Free Republic

Newly-revealed Hamas document details plans to plant explosives near displaced civilians, triggering panic and allowing terrorists to escape advancing IDF forces. The IDF has revealed an internal document belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization detailing plans to plant explosive devices in areas of displaced persons camps in the Gaza Strip. "This was part of Hamas’ preparations to protect its leadership and operatives and evacuate them from areas where the IDF was expected to operate, while endangering and exploiting the civilian population in the area, fully aware that these actions were likely to cause direct harm to civilians," the IDF emphasized....

Hamas could have spared Gaza’s devastation by choosing peace over terrorism. The conflict has exposed international double standards toward Israel and fueled a resurgence of antisemitism. After October 7, 2023Could the destruction of Gaza after October 7 have been avoided? The answer is yes—had Hamas so wished. First, if the Hamas leadership had simply complied with Israeli demands to (a) return the 251 hostages and (b) surrender the architects and perpetrators of the massacre of some 1,200 Israelis, the Israelis would not have had to fight Hamas in the streets and tunnels of Gaza. Note how critics of Israel consistently...

I write these words from Poland, where 90 percent of Poland’s Jews — 3 million out of 3.3 million — were slaughtered during World War II. That is what genocide looks like. In stark contrast, roughly 70,000 of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents were killed during Israel’s war with Hamas, amounting to approximately 3 percent of the population. And that figure includes enemy combatants. Yet the same word, genocide, used for the systematic, intentional murder of 90 percent of Poland’s Jews — and two-thirds of Europe’s Jews as a whole — is being used to describe Israel’s war with Hamas. How...

U.S. media is reporting on the visit to Jordan by Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal, accompanied by former U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader Abu Marzook. According to an AP report: Associated Press AMMAN, Jordan (AP) – A high-profile visit to Jordan by the leader of Hamas has revived contacts with the Palestinian militant group, but Jordan will not lift a ban on its activities there, a senior Jordanian official said Sunday. Khaled Mashaal’s visit was part of Jordan’s efforts to engage with previously shunned Islamists, who have been gaining ground across the region in Arab Spring uprisings. ”It will only break...

South African jurist Navi Pillay, who accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize; The Nobel Committee declines to comment on the Gaza allegations, while Israel's Foreign Ministry denounces the award.The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to Navi Pillay, a South African jurist who served as the fifth United Nations high commissioner for human rights, the selection committee announced Friday in Oslo. Pillay also served as president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and as a judge on the International Criminal Court. She is known for her harsh criticism of Israel, which she has...

We are a nation at war. Not by our choice, of course; but then, it only takes one country to declare a war. The jihadist Twelvers who run Iran declared war on the United States, and on Israel, and in fact on pretty much the entire world, 47 years ago, and they’ve been at war with the world ever since. Israel has borne the brunt of it, most of the time, since they are geographically so much closer, and when it came time for us to fully join the fight last year, Israel and the United States became true wartime...

It’s been three years since the savage Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks, which killed 1,200 people, often in barbaric, inhuman ways.As we reported, Democratic Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated the occasion by firing off an incendiary statement accusing Israel of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza. (See: Morally Bankrupt Mamdani Spits on October 7 Victims to Demonize Israel.)If he wanted to stoke a response, he succeeded, because anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests broke out throughout the Big Apple Wednesday. Not surprisingly, Columbia University and NYU once again played their part in the twisted response to the anniversary...

This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss. The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians—including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with...

NEW YORK, NY — Liberals around the country prepared to commemorate the anniversary of October eighth, the day Israel attacked Gaza completely unprovoked. Progressives gathered to hold moments of silence for those killed on the first day of Israel's stunning attack on the peaceful Palestinians living in Gaza. "We will never know why the Jews decided to be so violent on this day," activist Kristina Mac told friends. "We need to have a protest and condemn Israel's cruel and evil actions against the poor, benevolent people living in Gaza. These people were simply minding their own business, standing around being...

“I want to see Gaza empty. I am not afraid when they’re hiding behind their own babies. And this is what they do,” Feiglin said.Israel should have left Gaza “empty” after the Hamas-led October 7 massacre and annexed the area, Zehut party chairman Moshe Feiglin told The Jerusalem Post *** “Occupation, transfer all, all the Arabs. I don’t care. They cannot stay there after what they did,” he said. Feiglin is running in the October elections with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionist Party (RZP).*** Feiglin said that he believes the current government should have viewed...

