pogrom in Southern Israel, reports MEMRI.
In his first article published in UK-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Bakir Oweida said, “kidnapping women, children and elders is clearly forbidden,” and wondered how Hamas could have possibly allowed its fighters to do this.
He also asked if there was no “wise and reasonable voice” that would demand their release, “immediately and without any excuses”.
In the second article, in his column on the Saudi website Elaph, Bakir Oweida wrote that he had initially refused to believe that Hamas had actually kidnapped women, children and elders, until he saw them being released with his own eyes. This behavior, he said, contravenes the values of Islam, which teaches to treat such people with compassion and respect, and therefore it is inconceivable that individuals who purport to be devout Muslims should perform such acts. He also stressed that Hamas’ October 7 pogrom would bring terrible years-long tragedies upon the Palestinians themselves.
Bakir Oweida pursued a professional career in journalism in Libya in 1968, where he worked at Al-Haqiqa newspaper in Benghazi, then Al-Balagh and Al-Jihad in Tripoli. He has written for several Arab publications in Britain since 1978. He worked at Al-Arab newspaper, Al-Thadamun magazine and the international Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. He has also worked as a consultant at Elaph online newspaper.
In his article published November 22 in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Oweida wrote:
“The discourse about the hostages leads us to reexamine the behavior of the fighters of [Hamas’ military wing,] the Izz Al-Din Al-assam Brigades, during the attack. Generally speaking, hostage-taking is known to be an important aspect of warfare. At the same time, taking women, children and elders hostage is clearly forbidden. How did the Hamas leaders allow its fighters to take non-combatants hostage? If there are claims that Israel can use to justify the martyrdom of children at the Al-Shifa hospital as a result of its barbaric war, this [i.e., the kidnapping of the women, children and elders] is the strongest of them. I wonder, is there a wise and reasonable voice that can speak out and demand that all the women and children be released immediately and without any excuses, whether they are detained by the Al-Qassam Brigades or in Israel’s jails?…”
In another article a week later, Oweida wrote: “Many will probably be puzzled to hear me say that I [initially] refused to believe that fighters of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, had taken Israeli women, children and elders hostage when they raided the localities near the Gaza border in their surprise attack on Saturday, October 7, [the pogrom] that turned out to be completely unprecedented in terms of its scope, the gear [used in it], and its success at achieving the main goals of the operation…
“I indeed refused to believe it until Friday, the day before yesterday [November 24], when I saw [Hamas and Israel] beginning to implement the deal for exchanging the hostages with Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in the Israeli jails. My refusal to believe this may have stemmed from two mental states that the human mind is prone to. The first is called denial and the second is called wishful thinking. I apparently had both. But the question that remains to be answered is why”.
“One possible explanation for the first [mental] state, [of denial], has to do with the foundations of my upbringing, which are common to other members of Arab society and more broadly to the members of all societies in the Muslim world. Whether Muslim or Christian, we all learned from our fathers, and certainly from our mothers, what they learned from our ancient forefathers, namely the values of compassion towards elders and vulnerable children, [values] of helping children and of behaving honorably towards all women…
“How can a person who claims to be guided by Islam in all his actions, even in his daily affairs, harm a child, a mother or an elderly woman? How can a fighter who belongs to a movement called ‘the Islamic Resistance Movement’ [Hamas] dare to kidnap mothers, women and grandmothers and take them from their homes into the tunnels of Gaza? It is impossible. It is inconceivable. I started telling myself that all the [reports] buzzing around were nothing but propaganda from the mouthpieces of Israel, which is doing its utmost to blacken the image of the fighters who devote their lives to achieving justice and defending the most just of causes [i.e., the Palestinian cause]”.
“Later I obviously discovered that my thoughts were just part of my denial, which was itself part of my wishful thinking. It is like a mirror: when you look into it, you may see what your mind hopes to see, instead of the actual reality. That’s what reality is like. It can always shock whoever is floating in unreal delusions. What Hamas dared to do by means of its armed [wing], the Al-Qassam Brigades, will lead to tragedies [that will harm] the Palestinians even before the Israelis, and are likely to last long years. All the disasters we have witnessed so far are just the beginning of these tragedies, which are now starting to snowball.
“The people killed on both sides are victims of the extremism that has prevailed for years on both sides, the Palestinian one and the Israeli one. Obviously, there are always those who rush to respond to claims of this sort by saying that the Palestinian victims are ‘martyrs,’ and that all of them – no matter how many there are – are a cheap price to pay for the liberation of Palestine. Well, I do not have the right to oppose those who say this, and neither does anyone else. But what always confounds me, and perhaps other people as well, is the attempt to understand those who compare the cruel and barbaric behavior of the Israeli occupier… with the behavior of the [Palestinian] fighters, who are supposed to be armed not only with rifles, bombs and guns but also with values like morality, compassion, justice and tolerance, even towards the enemy. These comparisons are always aimed at… justifying what cannot be justified under any circumstances…”
Meanwhile, according to media report, a Gazan woman has openly criticized the Hamas terror group for taking humanitarian aid “underground” into their tunnel network in an interview broadcast on Qatari-owned Al Jazeera.
The woman tells the reporter: “Hamas takes everything to their homes”, adding: “All the aid goes underground. It does not reach the people”.
The woman had travelled from Gaza City to Khan Yunis to receive aid.
“We came here from Gaza City. All the aid is meant for us. I am not afraid of it [Hamas]. I am talking to them as well”, she says.
The Al Jazeera reporter interrupts her before she can finish her sentence and says aid is “being distributed”.
But the woman waves her finger saying, “Hamas takes everything to their homes. They can take me, shoot me, or do whatever they want, Hamas”.
The Al Jazeera reporter then takes the microphone off the woman and says: “The situation is unclear”.
The interview follows claims from The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNWRA, that Hamas has stolen supplies, fuel and medicines in Gaza.
On November 14, 2023 an Al Jazeera reporter quickly ended an interview with an elderly man at an Al-Aqsa Hospital who asked: “Why is Hamas hiding among us, civilians? Why don’t they go to hell and hide there instead?”
From this testimonies of Gazans and Palestinian journalist Bakir Oweida’s subsequent two articles prove – how the October 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel and subsequent cruelty on hostages and sexual violence including rape of Israeli girls, women and minors have even generated shock into the minds of Palestinians, whose hearts are filled with hatred towards Jews and the State of Israel. But most importantly, the October 7 pogrom and subsequent monstrous actions of Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PJI) has exposed the notorious faces of those Islamist terrorists and by celebrating such crimes against humanity, Gazans in particular and Palestinians at large have proved a plain fact – creation of anything called ‘Palestine’ would be actually letting a blood-thirsty Islamic State emerge which is filled with savages, animals, butchers and monsters.