For months, Hamas has been releasing the names of "martyrs," including doctors, aid workers, and "journalists"; that fact has been screamed from the rooftops by independent journalists. More "mainstream" journalists have looked the other way, after spending years peddling the lie that Israel has been targeting journalists for execution in Gaza. Much has been made of the fact, and it is part of the ongoing propaganda campaign against our ally. Now, finally, the story is getting picked up, and the Beeb is "urgently" reviewing its coverage. The BBC has reported the deaths of 53 “journalists” in Gaza who have been...

The White House is gearing up to hit the International Criminal Court with “sweeping sanctions,” months after President Donald Trump said his administration is aiming to dismantle the organization in order to “defend” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from bogus charges. Trump’s big move against the ICC: forbidding it from making transactions in U.S. dollars, The Wall Street Journal first reported on Sunday. The Trump admin would block most transactions with the ICC after a grace period of about six months — a move which could “potentially cripple” the court and isolate it from the global financial system, according to...

The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that it had eliminated Mahmoud Abd al-Fattah Awad, a Hamas commander who, according to the military, held seven hostages in a Gaza tunnel during the war. Awad, who was killed in an airstrike in the Gaza City area over the weekend, took part in holding hostages Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev, Doron Steinbrecher, Naama Levy, Ziv Berman, Omri Miran and Eitan Mor, according to the military. Awad had recently planned terror attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, and also worked to rebuild Hamas’s capabilities “in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the IDF said. “Prior...

In his September 24, 2026, address to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s strikes on Iran and its conduct in Gaza, describing the years since October 7 as a seven-front war. Recalling the Six-Day War and his brother Yoni’s role in the Entebbe rescue, he repeated the refrain, “We have no other choice.” Delegates staged a walkout as the speech began, prompting Netanyahu to invite any remaining “moral cowards” to leave. He praised President Donald Trump, rejected accusations of genocide, and sharply criticized New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Qatar, and Turkey. He also voiced support for...

Women in Gaza are being traded for food and forced into marriages with their rapists, according to a pair of reports from the United Nations — underscoring the critical importance of President Trump’s Board of Peace in the war-torn enclave. There was a 123% increase in the number of early and forced marriage incidents across Gaza in the first quarter of 2026, with women between the ages of 18-59 suffering 68% of all gender-based violence (GBV) in the Palestinian enclave, the United Nations’ Population Fund (UNFPA) found. Researchers spoke to women who said young girls were married off to rapists,...

A Nobel Prize-nominated journalist from Gaza who has hung out with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) multiple times has admitted to covering up footage of Israeli hostages being attacked on October 7, 2023. Photojournalist Motaz Azaiza admitted to hiding the dreadful images during a podcast interview, the New York Post reported on Monday. Azaiza said he covered it up to protect the people who were seen attacking the hostages once they were pulled into Gaza, because he feared the Israeli military would use the video to seek payback against the torturers. He also claimed Hamas controls all the...

When it comes to off-the-wall commentary on the Middle East conflict, University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole is the gift that keeps on giving. If there's anti-Israel propaganda to be found, one can be sure Cole will be peddling it at his ironically named blog, Informed Comment. His labeling of Gaza in September, 2007 as "the worst outcome of Western colonialism anywhere in the world outside the Belgian Congo" is a case in point. As noted by Noah Pollack at Contentions, Cole's latest blog ramblings ratchet up the hysteria another notch. Not content with alleging persecution of the self-defeating...

Everything coming out of Gaza is Hamas propaganda. The turning point in the Oct 7 war came when the media chose to uncritically publish all of it and politicians and much of the public chose to believe it. There is no such thing as ‘journalism’ in Gaza. All there is organized manipulation. And the manipulators have been greeted with cheers and honors for pushing this propaganda. Gazan photographer and journalist Motaz Azaiza said he filmed Israeli hostages being beaten by a Gazan mob on October 7, 2023, but chose not to publish the footage because he feared it could put...

Crooner Ed Sheeran called Israel’s actions in Gaza “unjustifiable” as he wept and broke his silence during his first concert since booting rapper Macklemore from his tour for tirades against the Jewish state. “I’ve never wanted to be an activist musician, but this put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet,” Sheeran told the Philly crowd of concertgoers Saturday night. Sheeran spoke multiple times about the controversy during Saturday night’s show at Lincoln Financial Field, growing progressively more upset as the night wore on...

The problem was not Robert Kraft’s decision. The problem is how we explain it. We removed the messenger from the stage without confronting the lie he was spreading. We focused on Macklemore–his rhetoric, his history, the hurt his words cause–when the far greater threat is the message itself. And in doing so, we inadvertently helped create precisely the narrative Macklemore and his defenders wanted. Now the story practically writes itself: Macklemore dared to “speak truth to power.” He said what others supposedly do not want Americans to hear, and for his courage, a Jewish billionaire and other venue owners took...